Maria Montessori (1870-1952)

An Italian educator developed a specific method of teaching that became known as the
Montessori Method. She believes that children should be free to find out things for themselves
and develop through individual activity. By her method pupils were neither punished nor
rewarded for things done at school.
Montessori was born in Italy and earned a medical degree from the University of Rome. She first
taught mentally defective children, but later she became famous for her project of children's
nurseries in which they gather children between the ages of 3 and 7 to educate and bring up in a
house which is set up like ordinary family's houses by providing them with love and affection,
facilitate play and movement and enrich their activities with various educational means and
devices.

Montessori's Educational principles:

Montessori's methods were based on basic principles, which were all known to modern
educators, and applied in most of the modern educational schools. Her methods emphasized the
following principles:
1. Freedom: let the child between 3 and 7 play freely and impulsively without any
restrictions or without putting any specific limits. A child is liable by nature to perform free
activities and a variable game through which he realizes himself and expresses his
impulsiveness, which rejects boundaries and limitations. A teacher provides a comfortable free
environment, she never obliges the child to do anything he doesn't like, and she sets up a
democratic system where she cooperates with the children to create a coordinated harmonious
overall environment or atmosphere. In spite of such an atmosphere there is always the naughty
student who creates disciplinary problems. Here, Montessori does special studies for this kind of
children, she puts them in a certain corner in order to analyze and study there cases, their health
and minds. After these studies she decides and classifies those who need continuous help and
deals with the causes of the problems and then puts these children back with the others.

2. School Atmosphere: it should be rich with exciting educational devices. Montessori

emphasizes the importance of providing a school atmosphere rich with educational devices,
capable of arousing and exciting the interests of a child in a position of a learner willing to learn
and to play and to obtain more knowledge. Thus, nurseries in Montessori’s system provide the
necessary devices to arouse the child’s interest and fulfill his needs. So all house utensils like
kettles, cups, brooms and sinks are available to fit children’s needs, capabilities and sizes.
Moreover, garden utensils are also available and adaptable to their strength and sizes: there is the
small hammer, the spade, the bucket and others in small coordinated sizes in addition to seats
inside the small classroom distributed in a manner which provides the children with the freedom
to move around from one place to the other. The objective of children’s KG is that children work
freely and impulsively performing activities, which help their natural needs and incentives so,
that utensils in the Montessori school were used to develop the senses, teach reading, writing,
and mathematics through various planned and prepared activities, which are gradually,
implemented in accordance with certain steps.

3. Playing: It constitutes a fundamental basis in the Montessori program where it sets up a

schedule to perform the exercises and various games and activities. Montessori believes that the
child learns through playing and working with the object more than he learns through teaching
and listening. Playing in the class is not for passing time and fun only its objective is making
children learn in a free atmosphere and through exerting personal impulsive energy.
4. The Individual Differences and Study: because of her experiments, Montessori
discovered individual differences between one child and another. These differences were
intellectual and physical. She also found that each child was distinguished from the others, which
brings up the necessity of studying each case in order to understand the child and provide him
with all his needs during his growth. The study of the child is accomplished through scheduled
observation, exercises and different experiments. Special card is prepared for each child, which
covers the necessary information about the physical and psychological activities. The growth of
the senses. The intellectual activities.
5. The Independence: Here the child acquires the capabilities to control himself and to
learn self-independence. To achieve this Montessori followed several devices, which help the
children coordinate their movements by classifying things according to their color, weight or
similarities. To train children to practice on their own, Montessori used to give them the chance
to perform a great number of exercises and activities like: dressing up by themselves, washing
their hands and faces, cleaning or setting up their beds and closets or cleaning up their rooms.
Objective: the main objective is to inspire into a child internal psychological restfulness and
stability through external stability and organization. The preschool teacher does not directly
interfere but she makes the children capable of discovering by themselves after her supervision
or observation.
6. Developing the Senses by Starting from the Parts: Developing the senses is a major
characteristic in the Montessori’s method by starting from the part to the whole (inside to
outside). She considered that developing the senses one after the other leads at the end to a
perfect intellectual education. Through this, she divided the individual into parts and sections
each dependent from the other and consequently developed and trained each one of these parts
individually. She also opposed the psychological trail method, which tries to measure the senses
while she aims at educating and developing training the senses.

The Pattern and Method of Montessori:

Montessori believes that training and developing the senses is the basis of every
intellectual education and that development of the senses helps the child distinguish, classify,
and conclude. Therefore, she offers a pattern, which encourages the development of the senses
through mathematics, drawing, reading, writing, playing, music and manual works. This pattern
is implied through playing, manual works and arranging the classroom and intern, it responds
with the academic program and requirements.

Montessori’s Educational Devices

These devices are divided into eleven groups:
1. Three groups of different cylinders (which vary in height and diameter).
2. Three forms of geometrical shapes (which vary in dimensions).
3. Two groups of 10 wooden boxes of different sizes (from 1 to 10).
4. Different and varied geometrical forms (pyramids, triangles, cylinders, circles).
5. A game consisting of putting the geometrical forms together or inside/outside.
6. A collection of wooden bars of different weights.
7. A collection of bells which multiply the musical sounds.
8. A collection of different papers.
9. A collection of different fabrics.
10. A toy or instrument with multiple musical sounds.
11. A collection of threads (of eight basic colors having 8 secondary colors).

