Get to know the method of Montessori with links to educational videos, as well as information pertaining to the philosophy.

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Research shows benefits of Montessori education

A method of schooling that focuses on personal development rather than exams produces more mature, creative and socially adept children, scientists have found.

Psychologists in the US found that across a range of abilities, children at Montessori schools out-performed those given a traditional education.

Five-year-old Montessori pupils were better prepared for reading and maths, and 12-year-olds wrote "significantly more creative" essays using more sophisticated sentence structures.

Some of the biggest differences were seen in social skills and behaviour.

Montessori children displayed a greater sense of "justice and fairness", interacted in an "emotionally positive" way, and were less likely to engage in "rough play" during break times.

The schooling system was invented in the early 1900s by Maria Montessori to educate poor children in her native Italy.

There are more than 5,000 Montessori schools in the US, and around 600 in the UK, where they are privately funded.

The method discourages traditional competitive measurements of achievement, such as grades and tests, and instead focuses on the individual progress and development of each child.

Children of different ages share the same classes, and are encouraged to collaborate and help each other. Special educational materials are used to keep children interested, and there is an emphasis on "practical life skills".

The researchers, who reported their findings in the journal Science, compared children aged three to 12 at a Montessori school in Milwaukee with those at other schools in the same area.

Parents won places for their children at the unnamed Montessori school by entering a "lottery" run by the local education department.

All parents of pupils at the schools studied, had similar incomes of between $20,000 (£10,500) and $50,000 (£26,000).

Children were tested for mental performance, academic abilities, and social and behavioural skills.

Angeline Lillard, from the University of Virginia, who co-led the study, said: "We found significant advantages for the Montessori students in these tests for both age groups.

"Particularly remarkable are the positive social effects of Montessori education. Typically the home environment overwhelms all other influences in that area."

Not only were five-year-old primary school children better prepared for the "three Rs" at primary level, they also had higher scores in tests of "executive function". This is the ability to adapt to changing and complex problems, and is seen as an indicator of future school and life success.

Although the Montessori children were not regularly tested or graded, they did just as well in spelling, punctuation and grammar exams as those given conventional lessons.

Older Montessori pupils were more likely to choose "positive assertive responses" when dealing with unpleasant social situations, said the researchers.

They also displayed a "greater sense of community" at school.

The scientists concluded: "Montessori education fosters social and academic skills that are equal or superior to those fostered by a pool of other types of schools."

Dr Lillard plans to continue the research by tracking students from both groups over a longer period of time. She also hopes to repeat the study at other Montessori and traditional schools, and assess specific Montessori techniques.

The Montessori method has had its share of criticism. Some parents believe the classroom environment is "too free", while others question Montessori teaching priorities, or the fact that children are not normally assigned homework.

In Britain, the government is funding a joint project with the Montessori Schools Association to develop the teaching practice in a state primary school for the first time.

The aim is to raise standards at the 350-pupil Gorton Mount primary school in inner-city Manchester. The school, where 36 different languages are spoken and 71% of children have free meals, has had seven headteachers in six years and was placed in special measures.

The association will hold its annual conference in London tomorrow. The Conservatives' education spokesman, David Willetts, is due to address the conference, which will look at preventing exclusion in Montessori classrooms.

Retrieved January 15th, 2011 from: http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2006/sep/29/schools.uk

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From The Times

October 15, 2007

Don’t stop classroom chatter; it’s good for learning, says academic Alexandra Frean, Education Editor

Children should be allowed to move around the classroom and to work against a background of chatter as classmates exchange ideas, a leading US academic has recommended.

Angeline Lillard, Professor of Psychology at the University of Virginia, said that too many schools were still clinging to a traditional “factory model” of the classroom in which children sitting silently in ranks were considered blank sheets on which teachers could imprint knowledge merely by talking to them.

Professor Lillard said that this approach ran counter to everything that psychologists had discovered in the past hundred years about how children learn.

“We were designed in nature to think about the world in relation to how we physically interact with it - it’s called embodied cognition. So it’s only natural that children learn better when they get to move,” she said.

“If you ask children to pick out pairs of animals that might go together, they will remember the pairs that they are allowed to touch and move, rather than the ones they just look at,” she said.

In maths or physics, handling or building geometrical models helps students to understand the laws behind them. In history, role-play enables children to get an understanding of the motivation of leading figures.

Professor Lillard is the author of a seminal study published last year. In it she suggested that the century-old Montessori education method, in which tests are banned and pupils of different ages are taught together and allowed to learn at their own pace, is more successful than traditional teaching methods.

She was particularly critical of early education in Britain, where children in preschool settings are encouraged to play and learn in groups before being moved to more formal settings when they start compulsory schooling.

“Children under 6 are far more interested in parallel play - often playing alongside each other without really interacting. Once they are in primary school that’s when they start being really interested in their peers and taking notice of how they react. But that is precisely the time when we take them away from learning and playing in groups and sit them at desks in ones and twos.

She also questioned the wisdom of forcing children to be silent in class. “Children seem to be able to work against a hum of background noise. They can’t learn from each other if they are told to be silent.” She denied that her methods would result in a breakdown of classroom order or would hold back bright children.

