About Montessori Education

Education is a natural process spontaneously carried out by the human individual, and is acquired not by listening to words alone, but also by experiences around the environment.

The task of the Montessori teacher becomes that of preparing a series of specifically designed activities, spread over prepared environment, and then refraining from interfering to enable children draw conclusions from their experiences.

Maria Montessori, MD (1870 – 1952)

Maria Montessori, was born in 1870, and was the first woman in Italy to receive a medical degree. She worked in the fields of psychiatry, education and anthropology. She believed that each child is born with a unique potential to be revealed, rather than as a "blank slate" waiting to be written upon. Maria Montessori began her work with children by simply observing how they learned best and went on to base her teaching methods on her observations.

In a Montessori classroom, children are encouraged to choose every activity they wish to work with, and to complete it in their own time .If children work without interruption, they can develop great powers of concentration and independence. However, there must be a wide variety of activities available, with each piece of equipment serving a useful purpose. Each activity must be attractively presented, spotlessly clean, in perfect repair and at the right size for small hands to use. It is also important to provide familiar activities for children which are linked with the home. This helps reinforce their learning.

Her main contributions to the work of raising and educating children are in these areas:

Preparing the most natural and life-supporting environments for the child

Observing the child living freely in this environment

Continually adapting the environment in order that the child may fulfil his or her greatest potential, physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.

The child's freedom to choose which develops a capacity for self-discipline in them

The Montessori apparatus, most of which contains an inbuilt factor, which allows a child to discover and correct his or her own mistakes without asking a teacher.