THE MONTESSORI SYSTEM OF EDUCATION is a world recognised pedagogical conception with a long tradition. It is wide spread in Italy, the Netherlands, Great Britain, Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, Germany and the United States of America - in preschools and elementary schools. The MONTESSORI SYSTEM differs conceptually from traditional system of education and incorporates a unique approach to a child and its needs and mutual unity of preschool and school facilities.
MARIA MONTESSORI (1870 - 1952) was the first female doctor in Italy. Moreover, she studied psychology, philosophy and anthropology. At the turn of the century this was considered to be a great success. Dr. Montessori built up her method through empirical observation of children. Modern scientists are now, nearly a century after, defining scientific facts which confirm her achievements and ideas. The books she wrote, materials she created and her ideas significantly influenced the development of pedagogy throughout the whole world. The Montessori system is based on the philosophy of child's development according to which an individual acquires operative knowledge in the areas of life in which they would take part as adults. Child's need for freedom within limits is respected, altogether incorporated with carefully prepared environment and child's psychophysical abilities inducement. It is conceived in order to use utterly the advantages of self-motivation and the unique child's ability of self-development and self-improvement. Child learns self-discipline and principles of democracy by realising that by respecting other people and their rights one gets the same respect back.
THE MONTESSORI METHOD is, basically, a unique approach to the technique of learning. The emphasis is not on teaching a child, but to ensure a stimulating environment which would increase child's natural interest and enable a child to learn spontaneously through discovering. The Montessori method entirely respects child's individuality and takes its roots from it. The age varies within the groups of children. Younger children learn from the older ones and the latter improve their knowledge by helping the younger ones. Each child sets up its own work pace by discovering new ideas or revising what they have already learned by repeating the exercises. This gives them a strong inner feeling of success.
THE MONTESSORI ENVIRONMENT - child's living room in day nursery or school classroom is designed to measure a child. Didactic materials and activities are carefully selected and positioned in opened shelves in order to stimulate independent research abilities in a child. This way, children learn naturally and independently. The Montessori motto of pedagogy is "Help me to do it by myself". This conception of work, together with respecting each of the child's individuality, provides great results in the development of child's abilities. Montessori is the way for children to use and develop their potentials to the fullest. This way the stronger improve their knowledge and the weaker get stronger. Habits, skills and knowledge a child gains in the Montessori environment will help it to work more effectively, observe more carefully, concentrate more efficiently and to cope easier with new situations regardless of environment.
MONTESSORI is more than just a method. It is a way of life with a goal, which is: TO ACHIEVE PEACE, DEVELOP SELF-AWARENESS, SELF-RESPECT, RESPECT FOR OTHERS AND ENVIRONMENT AND TO VALUE DIFFERENCES AMONG PEOPLE.
THE MONTESSORI PROGRAMME is verified by the Ministry of Science, Education and Sports.
The Montessori method is an indirect working method because it is not imposed on a child as a direct teaching. Strong emphasis is on the individual system of work in the Montessori system. The groups are of mixed age, 3-6-year-olds in preschool groups and 6-9 and 9-12-year-olds in school groups. Younger children learn from the older children and the older ones improve their knowledge by helping the young ones. Children set up their own work pace and revise what they learnt by repeating the exercises altogether with a significant inner feeling of success. When the children develop their feeling of pride, due to their own achievements, one can notice the significant increase of self-confidence, the feeling of trust, benevolence and joy. A new child is born. It is a feast for eyes to watch a Montessori group of children.
MONTESSORI PROGRAMME:
TRADICIONAL KINDERGARTEN:
By this work conception, each child has the opportunity to develop its potentials to the fullest and to become an independent, self-reliant and confident person. The habits, skills and knowledge acquired in the Montessori environment enable a child to work more effectively, observe more watchfully, concentrate more successfully and to cope with new situations more easily regardless of environment.
She was born on 31 August 1870 in the Italian town of Chiaravalle (the province of Ancona). Her mother came from a well-known Italian family of educated people and her father was a financial adviser of conservative beliefs and upbringing. Due to her father's job they had to move frequently and finally decided to move to Rome. During her schooling Maria showed inclination towards natural sciences and in spite of her parents' expectations that she would go to girls' collegiate school for teachers, which at the time was considered to be the only suitable profession for women, she began to attend a boys' technical school. After this she studied mathematics, physics and natural sciences.
Interested in biology she decided to study medicine. Still, being the only woman who applied for the medical studies, at the time, her application for admission to the medical studies stirred many controversies. Nonetheless, they a accepted her application and in 1896 she completed her studies as one of the best from her generation. At the same time she was the first female student to graduate in medicine at the University of Rome.
In 1897 she became a voluntary assistant at a psychiatric clinic. There, she met a group of mentally challenged children that didn't have a proper treatment. Interested in the issue, she started to study the works of Jean Itard and Edouard Seguin.
Jean-Marc-Gaspard Itard (1775-1838), French doctor and teacher of deaf mutes, worked at the Institute for deaf mutes. Itard thought that the children with developmental difficulties could be helped by systematic observation and suitable upbringing methods. Each sense can be developed by systematic treatments. Some of the abilities, among mentally challenged children, can be developed to such extent that the children could perform certain basic life needs by themselves.
Edouard Seguina (1812-1880) was a student of Itard. He devised and developed special methods and exercises for such children ( for instance, exercises of matching particular geometric figures in a set environment). Maria was excited over the Seguin's working method and this encouraged her to create new didactic materials by herself on the basis of her personal experience and knowledge.
Works of Rosseau, Pestolazzi and Froebel had impact on her professional development, as well.
Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) considered the key of success to be in each child individually and the stimulation of all of the child's senses was the basis of the teaching process.
