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 |  Subject: What is Montessori?  Wed Dec 26, 2007 12:33 am | |
| Scientific New Education
Montessori education is a scientific way of observing children to discover and support their true nature of normal being. This Montessori teaching is carried out as a way of being committed to infinite and eternal laws of nature, viewing each child as having its own inborn inner guidance for perfect self-directed development. This scientific new education relates specifically to the discoveries and work of Dr. Montessori who first observed the phenomenon of the child’s true nature in 1907, and elaborated this discovery in various publications and further research she conducted with others throughout the world thereafter until her death in 1952.
Dr. Montessori’s scientific approach has the teacher conducting experiments with children, using the applicable technology, which creates a condition of commitment to laws of nature around each child. In practice, it functions to control the environment, not the child. The unique Montessori environment also provides an order and arrangement of self-teaching materials that children use according to their own free choice for independent learning and intellectual development.
In 1907, Dr. Montessori found that given the right scientific conditions, young children would shed their ordinary pattern of disorder, inattention and fantasy, entering into a totally new state of spontaneous self-discipline, love of order, peace, attachment to reality and complete harmony with the environment. She viewed this as the child’s state of normal being, since it arose entirely from within the child itself. Dr. Montessori termed the transition to this new state of being as normalization, and the resulting new children as normalized.
Montessori teaching today seeks to create the right precise conditions for the emergence of true normal being in children as described and discovered by Dr. Montessori. It also aims to support normal development in older children by following laws of nature with them as well. Montessori is now a common term for many; however, it yet remains often flawed and limited in practice due to misunderstanding and imprecision about its exact nature and application with children - an historical background that we must correct and overcome today.
Historical Background
In the early 1900’s, Dr. Maria Montessori began research from a medical perspective, as the first woman physician in Italy. She set about studying children from an educational perspective to help improve their opportunity for better learning and development. She initiated her study with the idea of scientific education as conducted and described by Dr. Eduard Seguin some 50 years before. This French physician studied and wrote about how using self-teaching learning materials he developed could help improve the learning of mentally deficient children.
In 1907, Dr. Montessori sought to test out this prior research with young children of more average intelligence. She termed her first program a “Children’s House”, which she established in a slum district of Rome, Italy. Directed to children aged 2-6, this Children’s House experiment was to scientifically observe their activity using the Seguin approach and self-teaching materials employed before with deficient children.
Montessori soon noticed that the children came to deeply concentrate on the Seguin materials, achieving eventually a state of profound peace, order and harmony. She termed this change of behavior as normalization, which she later confirmed as a universal phenomenon in young children throughout the world. Over a period of 40 years, Dr. Montessori wrote many books about her discovery, and attempted to help others bring about similar results through her various writings and courses for teachers. Unfortunately, she achieved only partial results, due to her lack of knowledge and understanding of the exact nature of the special environmental conditions required.
Upon her death in 1952, Dr. Montessori left a legacy and vision for a new education that could bring about a whole new and better humanity in the world. However, she provided little detail or technology to show teachers exactly what to do to create her special normalizing conditions.
In the early 1950’s, E.M. Standing, a long-time and loyal associate of Dr. Montessori, wrote a comprehensive biography entitled Maria Montessori: Her life and Work (Introduction, Lee Havis, revised 1998). In it, he sought to describe Montessori teaching as a method following certain fundamental principles. However, little further research was conducted along these lines, as conventional practitioners largely compromised, misunderstood and deviated from Dr. Montessori’s original vision and purpose.
In the 1960’s, Montessori evolved and grew with the formation of new organizations, each with its own distinctive certification of teachers and interpretation of her underlying philosophy. In 1979, Lee Havis founded the International Montessori Society based on his own personal research, discoveries and work with children and educators in the field. It was a completion experience of knowing what is Montessori teaching, and the ability to communicate it to others.
In 2003, Havis consolidated his research of 30 years, to devise a comprehensive technology of Montessori teaching, which is now an integral aspect of the work and purpose of the Society. In this framework, the Society recognizes three main principles to guide the practitioner in following laws of nature. These three Montessori principles closely approximate laws of nature in conditions of experiential understanding. They are:
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"Observation"
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"Individual Liberty" and
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"Preparation of the Environment"
http://imsmontessori.org/what-is-montessori.htm |
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