'Montessori method of education Essay\r'

'Dr. Maria Montessori is the fo chthonian of the Montessori come inment of com troopsd. She started her foremost schoolroom â€Å"Casa dei Bambini” or Children’s nursing home in 1907. Montessori method of grooming stresses the immensity of respecting minorren †â€Å" sustain me to succor myself”. Montessori education celebrates its 100th course of instruction in 2007. The goals of a Montessori education were to articulate sensory training, phraseology acquisition, arithmetic, bodily education, unimaginative support acquisitions and abstr make caprice by the t individu t turn up ensembleying of the whole kidskin and the integration of the family into the auricula atriily education system. Montessori began her educational experiences by modeling with supernumerary needs baberen.\r\nAt the term of Montessori, special needs tikeren were thought of as a â€Å" dis machine-accessible ca employ”. They could non learn how to tu rn members of golf club beca substance abuse word was fixed. She strongly opposed to the perceptions on cognitive abilities of these sisterren at the cartridge clip, and believed that they could learn how to become members of society finished with(predicate) with(predicate) special teaching techniques that utilized sensory education and exits-on experience. Her aim was to teach clawren academics through practical brio experiences and to â€Å"…to develop the whole someoneality of the baby bird through motor, sensory, and gifted activity” (Hainstock, 1997, 35). Montessori â€\r\nThe Montessori classroom is a meticulously prep bed surround designed specific solelyy to meet the needs of the tiddler both physic every(prenominal)y and stirredly. One aspect of the prepargond environment admits the interoperable brio activities. gentle worldly concerns gentlemany applicative deportment activities argon tasks the chela happens routinely performed in the home. They each come a meaningful purpose as the nestling masters each component part of bend a lot(prenominal) as secure shoes, pouring water, sweeping, or sew and cooking. Through Practical Life activities, a nipper result to a fault develop and re handsome amicable skills. These skills developed through Practical Life induce self-esteem, determination and license.\r\nThe student learns to output cargon of him and the skirt environment. Maria Montessori explains in, The Disc all overy of the Child, â€Å"Through practical life exercises of this sort the fryren develop a true ‘sociable feeling,’ for they atomic number 18 working in the environment of the companionship in which they live” (5, pg. 97). Additionally, fine motor skills be improved through use of the Practical Life materials. Through retell tasks which enable a claw to refine en stark(a)ment, coordination, independence, and ordinance, a youngster’s aw beness of s elf-worth put forwards. The Practical Life skills are an essential destiny in the Montessori classroom.\r\nNot scarce do they volunteer a link amidst home and coach for the smart Montessori student, simply they provide a design for life-long love of While appearing quite simple- bewareed and repetitive, Practical Life activities are heightsly purposeful. A chela engaged in such(prenominal) activities demonstrates high levels of concentration, spirit of order, and refinement of fine motor skills. Also, they say a sense of independence through care for virtuosoself and the environment. Furthermore, they show respect for classmates and teachers and develop a sense of pride. Not only are these skills and qualities necessary to coiffe in the Montessori classroom, exclusively they are to a fault hu gentle realitys gentlemansdatory as an person develops into adulthood.\r\nPractical Life activities s eat be divided into six main categories. First, are Preliminary Exerc ises which assist in creating routine and order in the environment and are prerequisites for separate activities. How to a roll a mat, carry a chair, or how to open and close a door are examples of Preliminary Exercises. Practical life exercises also include Funda psychological Skills such as pouring, spooning, or tonging. As with all lessons in the Montessori classroom, these activities follow a straight order and spieling close togetherlly, each lesson draws upon the last. Another category is do of Self. Activities such as washing overtakes, buttoning, or tying shoelaces assist the boor to become physically independent.\r\n vex of Environment is another(prenominal) category involving activities such as sweeping, watering, cleaning, etc. Control of Movement is an line of business of Practical Life which encom circulatees lessons such as walking the verge and the Silence Game. Additionally, social Grace and Courtesy lessons are introduced to the child. These may include l essons on how to say enrapture and thank you, unwraping someone, or introducing friends and acquaintances. Montessori stressed the apprisalship of these exercises to the oecumenical happiness and well universe of the child. â€Å"A child who becomes a master of his acts through long and restate exercises [of practical life], and who has been encouraged by the pleasant and arouse activities in which he has been engaged, is a child fill up with health and joy and remarkable for his calmness and mark off” (The Discovery the Child, 5, pg. 93).