Classroom discipline, she said, should be developed by allowing children to chose the parts of the curriculum that most interest them and to work at their own pace on it to keep them motivated.

Professor Lillard’s ideas chime with reforms of the secondary curriculum advanced by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, which earlier this year recommended replacing rigid school timetables and subject lessons with a more flexible approach combining five-minute bursts with all-day sessions and learning arranged around themes, rather than traditional subjects.

Professor Lillard was speaking at the weekend at a conference in London held by the Maria Montessori Institute to celebrate the centenary of Montessori education.

Robert Whelan, deputy director of the think-tank Civitas and managing director of the New Model School Company, which promotes traditional education, said Professor Lillard’s methods were only likely to be successful with some children.

“The danger of letting children wander around the classroom and talk to each other is that those from middle-class homes, which value education, might flourish. But those from homes with no books and whose parents are only vaguely aware of what it is they do at school, will suffer because they will not be motivated to work hard.

“To have the teacher imparting information to the whole class for at least the majority of the time has a lot of advantages,” he said.

Resource: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/education/article2658527.ece

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Quotes by Maria Montessori

From The Secret of Childhood

"Movement, or physical activity, is thus an essential factor in intellectual growth, which depends upon the impressions received from outside. Through movement we come in contact with external reality, and it is through these contacts that we eventually acquire even abstract ideas."
"The children were truly converted. They passed from a state of grief to happiness. They were freed from numerous, deep-seated defects. But there was also something more. Certain traits which are commonly esteemed also disappeared. In dazzling fashion these children showed that men have erred and must be completely renewed."
"Within the child lies the fate of the future. Whoever wishes to confer some benefit on society must preserve him from deviations and observe his natural ways of acting. A child is mysterious and powerful and contains within himself the secret of human nature."

From The Montessori Method

"Instead of all this, we must know how to call the man which lies dormant within the soul of the child. I felt this, intuitively, and believed that not the didactic material, but my voice which called to them, awakened the children, and encouraged them to use the didactic material, and through it, to educate themselves."
"To stimulate life, - leaving it then free to develop, to unfold, - herein lies the first take to the educator. In such a delicate task, a great art must suggest the moment, and limit the intervention, in order that we shall arouse no perturbation, cause no deviation, but rather that we shall help the soul which is coming into the fulness of life, and and which shall live from its own forces. This art must accompany the scientific method."

From Maria Montessori: Her Life and Work

"The child must possess within himself, from birth, a capacity - only a potential at first - of abstracting or taking off from particular things their essential qualities. If you watch carefully any small child, of one to two years old, you will see that he is not only interested in objects as a whole, but also in their qualities, such as roughness, smoothness, hardness, softness, colour, taste, texture, weight, pliability, and so on."

From The Absorbent Mind

"This is education, understood as a help to life; an education from birth, which feeds a peaceful revolution and unites all in a common aim, attracting them to a single centre. Mothers, fathers, politicians: all must combine in their respect and help for this delicate work of formation, which the little child carries on in the depth of a profound mystery, under the tutelage of an inner guide."
"When mental development is under discussion, there are many who say, 'How does movement come into it? We are talking about the mind.' And when we think of intellectual activity, we always imagine people sitting still, motionless. But mental development must be connected with movement and be dependent on it. It is vital that educational theory and practice should be informed by that idea."

From The Advanced Montessori Method

"I would therefore initiate teachers into the observation of the most simple forms of living things, which all those aids which science gives; I would make them microscopists; I would give them a knowledge of the cultivation of plants and train them to observe their physiology; I would direct their observation to insects, and would make them study the general laws of biology. And I would not have them concerned with theory alone, but would encourage them to work independently in laboratories and in the bosom of free Nature."

From: http://www.montessoriforeveryone.com/Montessori-Quotes_ep_56-1.html

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The Five Great Lessons of the Elementary Curriculum

The Great Lessons are an important and unique part of the Montessori curriculum. These lessons are bold, exciting, and are designed to awaken a child's imagination and curiosity. The child should be struck with the wonder of creation, thrilled with new ideas, and awed by the inventiveness and innovation that is part of the human spirit.

The Five Great Lessons are traditionally presented in lower elementary (grades 1-3), and are presented every year so that children see them more than one time. Unlike the 3-6 environment, where the child is introduced first to "small" ideas that gradually widen into larger concepts, the elementary child is introduced right away to large concepts - the largest of all being the beginning of the universe. Then they can be shown how all the smaller ideas fit into the larger framework.

Traditionally, there are Five Great Lessons that are used to paint a broad picture before moving to more specific study. They consist of:

First Great Lesson - Coming of the Universe and the Earth
Second Great Lesson - Coming of Life
Third Great Lesson - Coming of Human Beings
Fourth Great Lesson - Communication in Signs
Fifth Great Lesson - The Story of Numbers

First Great Lesson - Coming of the Universe and the Earth

The First Great Lesson is the most memorable and is often done on the very first day of school. It involves the use of a balloon and gold stars to tell the story of the beginning of the universe. This lesson also includes some demonstrations using solids and liquids to show how the continents and oceans first came together.