Philosophy of a Montessori Classroom

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The following post is by Jessica Stellato, Lower Elementary Lead in the Galaxy Room at MASS. This month, Jessica is sharing insight into various Montessori classroom materials, terms, and ideas. Today, she shares a big-picture look at the philosophy behind the Montessori classroom experience.

Often parents wonder:

What is Montessori?
What is my child going to learn in a Montessori classroom?
Is there really a difference between a traditional classroom versus a Montessori classroom?

 
I hope to give you a concise explanation of what an authentic Montessori program should entail for your child.

The Montessori method and philosophy is based on teaching to the whole child and encouraging independence beginning at a very early age. Children want to do for themselves. Maria Montessori stated, “Do not do for the child for what they can do for themselves.” Montessori students learn to think critically, work collaboratively, and act boldly – a skill set needed for the 21st century.

An authentic Montessori classroom will have a certified Guide (teacher) and an assistant. Some classes may have two certified Guides. A typical class will have mixed ages: Toddler 0-3 years, Primary 3-6 years, Lower Elementary 6-9 years, Upper Elementary 9-12 years (some schools join Lower and Upper, making it a 6-12 year old classroom), and Middle School 12-14 years. There are also a few Montessori High Schools, with students ranging from 14-18 years old.

A Montessori child will experience an uninterrupted work cycle, preferably 3 hours long in the morning. This is a sacred and cherished time in the classroom. The children have freedom of movement and choice; however, these choices are within limits.

Throughout the Montessori school experience, each child is valued as a unique individual, with respect of the child being of great importance. Beginning at an early age, Montessori students develop order, coordination, concentration, and independence to think for themselves. Students are part of a close community of caring teachers and classmates. Students are continually encouraged to learn through their personal interests, creating an individual who loves to learn throughout his life. In addition, self-correction and self-assessment are an integral part of a Montessori classroom, allowing the child to know that it is acceptable to make mistakes and learn from them. This approach not only not eliminates a fear of failure, but builds self-esteem, which is vital in the development of a child.

If you are interested in learning more about the Montessori philosophy, please visit the American Montessori Society online or the Montessori Education page on Wikipedia.

We Speak Montessori

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The following post is by Jessica Stellato, Lower Elementary Lead in the Galaxy Room at MASS. In this series, Jessica explores common Montessori classroom terminology.

Shortly after enrolling in a Montessori program, you will hear words like “work.” Someone not familiar with this lexicon may view the word “work” as having a negative connotation, but in the Montessori environment “work” means children learning through purposeful activity. To help parents better understand what’s being described in the classroom, we want to introduce to you a few common terms.

Analysis of Movement
Analysis of Movement is a technique by which Montessori teachers break down tasks into parts and demonstrate each step in isolation. The action becomes so deliberate and engaging that the child understands the sequence of steps. The opportunity for mastery is increased when the child is free to follow each step.

Concentration
In the Montessori environment, Concentration is defined as deep engagement on a single task. As Maria Montessori stated, “The first six years of life are the most powerful time for developing concentration and attention.”

Control of Error
Montessori materials are designed so a child receives instant feedback as he works, allowing him to recognize, correct, and learn from his mistakes without adult assistance. Putting control of an activity in the child’s hands strengthens his self esteem, self-motivation, and the opportunity for learning learning.

In this video of a student working with the trinomial cube, Analysis of Movement, Concentration, and Control of Error are all demonstrated. Analysis of Movement is seen as the child picks up each piece purposefully, coordinating her movements to exact the prism’s position. Concentration abounds as she learns to order the pieces and visualizes the prisms becoming one. Control of Error is demonstrated as the child places the prisms in the box – the prisms will only fit in the box if assembled correctly.

The most important part of the work process demonstrated in this video is the sense of satisfaction for a job well done. Montessori students enjoy work that tests their abilities.

Join us for more Montessori Speak soon!

An Exploration of Montessori Materials

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The following post is by Jessica Stellato, Lower Elementary Lead in the Galaxy Room at MASS. This month, Jessica will profile various Montessori classroom materials, beginning with an overview of the qualities all Montessori materials share, and providing a detailed description of a specific material each week.

Montessori Materials:

  • Are Appealingly Designed: created using a wide range of beautiful materials and textures
  • Are Ingenuous: teach more than one skill and have a built-in “control of error”
  • Invite Activity: provide opportunities to look, listen, smell, touch, taste and move the body

Maria Montessori believed moving and learning were inseparable. Our children in Primary enter into the stage of “Inviting Discovery.” The 3-6 age group is the time period when the child learns through hands-on experiences that support active learning and discovery. As the child completes this stage of development, they move into the “Grow with the Child” stage. These lessons are more complex and the difficulty increases as the child advances.

For more information, please visit the American Montessori Society website.

Material of the week: Golden Beads

The Golden Beads are the heart of Montessori math. They are essential for teaching the decimal system to students. The Golden Beads give students a real, concrete experience of the decimal system, place value, and operations. They are found in our programs from Primary through Upper Elementary. Students in the Primary begin their lessons with counting, place value, and concrete operations (additon, subtraction, multiplication, and division). The students who have internalized the color dynamics of the math materials move on to more difficult abstract levels of math in the Elementary levels. Students at the Elementary level refine their math facts, dynamic operations, and apply their math concepts in real life opportunities.

