As part of my Montessori adolescent teaching program, I have to take notes in class on various parts of the Montessori philosophy – via her essays, lectures or of lectures given my Montessori teachers. I am sharing my notes for others who might benefit from them.
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When work has become a habit, the intellectual level rises rapidly, and organised order causes good conduct to become a habit. Children then work with order, perseverance, and discipline, persistently and naturally; the permanent, calm and vivifying work of the physical organism resembles the respiratory rhythm.
– Maria Montessori, “Experimental Science in The Advanced Montessori Method – I (p. 85, Clio edition)
Core Concept
- Children have innate powers of self-construction (“potentialities”)
- Environment must support natural development rather than just disseminate knowledge
- The prepared environment is a “supernatural construction” managed by prepared adults
Function and Purpose
- Serves as an “aid to life” after the natural environment of the womb
- Supports the dynamic relationship between individual and environment
- Must adapt to each developmental plane (0-6, 6-12, 12-18, 18-24 years)
- Provides both basic requirements (nourishment, protection) and developmental needs
Key Components
1. Social Conditions
- Mixed-age, inclusive groups from same developmental plane
- Appropriate group size
- Representative of larger community diversity
- Minimum necessary number of trained adults
- Provides motives for activity through social interaction
2. Psychological Conditions
- Respect for individuals and environment
- Friendliness with error
- Culture of work and protected concentration
- Balance of freedom and responsibility
- Support for independence
- Consistent routines and relationships
3. Physical Conditions
- Size-appropriate infrastructure and furnishings
- Materials that engage both mind and hand
- Clean, organized, and beautiful environment
- Culturally representative
- Both indoor and outdoor components
- Materials supporting whole personality development
Freedom Elements
- Choice:
- Selecting work (but must work)
- Meaningful and purposeful activities
- Work location
- Individual or group work
- Activity:
- Uninterrupted work time
- Working until personally satisfied
- Movement:
- Unencumbered movement
- Age-appropriate furniture and materials
Image breakdown
- The learner works with freely chosen, purposeful activities within a social organization in order to self-construct their personality.
- The adult is trained to understand and controls the environment, not the learners:
- 1) the importance of observation
- 2) the needs and characteristics of the learners in the environment
- 3) how to build, curate, and maintain the environment (social, psychological, and physical)
- 4) how to connect learners to activities within the environment
- 5) how to protect the freedom and rights of the learners
- Environment
- Composed of intangible (social and psychological conditions) and tangible (physicaI conditions) characteristics.
- Prepared to respond to the individual’s needs and characteristics
- To invite purposeful activity within a social context
- To provide an environment to engage the human tendencies.
Role of the Prepared Adult
- Environmental Preparation:
- Creating and maintaining environment
- Developing environment as needed
- Understanding developmental needs
- Dynamic Link:
- Building trust and respect
- Using positive communication
- Conducting observations
- Offering appropriate presentations
- Personal Preparation:
- Intellectual: Understanding development and human culture
- Technical: Developing necessary skills
- Spiritual: Maintaining cosmic perspective and examining personal biases
Materials for Development
- Intellectual Construction:
- Age-appropriate learning materials
- Progressive complexity across planes
- Social and Moral Construction:
- Community activities
- Group work opportunities
- Emotional and Spiritual Construction:
- Community culture
- Adult’s “intelligent love”
- Natural and human world exploration
The 4 planes of development were discussed again.
Key notes re: this to remind myself
- The first three years of each plane are characterized by the creation and/or acquisition of knowledge and skills. The fourth through sixth years are periods of consolidation and crystallization
- The swelling and red color indicates periods of intense physical and psychological growth; the green indicates more stability
Quotes
- “A child who has become master of his acts through long and repeated exercises, and who has been encouraged by the pleasant and interesting activities in which he has been engaged, is a child filled with health and joy and remarkable for his calmness and discipline.” – Maria Montessori, The Discovery of the Child (p. 92, Clio edition)
- “For what is valuable is not the work itself, but the work as a means for the construction of the psychic man” – Maria Montessori, “The Will” In The Advanced Montessori Method – I (p. 139, Clio edition)
- “So there are two plans: one is to disseminate knowledge, to follow a syllabus. The other is to look to the life of man and serve it, and in serving it, help humanity” – Maria Montessori, “Scientific Pedagogy” in The 1946 London Lecture (p. 10)
- “So the first thing his education demands is the provision of an environment in which he can develop the powers given him by nature. This does not mean just to amuse him and let him do as he likes. But it does mean that we have to adjust our minds to doing a work of collaboration with nature, to being obedient to one of her laws, the law which decrees that development comes from environmental experience.” – Maria Montessori, The Absorbent Mind (p. 89)
- “So I repeat that we cannot give principles by teaching them but by prolonged social experience.” – Maria Montessori, “Four Planes of Education” in Citizen of the World (p. 31)
- “…the end is that the child should act together with other children, and practice the gymnastics of the will in the daily habits of life… It is by means of free intercourse, of real practice which obliges each one to adapt his own limits to the limits of others that social “habits” may be established” – Maria Montessori, “The Will” in The Advanced Montessori Method – I (p. 134-135, Clio edition)
- “The objects surrounding the child should look solid and attractive to him, and the house of the child should be lovely and pleasant in its particulars; for beauty in the school invites activity and work.” – Maria Montessori, “The Child’s Environment” in The Child in the Family (p. 43)
- “It is true that the teacher supervises the children, but there are various things that “call” the children at different ages. Indeed, the brilliancy, the colours, and the beauty of gaily decorated objects are nothing more than “voices” which attract the attention of a child and encourage him to act. These objects possess an eloquence that no teacher could ever attain. “Take me” they say, “keep me unharmed, and put me back in my place,” and a child’s action carried out in response to this invitation gives him that lively satisfaction and that awakening of energy which predispose him to the more difficult task of developing his intellect.” – Maria Montessori, “Education in Movement” in The Discovery of the Child (p. 85-86, Clio edition)
- “The child who is handling specially designed materials at school, the child at home who is allowed to dress himself, help lay the table, in fact carry on the hundred and one activities that interest him and harm nobody, is in reality busily at work on his development – and the method of his learning is through movement.” – Maria Montessori, “The New Education of Movement” in Maria Montessori Speaks to Parents (p. 34)
- “In going about his dedicated labors on behalf of the child, the adult must realize above all else that his task concerns a revelation of the child’s soul.” – Maria Montessori, “My Method” in Education and Peace (p. 77)
- ”The teacher must take a twofold study: she must have a good knowledge of the work she is expected to do and the function of the material, that is, of the means of a child’s development. It is difficult to prepare such a teacher theoretically. She must fashion herself, she must learn how to observe, how to be calm, patient, and humble, how to restrain her own impulses, and how to carry out her eminently practical tasks with the required delicacy. She too has greater need of a gymnasium for her soul than of a book for her intellect.” – Maria Montessori, “The Teacher” in Discovery of the Child (p. 152, Clio edition)
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