In 1837 Friedrich Froebel opened his children's house and was the first to use working materials and toys. The goal of Froebel's didactic equipment was to stimulate child's self-creativity and to bring around the learning process which, according to Froebel, developed through specified stages.
What all these authors mentioned above have in common is the emphasise on child's natural potential and its abilities. Child will develop to its natural maximum by proper guiding and directing of the given potential . Maria Montessori accepted these premises as fundamental in her pedagogical activities.
Working with mentally challenged children reinforced Maria's belief that the problems are more of pedagogic than medical nature. She supported this idea at the Congress in Turin. Maria was elected a lecturer at the seminar for training teachers working with mentally challenged children and she was a member of the "National League for the Education of Mentally Challenged Children". In 1900, she was elected a directress of an institute where teachers were trained to work with mentally challenged children. At the same time, another experimental school was incorporated to the given institute where Maria, together with twenty more students, was given the opportunity to implement her knowledge and experience and to create a new set of didactic material for the purposes of sense development which the teachers would apply in their work.
In January 1907, Maria was given the opportunity to work with intellectually healthy children and opened the "Casa dei bambini" in a private house in the poor San Lorenzo district of Rome. The owners of a construction company were building apartments for working families with both parents employed in this district. In order not to leave the children on their own, the owners of the company (hoping to come off financially better) opened a children's house supervised by Maria. Not only did she have the children off the streets but also she got them to be diligent pupils. At that point, Maria used the opportunity and for the first time she implemented some of her methods with normal children. She took care about acquisition of the necessary game and teaching materials and about their improvement. She arranged the rooms and equipped in such manner so that the children were stimulated to train all of their senses and their movement was facilitated. The children were allowed to choose freely their activities and materials. All the materials were created to have self-correction incorporated, in other words, at the end of the learning process, a child could, by examining the materials, identify whether or not it managed to complete the task successfully. Maria Montessori noticed that the children were on their own initiative beginning to take materials and to look for equipment and even repeating one single action (for instance cleaning their shoes). She noticed, as well, that after successfully solved problem with a certain material, they would, for a longer period of time, continue to work with the same and to go through the learning process all over again. Concerning the success achieved, educated mothers insisted on introducing reading and learning activities in the curriculum of the "children's school". It was the beginning of programmed teaching. Materials were created in such manner that the children had to master the easier level first in order to go to the more difficult one. The role of the child-care worker was to monitor a child and in case of child's unsuccessful attempt to resolve the problem, the child-care worker was here to offer the child a less difficult material.
Soon, "Casa dei Bambini" became well known and numerous people who were interested in it started to visit. New children's houses were founded in Rome, Milan and later in England, Australia and America.
In 1909, she published a book called "Il metodo" which was soon to be translated into some twenty languages. Same year, she started to teach two groups of 6-8 years old where she researched the possibility of implementing the already created didactic material, in combination with her own methods of upbringing and educating, among school population as well.
In 1909, Maria organised the first training courses for teachers and the other interested where she explained her ideas and exhibited her materials. All this was followed by numerous seminars, lectures, writing correspondence and travels.
In 1912, the first American Montessori Society was established and numerous private Montessori schools were established throughout Europe and the USA. In 1913, she organised the first international course for teachers in Rome with 87 participants from all over the world. Next year, her book "Dr. Montessori" together with "Own Handbook" was published in English where she explained how to create and use her didactic materials. Her later works were published in "The discovery of the child" (1964), "Creative child" (1972), and "From childhood to adolescence" (1966).
From 1914 till 1935, dr. Montessori was giving lectures and courses in England, Spain, Australia, the USA, and the Netherlands. She continued to work actively even during the World War I, and in 1929, together with her son Mario, established "Association Montessori International" where, today as well, experts are exchanged and teachers and child-care workers are educated and trained.
During the World War II Maria Montessori, due to her antifascist orientation and her commitment to an individual approach to upbringing, was politically unsuitable so she fled from Italy to Barcelona where, shortly after, a civil war broke out and she went to the Netherlands. In spite of her advanced age, dr. Montessori went to India where she stayed until the final breakdown of the Nazi regime in Italy.
She established the Montessori teachers training centre in India. The brutal reality of war influenced Maria Montessori to think of the method of reaching predispositions to a lasting peace in the world through upbringing and education. She analysed basic problems of humanity and society in search for the technique of reconstruction of mankind society and educational system which would ensure peace on the basis of reforms in the morality of society. Her ideas, of that period, were integrated in her book "The absorbent mind".
In 1946, she returned to the Netherlands and in 1947 went to Italy invited on behalf of the government which asked her to restore her campaign. Shortly after, she visited India and Pakistan for the last time. Because of her merits in the field of upbringing and education Maria Montessori was nominated three times for the Nobel Peace Prize. She died in Noordwijk near Amsterdam, on 6 May 1952 at the age of 82.
The epigraph on her tombstone is a reflection of her life endeavours:
"I beg the dear all-powerful children
to unite with me
for the building of peace
in Man and the World".
Novi Vinodolski, Croatia 18 - 21 June 2008
Keynote speakers: Dr.Sheryl M. Sweet, Marianne Bivins M.Ed, Dr. Daniel Jutras, Mr.Valerija Majsec Vrbanić, Sandra Pokos, Davorka Crnković, Katica Kuljašević, Patrizzia Cocchini, Valerija Majsec Vrbanić. Promotions of books and montessori accessories. Island cruise.
The Montessori system is based on the philosophy of child's development according to which an individual acquires operative knowledge in the areas of life in which they would take part as adults. Maria Montessori(1870 - 1952) was the first female doctor in Italy.
