The individuality of each child
Many people often wonder why Montessori emphasizes children of different ages learning together in a Montessori classroom. The answer lies in the individuality of each child. Since each child’s past experience is varied and each learns at a different speed, the Montessori classroom is designed to allow a child to choose the most appropriate level of materials to work on. All materials are graded, and children can move from simple to complex as their own interests change. Having children of different ages in the Montessori classroom allows younger children models for imitation (the older children), and allows older children an opportunity to reinforce their own knowledge by helping younger ones.
Because each child works at their own pace, there is no competition in the classroom. Only when children understand and are confident in the use of basic skills should any competition be introduced in education. Dr. Montessori wrote, 'Never let a child risk failure until he has reasonable chance of success.'
Since learning is done at an individual rate in the Montessori classroom, different levels are easily accommodated. Advanced children in the same room can move from one piece of equipment to another very quickly, avoiding the boredom of waiting for other members of the class to catch up.
Pre-school children mature at very different rates and their periods of readiness for academic subjects vary a great deal. While some children may be ready to read or calculate at an early age, very early learning is not the norm, nor is it the objective of the Montessori method. Dr. Montessori's ideal is that learning should occur naturally and joyfully at the proper moment for each individual child.
When a child enters the casa at two and a half to three years, the area aspect of the Montessori classroom called 'practical life' may be considered the link to the child's home environment and thus an extension of the child's developmental process. The child spontaneously and naturally seeks order in independence through movement and purposeful activity. The practical life materials involve children in precise movements, allowing them to concentrate, to their work at their own pace uninterrupted, to complete their work, and to gain interanal satisfaction. At three, children are more interested in the scrubbing motion of washing a table than they are in getting the table clean.
The practical life materials also fulfill specific purposes in the real world for children: they learn to button their shirts, tie their shoes, and wash their hands, free from adult help. The child also cares for the beauty of the environment: polishing wood, scrubbing the floor, dusting the shelves. The child-sized materials beckon to the child, allowing him or her to grow more and more independent. He or she chooses work as his or her needs unfold.
In addition, practical life centers the child in a social atmosphere where 'please' and 'thank you' and a polite offer of 'Do you need help with your work?' are the mainstays of conversation. A child is treated with respect and is therefore respectful.
Pathways to culture
Reading and writing are the keys, which can uncover, conserve, and synthesize knowledge. The preschool children are immersed in the dynamics of their own language development. Using simple alphabet cut-outs and sandpaper letters, young children are able to effortlessly link sounds, symbols, their shapes and their written formation.
As the children improve their reading or words, they want to know more names of things. The classrooom is filled with pictures, labels, and puzzles bearing the names of animals, plants, geometric figures, countries, and landforms, for example. From the very beginning, reading and writing are tied to culture. The mastery of skills is propelled by interest and love of the environment.
Building the imagination with the real
Children live in a world of senses. In order to continue their creative task, children need to highlight impressions they have already received. Through sight, touch, taste and smell, the sensorial materials 'throw a spotlight' on reality. For example, the concepts of longness and shortness are derived from the red rods of varying lengths. Because they rods are rendered in unit lengths from one to ten, they also provide a basis for mathmatical gradation. Another example, roughness and smoothness are experienced by touching rough sandpaper and smooth polished wood. Later these lessons are repeated with the sandpaper globe helping the child distinguish between land (sandpaper) and water (smooth). Sensorial materials are used for clarification of large, small, heavy, thick and thin; loud and soft; high and low; hot and cold; colors; tastes; smells; and for plane and solid geometric forms. The sensorial material is really a key to the world and is the basis for abstraction.
The absorbent mind
Early childhood education has come to accept today what Montessori discovered so long ago: the child under six has a genius capacity for mental absorption. The 'absorbent mind' will never repeat its miraculous ability to absorb the native tongue, to perfect movement, or to internalize order. Never will these sensitivities be more alive than in the preschool years. The entering child is gentle and vulnerable with a need for love, protection, friends and intellectual stimulation. These are serious needs. To serve children directly is not what they need; to give help is sometimes an obstruction. Therefore, the Montessori prepared environment allows children to act freely on their own initiative, meeting needs through individual, spontaneous activity.
The children learn to work quietly and intently on their own tasks. The use the materials with a sense of perfection and order seldom found even in adults. They are building concentration and self-discipline.
Because the materials are scientifically selected, children are able to learn skills that were previously reserved for development at a later age. Reading and writing are treated as an extension of spoken language. Young children have a singular mathmatical interest, and therefore, with the use of concrete materials, they can be exposed to all four mathmatical functions with large numbers before they are six. And because these children are characterized by 'absorbent minds', the work seems untiring and effortless.
Foster the sense of community through volunteerism
One of Northfield Montessori's underlying goals is to develop a sense of community among our families. We want our families to feel connected to each other beyond drop off and pick up of their children.Our hope is to help foster this sense of community through volunteerism.