The material consists of glass beads in various configurations: units are individual beads, ten units connected together with wire to create a ten bar, 10 ten bars wired together to create the hundred square, and 10 hundred squares carefully bound together to create the thousand cube. From a sensorial aspect, the weight difference shows the emergent learner how “different” 1000 feels from 1. The reaction from a child when he holds his first thousand cube is usually, “Wow!”

What Are the Five Great Lessons?

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“Let us give the child a vision of the whole universe…for all things are part of the universe, and are connected with each other to form one whole unity.”

– Maria Montessori, To Educate the Human Potential

Maria Montessori strongly emphasized the importance of Cosmic Education for the elementary age child. She began with the miracle of the cosmos and the sense of awe that proceeds as the world filled with life. The Great Lessons are important to awaken a child’s imagination and curiosity while helping them realize the important place they have in the world. Elementary children are introduced to the largest of all concepts – the beginning of the universe – and then smaller ideas so they can see how all the concepts fit together to form a whole.

This presentation by Ansley Brown, a Montessori teacher in Columbia, South Carolina, was designed to walk parents through the philosophy of the Great Lessons in the elementary level classroom.

What Is Education For?

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Montessori parents and friends Vina Kay (a racial justice activist, writer, and filmmaker) and Jan Selby (an Emmy award-winning documentary producer and director), explore this question in their documentary, Building the Pink Tower. From her own children’s Montessori experiences, Kay remembered the beauty, peacefulness and purpose of everything in the Montessori environment. As she writes in a recent article:

I am a parent who learned from my own children what education can be.

Kay and Selby see Montessori as the vehicle to independence, allowing each person to reach their potential by following their personal passions. Their goal in making the documentary is to share with the world the potential of Montessori to change the conversation and start a movement toward truly meaningful education. Montessori is a buzzword in today’s talk about education reform – peaceful education based on respect and kindness. Couldn’t we all use a little more kindness in this world?

Please enjoy the trailer. We hope to show the documentary at our school in the future.

The Big Day is almost here!

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After a great orientation night, the first day of school is just around the corner! Our last post shared a source full of tips for the days leading up to the big day; today, we want to focus on having a great start the first morning – and every morning – of the year. These tips from Middleburg Montessori School in Middleburg, Virginia offer fantastic advice on ensuring that your children are set up for a wonderful and successful day.

Montessori for the Elderly

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Montessori is not just for the young ones we have in our care; Montessori is a way of life that can benefit us all at each stage of our lives. Now, many communities that care for the elderly are adapting the Montessori method to help clients suffering from dementia, Alzheimer’s, and the effects of strokes.

Montessori lessons build on these key factors: repetition, positive reinforcement, and inclusion of the senses. Lessons are developed to increase mental and physical abilities, with individuals receiving customized lessons that strengthen their unique abilities and skills. Lessons like the knobbed cylinders help rebuild the small muscles of the hand, while an activity like recognizing world flags encourages recall. Building lessons like the pink tower help to foster the memory of working in steps. The tower has to be built a certain way; forgetting a step will result in the tower falling or missing a piece.

Hearthstone Alzheimer Care is a leader in this Montessori-based approach to elder care. Their program description offers an interesting basic overview of how Montessori lessons and philosophy are used with patients.

101 Things Parents Can Do To Help Children

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Parents often wonder what they can do to reinforce Montessori principles in their home and daily routines. This list, 101 Things Parents Can Do To Help Children, was written by Early Childhood Montessori Guide Barbara Hacker, and is full of practical tips for all facets of life.

101 Things Parents Can Do To Help Children

Montessori’s Brain-Based Approach

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Steve Hughes, PhD, LP, ABPdN is the Director of the Center for Research on Developmental Education and a board certified pediatric neuropsychologist. He is a scientist who speaks about brain development and educates parents about academic, social, and executive functioning. In his talk, “Good at Doing Things,” Hughes highlights Montessori’s brain-based approach to education and its benefits.

A few highlights include:

• More of the brain is dedicated to controlling your hands than any other part of the body

• Human beings learn best through hands-on exploration of the world, especially in childhood

• Montessori’s hands-on education philosophy is based on the idea that the hands are the tools the mind uses to discover the world

Montessori Philosophy: Individual Ownership of Learning

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When parents are choosing Montessori education for their child, they are trusting their child to take his learning into his own hands. The environment is designed to allow students to discover and learn on their own. The materials are self-correcting and are used until the child says, “I did it.” This type of learning is very different from traditional learning. In a traditional learning environments, information is housed with the teacher. The teacher instructs the child what is important to learn and through rote effort, the child memorizes the information. To confirm that the student learned the information necessary, the student takes a written test. Weeks later, though, students have often forgotten or have a diminished memory of what they were taught. In the Montessori environment, children discover the answers themselves, so information and learning is housed within them. They may then draw connections between the newly learned information and other topics and events in their lives.

This article on mariamontessori.com highlights one family’s experience with individual ownership of learning. In seeing their son Wyatt’s newly developed writing skills, his parents questioned, “Who taught Wyatt how to write?” Wyatt’s response: “I did.”