The Montessori Approach

   'The greatest sign of success for a teacher is to be able to say, "The Children are now working as if I did not exist."' (Montessori, cited by Mooney, 2000)

 

   Maria Montessori was an Italian Physician who designed a new approach to education at her time. She became interested in the way that children learnt, and found that children who were not as privileged as those who had access to education, still learnt in the same way and according to Mooney (2000, p.22) she found that the 'problems existed not in the children, but in the adults'. This was considered almost revolutionary at the time, as many of the people blamed the children and the way that they had no access to an education.
   Although there are little schools/nurseries in the United Kingdom following Maria Montessori's approach to early years education, her impact to education is still visible to this day in standard schools. Montessori believed that the child should be the controller of his or her own learning, and the teacher should simply act as the observer, 'The instructions of a teacher consist merely of a hint, a touch - enough to give a start to the child.' (Montessori, 1965 cited in Isaacs, 2012, p.46) This was extremely different to the general teaching methods at the time, as children would have been sitting in rows in classrooms, listening to what the teacher was telling them, in the style of a formal lesson.

   Through using specifically designed furniture and toys, children in a Montessori school are able to shape their own learning, while the teacher acts as an observer, and as Isaacs (2012, p.13) suggests, observation as the 'key tool' for learning, 'cannot be disputed.'

   The Foundation Phase in Wales has also been influenced by Montessori's approach to education. As stated within a previous blog post, the Foundation Phase encourages learning through play, and contains certain ideas that can be seen in the Montessori Approach to Education. An example of the influence of the Montessori Approach to the Foundation Phase is 'Through their play, children practice and consolidate their learning with ideas, experiment, take risks, solve problems, and make decisions individually, in small and large groups.' (DCELLS, 2008, p.4).


Isaacs, B. (2012) Understanding the Montessori Approach in Brunton, P. and Thornton, L. (eds.) Early Years Education in Practice. Oxon: Routledge

Mooney, C, (2000) Theories of Childhood. St Paul, Minnesota: Redleaf Press

Wales: Department for Children, Education, Lifelong Learning and Skills, (2008) Framework for Children’s Learning for 3 to 7 year olds in Wales. Cardiff: Welsh Assembly Government. [Online]. Available at: http://wales.gov.uk/docs/dcells/publications/141111-framework-for-childrens-learning-for-3-to-7-year-olds-en.pdf (Accessed: 01/12/2014)