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MONTESSORI MONTESSORI

A SPECIAL PUBLICATION OF THE MONTESSORI FOUNDATION

WHAT EVERY PARENT NEEDS TO KNOW INCLUDING A GUIDED TOUR OF THE MONTESSORI CLASSROOM AND ITS MANY MATERIALS

We're Here to Help! The Montessori Foundation offers a comprehensive resource of all things Montessori at their website, montessori.org. This member-based website offers decades of archived material, from articles and webinars, to a complete bookstore. It is updated daily and offers the most current research and tips for parents and educators alike.

The Montessori Family Alliance It’s all about you! The mission of the Montessori Foundation’s Montessori Family Alliance is to help build a sense of community and appreciation among the parents of Montessori students everywhere. We want to help you become more engaged and better informed. We provide answers to common concerns and a safe, comforting library where parents can browse and learn without judgement—it can be embarrassing to ask your child’s teacher about certain aspects of the ‘hows and whys’ of Montessori. Raising children can be challenging, choosing Montessori is not easy, and often has consequences in our social circles and family dynamics that we can help you navigate. If you are a Montessori parent, you may already be a member of the MFA. Ask your school administrator for login information and join the conversation.

For more information about your current membership or about joining the MFA or IMC visit montessori.org or call 1 (800) 655-5843.

COPYRIGHT © 2019 BY THE MONTESSORI FOUNDATION. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. THIS BOOK OR ANY PORTION THEREOF MAY NOT BE REPRODUCED OR USED IN ANY MANNER WHATSOEVER WITHOUT THE EXPRESS WRITTEN PERMISSION OF THE PUBLISHER EXCEPT FOR THE USE OF BRIEF QUOTATIONS IN A BOOK REVIEW. PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

TABLE OF CONTENTS 4

Montessori for the 21st Century

The Many Faces of Montessori in North America

What Makes Montessori Different?

An Appreciation of Dr. Maria Montessori

A Day in the Life of a Montessori Child

Montessori: A Historical Perspective

BRADENTON, FL 34212-8921

Some Basic Information Every Montessori Parent Should Know

MONTESSORI.ORG

Montessori's Youngest Students: Infants & Toddlers

PART 1: A Guided Tour of the Early Childhood & Elementary Montessori Classrooms

FIRST PRINTING, 2019 ISBN 978-0-9746387-3-7 MONTESSORI FOUNDATION PUBLISHING 19600 E STATE ROAD 64,

EDITOR Joyce St. Giermaine PRESIDENT Tim Seldin PROGRAM DIRECTOR Lorna McGrath

PRACTICAL LIFE ¡ SENSORIAL ¡ GRACE & COURTESY

EVENTS & MEMBERSHIP Margot Garﬁeld-Anderson

A Philosophy of the Montessori Curriculum

OFFICE MANAGER Don Dinsmore

Practical Life

GRAPHIC DESIGN Katrina Costedio

Lessons in Grace and Courtesy

Teaching Peace & Compassion

The Sensorial Exercises

PART 2: A Guided Tour of the Early Childhood & Elementary Montessori Classrooms

ADVERTISING Joyce St. Giermaine

PRINTED BY InterPrint InterPrint is now FSC,SFI and PEFC Chain-ofCustody Tri-Certified. Chain-of-custody certification offers paper that has been harvested from responsibly managed forests, then verifiably traced

READING, COMPOSITION & LITERATURE ¡ MATH ¡ SCIENCE ¡ GEOGRAPHY HISTORY ¡ CULTURAL STUDIES ¡ THE ARTS ¡ HEALTH & WELLNESS

through all stages of print production. Events & Membership Margot Garﬁeld-Anderson

The Montessori Approach to Composition, Reading & Literature

margot@montessori.org

Montessori Math: From the Concrete to the Abstract

Addition with the Golden Beads & Stamp Game

The Second Plane of Abstraction

The Passage to Abstraction

History, Geography & Cultural Studies

lornamcgrath@montessori.org

Hands-On Science: The Montessori Way

Phone 941-309-3961

The Arts, Health, Wellness, and Physical Education

Toll Free 800-632-4121

Where Do We Go From Here? Montessori High School

Phone 941-309-3961 Toll Free 800-632-4121 Fax 941-359-8166 Montessori Family Alliance Lorna McGrath

Fax 941-745-3111

Montessori FOR THE 21ST CENTURY

Dr. Maria Montessori opened her first school, Casa dei Bambini, in Rome, Italy more than a century ago. After more than one hundred years, the Montessori approach has proven that it is vibrant and adaptive to the challenges of the 21st century. As parents and educators who have spent years around Montessori children, we know that Montessori works! Despite the proof of more than a century of positive results, questions remain: n

What is Montessori?