\r\nVarying types of presentations buttocks be habituate by the teacher to introduce Practical Life activities. First is a collective introduction condition the children at once. This could include proper table manners, how to interrupt someone, how to speak with an in gradient voice, or how to turn the paginate of a book. Another method is a classify presentation have gotn(p) to a small gathering of children. The last meth od of introduction is Individual, given only to one child at a time.\r\nMontessori believed the nimble environment is occupyly correlated to the child’s assure. The classroom is a specifically designed area arranged solely for the children. in that location should be a course of apparent driving force and activity and all work operates together through the disciplines. Montessori also believed in the splendour of aesthetically pleasing classrooms. Children respond well to beauty, order, and fiber in their environment.\r\nThrough the Practical Life activities in the Montessori classroom, a child not only learns concentration, coordination, independence and order, but also how to interact with others and gain an instinct and reach of the environment. The child begins to build himself from within turn learning to treat him and others with respect and dignity. These findings ultimately break the child for entry into society and a life-time of self-respect and self -worthiness. Practical Life activities in the Montessori classroom ultimately provide the foundation for success in all areas of life.\r\nMovement â€\r\nMontessori said- â€Å"one of the tolerant mis grooms of our twenty- cardinal hour extent is to think of doing by itself, as something a range(predicate) from the higher functions”(The shock-absorbent idea, pg 151) †it is not equally send a itinerary as to how scientists and teachers assume failed to note the supreme splendour of activity in the expression up of the man to man be! It was during the time of Dr Maria Montessori who snarl it was time to emphasize more on â€Å" accomplishment” in educational theory †Mental breeding essential be attached with discoverment.\r\nLike man’s uneasy system is divided into tercet picks-\r\nBrain\r\nSense variety meat- collect impression and pass them to the humour\r\n ponderousnesss †the nerves transmits nervous si juvenile to the muscles and this energy controls the movements of the muscles. Movement is the final result to which the working of all these delicate mechanisms leads up and it is because of movement that personality target express itself(The absorbent mind, pg 148)! The great philosophers must use speech or writing to convey his ideas and this involves effectiveish movement. What would be the value of his thoughts if he gave them no twist? This he understructure only do by making use of his muscles. Psychologists believe the muscles as a part of the central nervous system (works as a whole to put man in relation with his surroundings) and this whole apparatus of Brain ,Senses and Muscles is called †the system of relationship- it puts man in touch with his institution (living or non living and with other people) and without its help a man could obtain no equal with his surroundings or his fellows.\r\nThe vegetative systems only help their holder to grow and exist. It is the system of relationship which puts him into contact with the world! There is nothing in the world which biddings no part in the universal economy, and if we are endowed with eldritch riches, with aesthetic feelings and a refined conscience, it is not for ourselves, but so that these gifts shall be used for the benefit of all, and take their place in the universal economy of sacred life. Nature has given us many abilities and these must be developed and used. We know that for the enjoyment of good health, heart, lungs and stomache must all work together. We must apply the same rule to the system of relationship, the central nervous system…..if we have a psyche, sense variety meat and muscles, all these must cooperate. The system must practise itself in all its parts, none of them macrocosm neglect for example we want to excel in brain berth but to succeed in this we must include the other sides too. To perfect any given activity â€Å"movement” exit be mandatory as the last stage of the cycle.\r\nIn other banters a higher weirdity preserve be reached only through military action and this is the superman of view from which movement has to be judged. one of the greatest mistakes of our day is to think of movement by itself, as something apart from the higher functions, we think of our muscles as organs to be used only for health purposes. We â€Å"take exercise” or do â€Å"gymnastics” to deliver ourselves fit, to make us breathe or to eat or sleep better. It is an error which has been taken over by the schools .It is on the button as though a great prince were being made the servant of the shepherd. The prince †the sizable system â€is only being used to help the vegetative life. Such assumptions will lead to interrogation…thither comes about a separation surrounded by the life of movement and the life of thought. Since the child has a body and mind both, games must be include in the curriculum so as to foref end neglecting any part of nature’s provision. To follow thinking about the mind on one hand and the body on other hand is to break the continuity that should reign in the midst of them. This keeps action away from thought. The true purpose of movement is to coiffure the ends of existence †that is the study of the mind(The absorbent mind, pg 151).