My Montessori Overview

When I tell people I am a Montessori teacher the most common question people ask is, “is that some kind of religious thing?” To answer you if this is your question NO, it is not. It is named after Maria Montessori the woman who created the method. Montessori was a radical woman of her time. She was the first woman doctor in Italy. She graduated from medical school in 1896 but she was not allowed to work in any normal practice because she was a woman. The only place where she was allowed to work was in a hospital for children in an insane asylum.

Now, you’re probably thinking there are a bunch of crazy kids how we would think of them today. These kids were called “idiots” meaning they had some kind of mental disability. These children could of ranged anywhere from autistic to down syndrome but in those days we were not aware of the ways to deal with children that had any kind of special needs and were sent to these asylums to live. They did not go to school and were thought to have very little learning capabilities.

That was until Maria Montessori came to save the day! She began working with these children and observed that they were and could learn many things. She saw they were able to gain concentration and work for long periods on many different activities. She began making different activities, all hands on, for them to do in all different subject areas. She began to see that she was able to get them learning at the same rate as “normal” children in schools. She carefully observed that each of these children wanted to learn and they were able to choose their own activity and work with it diligently.

Once she figured out she could get these children with special needs up to par with the children in schools, she also began to wonder what she could do with the children who were in schools. She felt “normal” children were not learning to their full ability in the public schools because of the way they were being taught. She felt hese children could excel even more with similar methods that she used with the “idiot” children. So she began to work with “normal” children in a housing project. Where she was also able to get these children learning and working together at surprising rates. She named the school she set up as she was working with these children “casa de bambini”. This is where she began perfecting her method.

During these years at the “casa de bambini” she broke the classroom down into five different areas. These areas were practical life, sensorial, language, math, and a peace curriculum. She observed that it was extremely important to have a practical life because children wanted, desperately, to do be able to do practical life activities on their own. Montessori claims that children have a sign somewhere on them that says, “please, help me do it myself”. This is exactly the role of a Montessori guide, help a child become independent, self motivated, and respectful people. Montessori also found that children needed to become aware of the sense and the movement of their bodies in space, which is why she created, along with practical life, the area of sensorial. This is where children will use all of their senses and learn to perceive the world around them. Language is also a very important area of the classroom. Young children are absorbing language in another desperate attempt to be a responsible and productive person. They want to be able to communicate with the world around them just as much as they wish to be able to perceive it. Next, we have math where children learn about the numbering system that is used around them. In Montessori we teach the basic 1-10 numbering and then we begin to teach the decimal system foundation of one unit, one ten, on hundred, and one thousand. We do this with beads so that children can literally see the concrete quantity. Through this sensory formation of learning young children are clearly able to learn and understand the concepts of mathematics. Finally, Montessori felt it was necessary for children to be taught the art of peace. She was a heavy contributor to the peace education during the 1940s. She felt we were teaching the art of war but not the art of peace and therefore she made conscious efforts to include this into her method.

Here are a few pictures of a Montessori classroom at work (courtesy of Google). 

This is a picture of a little boy pouring through a funnel. Look at the concentration on his face! 

These are the cylinder blocks. This is a challenging task for for most adults to do but the children seem to do it with ease! 

This is the movable alphabet where children begin to "write" words and then later put the sounds together and read the words they are writing! 

This picture is from my own collection. This is the introduction to the decimal system. In the Pan American Montessori Society we use purple felts for the decimals system materials because it is "the royalty of numbers". 

These two boys are using the "peace table" to reconcile differences they had. Now they are shaking hands as they have reconciled their difference of opinion. 

This is my short rendition of how the Montessori Method came to be and what it is. There are many more aspects that I have not discussed here but do plan on discussing many of them throughout my blog posts. If there is anything that you would like for me to discuss please feel free to email me and let me know and I will be sure to write about it. I am also welcome to any emails from any teachers who have been teaching longer than me! I would love to hear your ideas and thoughts as I develop as a Montessori guide.