Montessori Philosophy

Montessori education provides a rich and stimulating child centered learning community, which encourages the child to interact with peers, the materials, and adults in positive and meaningful ways. Each classroom environment contains a set of age appropriate materials designed to attract the child’s interest and attention. Everything is child sized permitting successful exploration and movement. Our curriculum provides the means to enable the young child to develop independence, coordination, order and self-discipline.

The Montessori classroom is made up of children of mixed ages with three, four and five-year-olds all sharing the same classroom. Much indirect learning occurs in these multi-age classrooms. Younger children have role models, and the older children have opportunities to develop their potential for leadership and social responsibility. This classroom environment becomes a thriving community where children are treated with dignity and respect therefore learning to treat others with dignity and respect. Dr. Maria Montessori believed that young children must be in a community of others to develop their full potential. She advocated groupings of 25 to 30 children to form their children’s society. Montessori teachers are trained to prepare these special learning environments and to observe each child’s development signals that indicate readiness for learning.

Montessori children are unusually adaptable. They have learned to work independently and in groups. Since they've been encouraged to make decisions from an early age, these children are problem-solvers who can make appropriate choices and manage their time well. They have been encouraged to exchange ideas and discuss their work freely with others. Their good communication skills ease the way in new settings. Research has shown that the best predictor of future success is a positive sense of self-esteem. Montessori programs, based on self-directed, non-competitive activities, help children develop strong self-images and the confidence to face challenges and change with optimism.

Montessori education has stood the test of time. In the past 100 years Montessori schools have thrived all over the world. Maria Montessori’s discoveries and insights have been validated by recent research on how learning and development take place.

At the Montessori Children’s School of Key West we are proud of our continued implementation of the Montessori philosophy and curriculum.

“Adults work to finish a task, but the child works in order to grow and is working to create the adult, the person that is to be.” Maria Montessori

About Dr. Maria Montessori

Dr. Maria Montessori
Born August 31, 1870, died May 6, 1952

Maria Montessori was born in 1870 in Chiaravalle, Italy. By the age of thirteen, she had set her hopes on becoming an engineer and began attending an all-boy technical school. She later went on to study at the University of Rome La Sapienza Medical School and became the first female doctor in Italy. She was a member of the University's Psychiatric Clinic and was intrigued with trying to educate the special needs children in Rome. Because of her success with these children, she was asked to start a center for children in a poor housing project in Rome, which opened on January 6, 1907. She called it Casa dei Bambini or Children's House. There she focused on teaching the students ways to develop their own skills at a pace they set, a principle Montessori called "spontaneous self-development" or auto-education.

“When dealing with children there is greater need for observing than of probing.”

She put many different activities and other materials into the children’s environment, but kept only those that engaged them. What Montessori came to realize was that children who were placed in an environment where activities were designed to support their natural development had the power to educate themselves.

“The greatest sign of success for a teacher... is to be able to say, "The children are now working as if I did not exist."

She used a wide variety of special equipment of increasing complexity to help direct the interests of the child and hasten development. When a child is ready to learn new and more difficult tasks, the teacher guides the child's first endeavors in order to avoid wasted effort and the learning of wrong habits; otherwise the child learns alone.

“The environment must be rich in motives which lend interest to activity and invite the child to conduct his own experiences.”

Dr. Montessori’s method of teaching seemed to enable the children to learn to read and write much more quickly and with greater ability than had otherwise been possible.

“I did not invent a method of education, I simply gave some little children a chance to live”.

Children in Casa dei Bambini made extraordinary progress and soon 5-year-olds were writing and reading. News of Montessori’s new approach spread rapidly, and visitors arrived to see for themselves how she was achieving such results.

“These words reveal the child's inner needs: 'Help me to do it alone.'”

In the summer of 1909, Dr. Montessori gave the first training course in her approach to around 100 students. Her notes from this period became her first book, published that same year in Italy, which appeared in translation in the United States in 1912 as The Montessori Method, reaching second place on the U.S. nonfiction bestseller list. Soon afterwards it was translated into 20 different languages. It has become a major influence in the field of education.

"We cannot know the consequences of suppressing a child's spontaneity when he is just beginning to be active. We may even suffocate life itself. That humanity which is revealed in all its intellectual splendor during the sweet and tender age of childhood should be respected with a kind of religious veneration. It is like the sun which appears at dawn or a flower just beginning to bloom. Education cannot be effective unless it helps a child to open up himself to life."

Maria Montessori died in the Netherlands in 1952 after a lifetime devoted to the study of child development. Her success in Italy led to international recognition, and for more than 40 years she traveled the world, lecturing, writing and establishing training programs. Her son, Mario and his children, carried on the legacy of her work.

"The child is the future man, the foundation must be firm; the building blocks must be chosen with care."

Dr. Maria Montessori

Comparison of Montessori Education with Traditional Education

Montessori Educational Philosophy Traditional Educational Philosophy
Emphasis on: cognitive structures and social development. Emphasis on: rote knowledge and social development.
Teacher has unobtrusive role in classroom activity; child is an active participant in learning. Teacher has dominant, active role in classroom activity; child is a passive participant in learning.
Environment and method encourage internal self-discipline. Teacher acts as primary enforcer of external discipline.
Instruction, both individual and group, adapts to each student's learning style. Instruction, both individual and group, conforms to the adult's teaching style.
Mixed age grouping. Same age grouping.
Children are encouraged to teach, collaborate, and help each other. Most teaching is done by teacher and collaboration is discouraged.
Child chooses own work from interests and abilities. Curriculum structured for child with little regard for child's interests.
Child formulates own concepts from self-teaching materials. Child is guided to concepts by teacher.
Child works as long as s/he wishes on chosen project. Child generally given specific time limit for work.
Child sets own learning pace to internalize information. Instruction pace usually set by group norm or teacher.
Child spots own errors through feedback from material. If work is corrected, errors usually pointed out by teacher.
Learning is reinforced internally through the child's own repetition of an activity and internal feelings of success. Learning is reinforced externally by rote repetition and rewards/discouragements.
Multi-sensory materials for physical exploration. Fewer materials for sensory development and concrete manipulation.
Organized program for learning care of self and environment (polishing shoes, cleaning the sink, etc.). Less emphasis on self-care instruction and classroom maintenance.
Child can work where s/he is comfortable, moves around and talks at will (yet disturbs not the work of others); group work is voluntary and negotiable. Child usually assigned own chair; encouraged to sit still and listen during group sessions.
Organized program for parents to understand the Montessori philosophy and participate in the learning process. Voluntary parent involvement, often only as fundraisers, not participants in understanding the learning process.