What is Montessori?
The Montessori Method is an educational approach conceived and developed by Dr. Maria Montessori, an Italian physician and educator, whose profound interest and study in children’s development led to the creation of this revolutionary learning methodology.
Maria Montessori promotes the importance of children learning through the use of all their senses while allowing them to progress according to their individual learning abilities. With the proper guidance of trained teachers and the empowerment to independently pick their activities of choice, it is her strong belief that children have an innate ability to develop motivation, self-discipline, focus, and a passion for learning.
Education is life
Maria Montessori
The classrooms are set up in an open eclectic style, with work areas throughout the rooms and materials openly displayed and available on accessible shelving. Lessons are given to individual children and small groups or tandems. Eventually, children begin to work independently in the classroom. Stories, things of nature, treasures from the wealth of cultures around the world, traditional Montessori materials and sometimes, conventional tools are all utilized to teach the children. We incorporate materials and activities that reflect our activities of daily living e.g. food preparation, environmental care (sweeping, washing dishes, flower arranging), and care of self as well as others. The children learn through self-directed activities guided by the teacher. The Montessori curriculum is broader based than that found in a more traditional setting.
Who was Maria Montessori?
Dr. Maria Montessori, born in 1870, was the first woman in Italy to receive a medical degree. Her work in the areas of psychiatry, biology, and anthropology led to her careful and extensive observation and study of children’s learning styles and abilities. Through the years, her work with children all over the world brought her to a profound understanding of the development of children and how they learn. Maria Montessori found that all children are born with a unique potential to be revealed, but such potential comes to fruition through their environment and how the children are encouraged to interact with that environment. She promotes genuine respect for children and all within the environment by allowing freedom with limits. Maria’s work gave birth to the Montessori Method, the foundation of the opening of the first “Children’s House” in 1907 in Rome. Maria never intended to make teaching her profession, yet her teaching method revolutionized education and the way in which the world viewed the education of children. She believed educating the whole child as “hope” for the future. Mosaic Montessori embraces Maria Montessori’s philosophy of educating the whole child and the belief that children develop themselves through their interaction with the environment.
