Montessori Philosophy

The Montessori method is an educational method started in 1907, by Dr. Maria Montessori, the first Italian woman to become a physician.

By observing children, Maria Montessori developed a scientific method of education corresponding to children’s development from birth to adulthood. The ultimate aim of this new education was to release the potential of each human being. The word “release” echoes with the original meaning of the word education, which is “to lead out”, “to bring forth.” For Maria Montessori understood education as an aid to life, meaning a help to the holistic development of each individual.
Maria Montessori recognized that it is the child who creates the adult he or she is to become and not the contrary. From the moment of birth,infants, guided by a mysterious life force she termed Horme, are hard at work, constructing the adult they are to be. The child is in a process of self-realization, characterized by “a continual state of growth and metamorphosis.” Montessori used the word metamorphosis as she observed that development occurs in stages and that children pass through four distinctive physical and psychological stages before they reach adulthood. She called these stages Planes of Development.
The Montessori method answers the developmental needs (physical, emotional, social, intellectual, moral and spiritual) of these four stages. It provides children with a flow experience based on their developmental continuum. Montessori wrote that, “The successive levels of education must conform to the successive personalities of the child.”

How can one teach children if it is the children who teach themselves?

Montessori observed that children learn through direct experiences with their environment. Their interactions with their surrounding is guided by special learning instincts she called human tendencies. Human tendencies manifest themselves differently throughout life. They are exploration, orientation, communication, work, manipulation, order, exactness, repetition, abstraction and self-perfection.
Since children construct themselves through hands-on activity with their surrounding, Montessori designed an optimal learning environment –the prepared environment- for each of the four planes. The prepared environment meets the development needs of the child. It allows maximum independent learning and exploration. Each child can progress at his or her own pace, while interacting collaboratively with the other children. The prepared environment allows children to experience freedom within limits and independence.
The teacher’s role is to prepare a suited learning environment for the children under his or her care, and to alter it to facilitate individual learning according to their observations of the children. Montessori recognized that while all children go through the same developmental milestones and have universal growth patterns, each child is unique and the environment must be individualized to create the best learning environment for each of them and to allow each child to bring forth his or her unique potential.