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She found she was able to bring certain of these children to a higher
level of development that enabled them to enter public schools and
successfully compete with normal children.
This led her to look more closely into the natural ways of development of
normal children. Her observations made her realize that the natural aptitude
of children and their potential for development were being overlooked and not
harnessed in a way that would bring the greatest benefit to their growth. She
delved deeply into how children learn how they build themselves from what
they find in their immediate environment. She had the intuition and insight
to recognize that a growing child has keen sensitivities and higher absorbent
mind. Those children take in impressions and learn patterns of behavior,
knowledge and skills through a series of personal experiences offered in the
environment around them, and that these are the first steps of learning in
their lives.
In 1906, she accepted the challenge to work with children in the San Lorenzo
district of Rome. It was here that she found the first "Casa dei
Bambini". Here is where the Montessori method of education was
developed. Every Exercise, every method, every piece of equipment Dr.
Montessori developed was based on what she observed children to do naturally,
by themselves, unassisted by adults. She summarized these experiments in her
first book titled, "The Discovery of the Child".
Dr. Maria Montessori began her career as an educator of children working with
a group of 50 children, 3 - 5 years old, on January 6, 1907 in the city of
Rome. She had at her disposal an untrained assistant, a room, a bit of
furniture and developmental materials to aid sense perception that she had
previously used when working with mentally handicapped children. Those
children who were older had to be encouraged before their interest was
aroused. Once enticed to use the material their attention was volatile. Dr.
Montessori was astonished to see that the little ones, however, were
intensively attracted by the materials, working spontaneously and repeated
with them in total concentration.
Being a scientist, Dr. Montessori observed and responded to this phenomenon of
spontaneous work generated by the apparatus. Little by little, she created a
highly specialized form of materials, which to the children afforded a
source of profound satisfaction. In addition, she provided an environment
suited to and respectful of children's inherent characteristics, "the
prepared environment
Out of this experimental foundation, the Montessori Methods of Education
evolved. Observing the quality of interaction between the children and their
environment, and the choice and rejection of materials placed at the
children's disposal, Dr. Montessori formulated a comprehensive science of
human life in all its aspects and manifestations.
The present range of Montessori materials has in effect been selected by the
children of the world in response to their inner directives. A common
misconception holds these materials to be teaching aids, tools that will help
teachers convey those matters, which adults believe children must learn.
Their function is, however, of far greatest scope. Adults can teach children
a limited amount of facts. The knowledge children can acquire if they are
free to follow their inner dictates is unlimited. The Montessori Educational
Apparatus is self directed in that it provides the children with motives of
purposeful activity perfectly adopted to each stage of their development.
In order for the children to derive optimum benefit from the use of the
materials, certain conditions are absolutely necessary. The first and the
foremost of their conditions is that the adults in charge of a Montessori
environment must be well versed in Montessori pedagogy and have a thorough
knowledge of the materials, their use, their possibilities and their scope.
Equally important is that the materials shall be complete, clean and in
perfect condition. A premises that makes this possible is that they be
constructed of high quality prime materials for maximum durability and built
to precise specifications. These requirements appear rigid and arbitrary
until it is understood that it is precisely their inherent order and
exactness, which so intensively attracts the children.
Dr. Maria
Montessori died in Noordwijk, Holland, in 1952. Her invaluable work and discoveries
are still in practice today. There are numerous Montessori schools around the
world, each carrying on her profound methodology to help in the education of
young children.
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