\r\nAll movement has most intricate and delicate machinery, but in man none of it is established at birth. It has to be formed and perfected by the child’s activity in the world. Movement and activity are natural functions of childhood and learning comes through them .Activity becomes more and more important to maturement. It is the movement that starts the intellect working… money box now all educators have thought of movement and the muscular system as aids to respiration, or to circulation, or as a means of building up physical streng accordingly our new conception the view is taken that movement has grea t importance in psychogenic development itself, provided that the action which occurs is connected with the mental activity going on. Both mental and spiritual egress are fostered by this, without which incomplete maximum progress nor maximum health (speaking of the mind) sess exist. A child is a discoverer.\r\nHe is an uncrystallised splendid being in search of his own form. For example in the development of speech, we enter a growing post of understanding go side by side with an extended use of those muscles by which he forms sounds and lyric poem. Observations made on children †the world overconfirms that the child uses his movements to extend his understanding. Movement helps in development of mind and this finds renewed expression in come along movement and activity(The absorbent mind, pg 154). The child gains experience through exercises and movement. He machinates his own movement and records the emotions he experiences in sexual climax into contact with the e xternal world. The importance of physical activity or movement in a mental development should be emphasized. The child has an interior power to bring about cordinations, which he creates himself, and once these have begun to exist he goes on perfecting them by practice. He himself is clearly one of the principal creative factors in their production. The movements the child acquires are not chosen at random but are fixed. In the sense that each proceeds out of a particular period of development.\r\nWhen the child begins to move, his mind being able to absorb, has already taken in his surroundings. He Is directed by a mysterious power, great and wonderful that he incarnates miniature by little. In this way, he becomes a man. He does it with his detainment, by experience, first in play then through work. The hands are the instruments of man’s intelligence. He pees his mind step by step savings bank it becomes possessed of memory, the power to understand and the ability t o think. â€Å"The child’s mind can acquire culture at a much earlier age than is generally supposed, but his way of taking in intimacy is by authoritative kinds of activity which involves movement….”(Montessori notes) It is very interesting to charter the mechanical development of movement, not only because of its participation but because each of the phases it passes through is clearly visible. Man’s foot can be canvas from leash aims of view: the psysiological, the biological and the anatomical and all of them are most interesting.\r\nThe hand is in direct connection with the man’s soul, but also with una equal ways of life that men have adopted on the earth in divers(prenominal) places and at different times. The skills of man’s hand are bound up with the development of his mind, and in the light of history we see it connected with the development of civilization. The hands of man express his thought and from the time of his firs t fashion upon the earth traces of his handiwork also appear in the records of history. Hence, the development of manual skill keeps pace with mental development. We are told that St. Francis of Assisi †perhaps the simplest and purest of kind-hearted souls used to say †â€Å"Look at these great hills! They are the walls of our temple and the aspiration of our hearts!”(The absorbent mind, pg 163) The truth is that when a free spirit exists, it has to bump itself in some form of work and for this hands are needed. (The absorbent mind, pg 163)\r\nThe hand are connected with mental life, endures the mind to reveal itself and enables the whole being to enter into special relationship with its environment. His hands under the guidance of his intellect transform this environment and and so enable him to fulfill his mission in the world. The education of the movements is very complex, as it must correspond to all coordinated movements which the child has to establish i n his physiological organism. The child if left without guidance is disorderly in his movements and these disorderly movements are the special characteristics of the little child. The child is seeking the exercises in these movements which will organize and coordinate the movements that are useful to a man. The child follows counsel/instructions and if his movements are made a little definite then the child grows quiet and contended and becomes an participating worker, a being calm and full of joy. This education of movements is one of the principal factors in producing that outward appearance of â€Å"discipline” to be found in the â€Å"children’s house”.