What is the Montessori Method?

This is a method of individualized instruction stressing independent learning. It is an approach to education which develops a child's potential by means of a prepared environment, utilizing specially trained teachers and self-correcting materials.

What is a "prepared environment"?

This is a classroom that maintains a certain order in which a child can feel free to develop at his own speed, according to his own capacities, and in a non-competitive atmosphere. He learns to work by himself, enjoying the presence of other children but not always working directly with them.

What is the role of the teacher?

A Montessori teacher is called a "directress" or "director" for she or he teaches by directing. This teacher may plan the classroom activity, prepare the environment, and be there to answer requests or fulfill apparent needs - but it is the self-motivation of the child which gives the impulse to learning.

How is the child self-motivated?

When a child is absorbed in an activity, he begins to learn. A 3-year old learns "with his hand," through manipulation and experimentation. Exposure to the great variety of classroom materials helps him sharpen his senses and leads him to discover step-by-step fundamental concepts which prepare him for writing, reading and the development of number concepts.

What are "sensitive periods"?

Dr. Montessori discovered that ages of 2 1/2 to 4, particularly, are periods when children display amazing capabilities. These are the years when a child can more easily learn ideas, absorb impressions and acquire skills than at any other time in his growing period.

How does the child learn to cooperate?

Social adjustment is a necessary condition for learning in a classroom, but it is not the purpose of education. When working alone, the child is often impervious to everything else gong on in the classroom. Yet in the free flow of independent activity, the children develop both friendships and working relationships. Learning goes beyond manipulation of specific equipment to learning in interaction with other children. Older children help younger ones; one child learns to do something by observing another child; several children cooperate to accomplish an involved task.

What about discipline?

In the classroom specially designed materials allow a child to correct his own error as he learns. These range from the practical - washing, buttoning, tying - to the intellectual - language, mathematics, reading. This is an "inner discipline," a personal control, which the child develops in himself.

What is the Montessori concept of a free individual?

Freedom is a goal, not a starting point. The Montessori method introduces children to the joy of learning at an early age, providing them with a framework of self-confidence and self-discipline. Thus, the child is free to do and see and learn for himself, through his own senses and not through the eyes of an adult.

What about the future?

A child who has had Montessori training is usually more advanced and well-adjusted when he enters the elementary grades. As for his future, he has more than a good chance of becoming a happy, self-sufficient adult with a lasting love of learning and a constant bent toward personal creativity.

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These answers were provided by Urban H. Fleege, Ph.D., Assoc. Vice President, De Paul University and Director of the Midwest Montessori Teacher Training Center.

More information can also be found at the Montessori Foundation website.