Montessori Method1. The Development of the Method |  |
Montessori Method1. The Development of the Method | |
In 1901, Montessori was appointed Director of a new school at the university, formerly used as an asylum for the city's "deficient and insane" children. Most of her students were mentally handicapped or autistic, and had simply been confined to empty rooms. Dr. Montessori studied these children and noted everything they said and did. She recognized their need for stimulation, purposeful activity and self-esteem, and learned what methods worked best for them. After two years, her "deficient" adolescents passed the standard sixth grade tests of the Italian public school. To Dr. Montessori, these results proved that the public schools should be able to achieve much better results with children of normal intelligence. She initiated a wave of reform in the treatment and education of mentally handicapped children.
In 1907, she began to coordinate a series of day-care centres in Rome's worst slum district. Her first class consisted of fifty children ages two to five, who exhibited generally aggressive and impatient behaviour. When she introduced the manipulative perceptual puzzles she had used with mentally handicapped children, she was surprised by how they were drawn to the materials. Children who had wandered aimlessly around the classroom began to settle down to long periods of constructive activity. They were fascinated by her materials and enjoyed learning practical, everyday skills that reinforced their independence and self-respect.
Dr. Montessori developed special manipulative materials designed for maximum appeal and effectiveness to teach reading, writing and mathematics. She worked nights developing materials to keep pace with them in geometry, geography, history and natural science. She found that children preferred work over play most of the time. She constantly experimented with the class, and through trial and error and careful observation began to understand the inner mind of the child. She found that little children were capable of long periods of quiet concentration, even though they rarely show signs of it in everyday settings. She observed the children's almost effortless ability to absorb knowledge from their surroundings, and their tireless interest in manipulating materials, and concluded that children teach themselves. Every piece of equipment, every exercise and every method that Dr. Montessori developed was based on what she observed children to do "naturally" by themselves, unassisted by adults.
Dr. Montessori changed the classroom environment. Recognizing the frustration a small child experiences in an adult sized world, she designed furniture and then entire schools around their size. She replaced the traditional locked cabinets containing learning materials with low, open shelves, from which the children could choose their own activities. Just as children love routine, they appreciate an environment in which everything has a place.
The behaviour of Dr. Montessori's first group of students changed so dramatically, and their academic achievements were so remarkable, that the press broadcast this "human interest" story to the world. Dr. Montessori continued her study of children until the 1930's, and developed a vastly expanded curriculum and methodology for the elementary level. Montessori schools were set up throughout Europe and North America, and she gave up her medical practice to devote all of her energies to advocating the rights and intellectual potential of all children. During her lifetime, Dr. Montessori was acknowledged as one of the world's leading educators.