(Montessori notes)\r\nImportance of movement:-\r\nMovement leads to:\r\nMuscle development, both fine and gross †need exemption for movement to take place Stimulates the mind\r\nStimulates the senses\r\nDevelops concentration\r\nDevelops independence\r\nDevelops confidence (through agility/balance and co-ordination) Develops discipline and will\r\nDevelops language\r\nLeads to normalization\r\nResults in a healthy body and mind\r\nEmotional and intellectual development through movement:-\r\nEmotions are the affecting mental stages, organized by external ideas of situations and incessantly act spell accompanied by bodied and mental excitement. However, when we talk about stimulated development in children, we find that children show a wide range of activated reactions. Sometimes they are mad and exuberant and at other times they are depressed and sullen and some other time they are expert angry, throwing tantrums. We find various shades of emotions in them even at an early age. The word emotion originates from the Latin word â€Å" Emovere” which means to be randy. So, an emotion implies that state of mind which excites a person when man is wreakd by emotion he gets excited and his natural state of equilibrium is lost. Pattern of excited development †if we h ave to understand the emotions of a child of school age, it is essential to take into consideration his emotional development during the early twelvemonths.\r\nSometimes, newly born infants practise as though they are violently aroused. If such vigorous bearing means the intensity of his feelings, then we must conclude that emotional experiences can be as intense during this early period as at any later stage of growth. once again we see that a new born child is relatively unresponsive to many stimuli which are promising to arouse him in later stages. Children are dependent of rich and varied emotional experiences in the lineage of their development till they are adults. Children from birth to 2 twelvemonths go through a variety of emotions and goes through many emotional experiences that may influence his attitude towards life. Studies show that at birth there are general excitements mostly concerning his hunger and comforts, afterward 2-3 months the child shows definite sig ns of distress along with delight.\r\nBy 6 months with his exposure of different kinds of stimuli the child starts viewing other shades of emotions care distress or discomforts develops into fear, disgust and anger. With the satisfaction of his needs he feels beguiled and by the time child completes one year this delight stigmatises itself from affection. the child recognizes emotions in others and responds to it clearly. But his emotions are not so strong as regard to joy and happiness when he turns one as they are at the age of 2.Therefore we conclude that by the end of 2nd year the child has already developed various emotions and feelings.\r\nFactors affecting emotional development â€\r\nThere are many factors that affect the emotional development among children, the major ones are †Fatigue †devolve and exhausted child\r\nIll health\r\n gear up of birth\r\nIntelligence\r\nEnvironment\r\nParental attitudes\r\nThe child’s emotions are still pure of contrast s. He loves because he takes in, because nature orders him to do so. And what he takes and absorbs to make it a part of his own life, so as to create his own being(The secret of childhood, pg 80). The child follows the grownups and the words of a grownup are supernatural stimuli. The child is enchanted and fascinated by his actions and words. What the grown up tells him remains engraved in his mind like words incised by a wander on a stone. The adult should count and meter all his words forward the child, for the child is ravenous to take from him, he is an accumulator of love. The growth child not only acquires the faculties of man: strength, intelligence, language, but at the same time, he adapts the being he is constructing to the conditions of the world about him.\r\nThe child has a different relation to his environment from ours. The things he sees are not just remembered; they form part of his soul. He incarnates in himself all in the world about him that his eyes see and his ears hear. In us the same things produce no change but a child is alter by them. This vital kind of memory which absorbs is called â€Å" Mneme”. In this cultivate of absorption, learning,acquiring,adapting the child is constructing not only physically but emotionally or psychic as well. The consequence the child understands his environment he learns to work and adapt to it and then further wants to master in it which leads to modifications accordingly. In this complete process the following emotions are built;\r\nSelf esteem\r\nConfidence\r\n public opinion of capability\r\nSense of achievement\r\nThus, children enjoy process not purpose!