Similarly, Maria Montessori's life provides key lessons for educators and for other individuals confronted with large systems that they can see to be clearly broken. Montessori managed to overcome the general gender discrimination typical of her time, and more than that she managed to challenge and the preconceived and largely entrenched patriarchal notions of education as an exercise in control, replacing them with her own theories based solely on the fact that they worked so indisputably well (a fact that has failed to bring many theories and projects to light). In this manner, she is a direct inspiration to educators and others working to fix a flawed system, or at least to mitigate its damage. It is difficult to determine the extent of Montessori's impact on the overall practice of education, as she was not the only force working towards the liberalization of educational practices in the first half of the twentieth century. It is certain that her impact was substantial in this regard, however, and with more than twenty-thousand schools worldwide estimated to be utilizing Montessori principles even educators that do not employ her techniques to a large degree are likely to be aware of and even incorporate certain Montessori...
The Montessori Method, in whole or in part, can lead to more effective and enjoyable education for students, teachers, parents, and administrators, reducing disciplinary problems and enhancing progress with greater ease and eagerness, and these methods are thus useful learning for any teacher at any level.
Montessori Schools The Child as an Active Learner Theoretical Underpinnings Foundations of the Montessori Learning Approach Maria Montessori was a native of Chiaravalle Italy, born in 1870 during the time when Italy was declaring its independence (Kramer, 1988). Montessori did not originally wish to go into teaching, but your life path lead her to become the founder of the Montessori schools and philosophy. Montessori refused to assume traditional women's roles. Her independent spirit is
That is why the child's psychic manifestations are at once impulses of enthusiasm and efforts of meticulous, constant patience" (1963, p. 223). Empirical observations suggest that children want and need guidelines and rules to help them understand what is expected of them in terms of behavior, but they desperately want to be able to learn on their own and achieve a sense of accomplishment through their own endeavors - this
Moreover, the Montessori method seems to be rediscovering its roots as a universal method of instruction. Montessori education has become "popular with some black professionals and are getting results in low-income public schools with the kind of children on which Montessori first tested her ideas," (Matthews 2007). Just as Maria Montessori practiced her pedagogy with the poorest children of Rome, modern Montessori educators are noticing "long-term success in several
Working with both the poor and the disabled, Dr. Montessori further developed her ideas of a system under which all children can develop at their own pace and, again, to fully develop to their own potential. She instituted a study of Cosmic Education, or the "gradual discovery, throughout the whole of childhood, of the interrelatedness of all things on earth, in the past, present, and in the future" (Stephenson, 1998,
Another keynote of the Montessori method is the de-centering of the teacher (Smith). The teacher's role was more of an observer and monitor than an instructor. Therefore, the Montessori is a quintessentially student-centric pedagogical method. The child determines what and how to learn, and the teacher observes, monitors, and facilitates. Having gained respect among the medical community and having spoken at more than one women's conference, Montessori's methods drew considerable international
Montessori is an educational approach that was created by the doctor and pedagogue, Maria Montessori. The basic pillars of a Montessori education revolve around the ideas of the necessity of independence, freedom within certain limits, and an overall respect for a child's organic development, in regards to all that is both psychological and physical, but also verbal, intellectual and even social. Some scholars argue that no two Montessori schools are
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