Through these various groups of games, which the educators put in children’s nurseries and KGs,
the nurseries look like a paradise of colors, pictures, forms, wooden toys and cartoon and through
following different exercises, using all these games, the teacher could accomplish her objective
in developing the senses.
1. The sense of touch: This one is developed through training the fingers and hands. The
child is offered wooden forms, which are covered with soft cloth or paper or wool or silk to
differentiate them. To differentiate between the circles, the triangles and cylindrical forms the
child is asked to touch them by passing his fingers around them and inside them while he is blind
folded and under the supervision of the teacher. The exercises to distinguish between the various
weights are many: different toys and forms with different weights or you can use a small
balance. Handwork skills are developed through manual works by sewing, cutting fabrics and
wearing clothes.
2. The sense of sight: This one is developed through seeing things and colors
distinguishing them from far distances then the children are offered colored things or bobbins to
name and consequently to acquire the ability of distinguishing the colors which are available
around them. There are also the secondary 8 colors, which are developed from each of the eight
major ones. Here the child classifies this color in relation to the basic color.
3. The sense of hearing: This one is developed through using the bells, which issue
different sounds and tones. These exercises are considered the basis of musical education, which
aim at training the children to be familiar with and know organized and interrupted movements
(7 and10). The method followed here is different from the classical teaching one, where the room
is darkened completely by turning off the lights, drawing the curtains and ringing the bell from
near and far places.
4. The sense of smell and taste: It is developed by practicing simple exercises with
different objects the child should distinguish and name these objects while he is blind folded.
Example: offer something sweet/sour and ask them to distinguish one from the other.

The activities and exercises in the Montessori Method are uncountable, but the most important
ones are setting up sticks, arranging bottoms, classifying the shapes and walking on the line.

Reading and Writing:

Montessori has employed the synthetic or constructional method i.e.: starting from the part and
connecting the whole, all the parts together this means starting with a letter, then the word, to the
sentence. She followed her method in a gradually organized way, which starts with drawings and
unorganized movements to reach to studied exercises through geometric forms, then writing as a
final step followed by reading. In her writing method, she offers the children different
geometrical forms and asks them to put them in their places. She also trains them on passing
their fingers around the frames of the forms in order to help them control the movement of their
fingers and direct them in specific directions. After repeating this movements several times she
offers the children the letters in geometrical forms made of wood or card or cartoon paper. Thus,
the child is familiarized with the alphabet by touching them without knowing that he is in the
process of learning writing. After touching i.e. feeling the dimensions of the alphabet the teacher
asks the child to pronounce the dimensions and form by passing their fingers, this operation is
repeated several times while the child is blind folded until he becomes able to distinguish the
letters in words and phrases. Here the teacher trains the child to see different words including the
alphabet in study. This way the child can read scattered words and sentences. She does this by
using cut up letters which she puts together to form specific words and sentences in order to
identify the pictures and objects it represents, so this method is one of "constructional" or
synthetic devices used to start from a part to the whole.

Mathematics:
Teaching mathematics is done through using groups of sticks of different sizes and colors by
classifying them, arranging and counting with the help and supervision of the teacher until the
child could start counting.

Pronunciation and Talking:

The child is trained to pronounce and speak correctly by sitting in groups, listening to the
teacher, listening to the stories and repeating after her. Here she corrects their mistakes and
teaches them to pronounce correctly and the art of listening which is very important.

Criticism of Montessori:
Montessori's method met some criticism, which was almost based over the following points:
 Her concept of developing the senses each one separately without emphasizing the
individual as a whole.
 Her planning to produce educational devices without giving consideration to the
impulsiveness of the child and his freedom in choosing the toys and creating his own
personal ones.
 Her emphasis on the senses neglecting the development of the creativity of the child
and his imagination.

In spite of this criticism, Montessori's method was widely spread and applied all over Europe and
America. Some adjustments were made but their principles were followed, emphasizing freedom
and creating a familiar educational environment rich with educational devices and instruments.
Like Pestalozzi she was concerned basically with educating the disadvantaged child, but when
her methods proved to be so successful, she applied them to all children. Like Froebel she
created a special setting for the child's first learning experiences. Her method of instruction was
carefully organized and based on her conclusions about the patterns of human growth and the
laws of learning.

Summing-Up
Montessori Method is an educational system designed to help children learn how to learn by
themselves. Montessori programs aim to develop positive learning attitudes and habits in
children from about 3 to 6 years of age, an age when they are best able to form them. Children,
she found, are capable of sustained concentration and work, they enjoy order and prefer work to
play. They also enjoy repeating actions until they have mastered a given activity. Montessori
found that children have an inner need to work at what interests them without the use of
punishments or rewards.
Many experts in education believe Montessori can help children become aware of their abilities
and gain confidence in themselves while making use of their abilities.
Special teaching materials and learning tasks are used to develop awareness and confidence,
these materials make use of children's desire to manipulate and discover insights on their own:
they include 3 dimensional geometric shapes and letters of alphabet designed to be examined by
blind folded child to improve the sense of touch. Devices such as a frame covered with clothes
containing buttons or zippers aim to teach the child perform everyday tasks without the help of
adults. Counting devices provide experience in working with numbers. Other materials are
designed to improve children's language skills and acquaint them with art, music and science.
Supporters of Montessori programs believe that the materials used under the guidance of
specially trained teachers help children develop a lasting curiosity and positive attitudes and
habits towards learning.