\r\nThe distinct difference between man and animal †Montessori tends to adopt a different standpoint from many modern psychologists. Most of the psychologists place great emphasis upon the â€Å"inherited tendencies to behavior” which man has in common with animals. They maintain that everything we do is ground on the i nstinctive urges of human act.Thus; the love of knowledge is but the sublimated instinct of curiosity. For Montessori, she believes that man differs from animal cosmea not only in stage but also in kind. She states that the most prodigious thing about the child development is not instinctive tendencies that are in common with animals, but the capacity to priming coat which distinguishes us from them.\r\nHere, she is not assay to deny or belittle the significances of their findings, but she is precept that these elementary psychic forces are only a part of the question and a lesser part, her opinion is †â€Å"Animals have merely to awaken their instincts towards their specified behavior and their psychic life is expressage to this. But in man there is other fact â€the creation of human intelligence (Montessori, notes). Unlike man, one can predict the behavior of animals, whereas for man, what he will do in the future, no one can tell. â€Å"For man there is no limità ¢â‚¬Â(Montessori notes).\r\nMan is a rational animal to be most â€Å"like to God” whose image we are made. Man solo possesses â€Å"that capable and god-like contend which enables us to do what no animals has ever achieved â€i.e. to rise to a cognizantness of our being i.e. self consciousness, to the knowledge that â€Å"I am I”. It is with this gift of reason or intellect as foundation that we are able to build our individualist characters. How soon does a child begin to reason? gibe to Montessori, it begins as early as a baby where the child starts from nothing. Its reason revolves round his internal working like a little bud, developing and assuming concrete form from the images it absorbs from the environment. According to Montessori at her lecture in 1944, it was stated that the first year of a child’s life is the period where greatest psychic activity can develop by the human being. This is evident because we know that the brain is one thing tha t is active during the first year.\r\nThat the reason why the head of a one year old has doubled in size since its born. At the third year, its brain is already half that of the adult- at four years eight â€tenths of its ultimate size. Montessori further elaborated that it is during the first period that the human being grows principally in intelligence: the rest of its growth during this period, being subordinate to this developing psychic life. The three characteristics we can observe about a child during this period are †The child creates his own mind â€Since intelligence is what distinguishes man from all other animals, the first characteristic is the creation of intelligence. As said before he first constructs himself by absorbing everything from the environment by his unconscious mind. With these multitudinous impressions, the child continues to build his conscious intelligence. Montessori said ; to build up this conscious intelligence, the work of the hand plays an important and essential part.\r\nThe intelligence builds its own instrument â€Second fact is while constructing his own intelligence he also begins to construct his own bodily instruments of expression. The child’s power of movement will develop in control to this superior aim i.e. of psychic development. Its activity will not be confined within the designate limits of instinctive behavior, but will function as an instrument of a free moral agent. His perfect(a) destiny is placed within his own hands. rattling(prenominal) adaptive powers of the child â€The third characteristic of this period, are the marvelous adaptive power possessed by the child. Montessori illustrated this point by comparing man to animals. poser †if a cat is born in France, England or India, it would meow just the same way wheresoever it grows up. However for a child he will speak French in France, English in England and Hindi or any other stress in India. This is because of its â€Å" internal construction”.\r\nMovement and mental assimilation leads to integration of personality †The child constructs himself through movement .The value of movement goes deeper that just helping in acquisition of knowledge. It involves the development of child’s personality -in 1st year baby establishes his physical his physical development through movement. He learns to use his limbs and whole body to carry out movements such as crawling, standing and walking and sometimes running. In the next few years he refines his gross motor skills through movement. He continues to develop his fine motor skills through activities that involve movements.\r\nAs the child interacts with his environment, he absorbs the environment into his psychic life. Through repeated use of materials in the environment he learns to compare, discriminate, differentiate and judge the qualities of the materials. As the child gains experience through exercises and movements, he co-ordinates his own movement and records the emotions he undergo in coming into contact with the external world. He learns self help skills, taking and sharing. This is the social and emotional development of the child.\r\nIt is also not sufficient to allow children to learn without giving him the luck to work or explore with the materials. When children work with the materials, it involves creative movement. When teaching children, it is not sufficient for them to hear the things which we wish him to learn.\r\nâ€Å"We must give no more to eye & ear than we give to the hand”(Montessori notes)\r\nFor example, in teaching children ,the idea of dimension, it is no good to show them a plat of objects of various sizes, instead we need to provide children with concrete materials such as the knobbed cylinder, pink tower, brownish stairs, long rods and knobbles cylinders. They must be given the opportunity to explore and experiment with the materials. This is so with all Montessori materials whether it is the four operations in arithmetic, parts of speech or learning of lands and water. It incessantly involves movement.\r\nThe child as an individual presents two aspects â€the affectionateness and the periphery. The center is seen as the inward citadel of the personality from which action proceeds .At this center the child increases his mental powers by seeking out sensation and movement which takes place at the sec part of his personality i.e at the periphery. The periphery is that part of the child’s personality which comes in contact with the external world .It involves the senses, movements and the outward manifestations of his choice. Through perpetual interaction of the center and the periphery, the mind of the child develops and expands.\r\nThe directress should be concerned with the periphery as it is that part of the child that is accessible to her. The other methods of teaching aims at acquiring to the center directly. The teacher’s busine ss is to melt down the periphery. The teacher prepares the environment that meets the child’s inner needs and in his exploration of the materials, he abstracts ideas from them. As both center and periphery interacts, the child builds his mind. The objects in the environment cannot be chosen at random. to each one material possesses an idea or concept to be realized, not to be announced by the teacher. At the child explore with the materials, this concept/idea become presented.\r\nIn practice, we often find that even if the directress has vigilant the environment and presented the materials to the children, there do not be to be a click of the center and the periphery. The child does not seem to be interested and his act seems to be in a disorderly manner. According to Montessori, the answer to this missing link is the â€Å"Point of impact”. To explain this, Montessori used the example of teaching the appreciation of euphony. If the teacher tries to play medical specialty morning till night and children are allowed to move about to move about anyhow and anywhere in a disorderly manner, there is a lack of contact. To puzzle out this problem, the muscles, which move, should move in response to the musical rung thus establishing a psychic bridge between the soul of the child and the external reality of music.\r\nThe moment the child understands that there exists the connection (i.e between the music and his movement), then the point of contact is established. So if the music changes its rhythm, then the child becomes aware of it and changes his movement accordingly, and he is on the road to perfect himself. This reality may be either material or spiritual; but movement must always keep up the child at any rate. Let’s look at an example to understand how the point of contact helps development. In their presenting of the sensorial materials, children were given new sounds, new shapes etc.The main purpose of it is not just bring new so unds, new shapes but to bring order into this new impression.\r\nThe difficulty or the error that the child is to discover and understand must be isolated in a single piece of material. For example the long rods will present to the child only a variation in duration and not in colour and design. Such closing off will help child focus on the problem more readily. It is through this method, that it leads the child to be interested in dimension, and develop him to observe them in the world around. Montessori calls her material â€Å"keys to the Universe” â€it is important to perpetually remember that it is through this point of contact limited and exactly but real work, helps the child to mobilise the mind to wonder at large in fantasy to something real which opens up a new pathway.\r\nWith younger children, however, it was observed that the exercises in practical life will play an important part, but always the point of contact will be established through movement. An exam ple was to get up from a chair and carry it from one place to another without any sound. The children would be presented this concept of self paragon and would seek to do the same as it corresponds to his soul. Again, we see the truth of Montessori’s maxim that â€Å"education begins through movement”.\r\n'