How is it different than traditional education?

Will it work for my child?

Isn’t Montessori a very structured environment?

Do Montessori classrooms have structure?

They want to normalize my child?

Are we crazy to enroll our child in a Montessori school?

Could our child adjust to a traditional education after years in Montessori?

How can we find or establish an infant/ toddler, elementary, or secondary Montessori program for our children?

At the Montessori Foundation, we try to help parents sort through this information, so that they can reassure themselves that Montessori is not going to leave their children academically handicapped and unable to make it in the ‘real’ world. It is not easy to put Montessori into context, when the rest of the world seems so completely committed to a very different approach to raising children. We prepared Montessori 101 to help parents discover and reconfirm what Montessori children know: Montessori works! TIM SELDIN PRESIDENT

Is Montessori just for young children?

THE MONTESSORI FOUNDATION

To learn more, visit our website: montessori.org

EDUCATION IS NOT SOMETHING THAT THE TEACHER DOES. IT IS A NATURAL PROCESS THAT DEVELOPS SPONTANEOUSLY. —Maria Montessori

The Many Faces of Montessori IN NORTH AMERICA

here are at least six thousand Montessori schools in North America, and it is estimated that there are some twenty-two thousand schools worldwide. Montessori schools are found throughout Europe, Central and South America, Australia, New Zealand, Africa, and much of Asia. Montessori is also rapidly expanding in China and the republics of the former Soviet Union. There is tremendous diversity within the community of Montessori schools. Despite the impression that all Montessori schools are the same, perhaps a franchise, all Montessori schools have their own special qualities and tones that make them unique. Across the United States and Canada, we can find Montessori schools in almost every community. They are found in church basements, converted barns, shopping centers, former public schools, and on expansive campuses with enrollments of hundreds of children.

by TIM SELDIN

We find Montessori in suburban and inner-city public school systems. Montessori is one of the most popular and successful charter school models. Montessori schools are often found in charming homes—the outcome of the individual vision of the owner/ director. Many are found in affluent communities, but just as many serve working-class neighborhoods and the poor. We find Montessori in Head Start programs, child-care centers in our inner cities, migrant-worker camps, and on Native American reservations.

Montessori schools offer a wide range of programs. Many are focused on meeting the needs of the working family. Others describe themselves as college-preparatory programs. Public Montessori programs pride themselves on serving all children, while independent schools work hard to find the perfect match of student, school, and family values. The Montessori Foundation and the International Montessori Council (IMC) celebrate the diversity to be found among Montessori schools. Just as each child is unique, so are the schools. ¢

Some Montessori schools pride themselves on remaining faithful to what they see as Dr. Maria Montessori’s original vision, while other schools appreciate flexibility and pragmatic adaptation. Each school reflects its own unique blend of facilities, programs, personality, and interpretation of Dr. Montessori’s vision. Most Montessori schools begin with threeyear-olds and extend through the elementary grades. Every year, more schools open middle school and infant/toddler programs, and there is a growing community of Montessori high schools.

BRING THE CHILD TO THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF HIS OWN DIGNITY, AND HE WILL FEEL FREE. WE SEE NO LIMIT TO WHAT SHOULD BE OFFERED TO THE CHILD, FOR HIS WILL BE AN IMMENSE FIELD OF HIS CHOSEN ACTIVITY. —Maria Montessori

What Makes Montessori Different? Over the last century, Dr. Maria Montessori’s ideas have had a profound and growing inﬂuence on education around the world. However, while individual elements of her program are ﬁnding their way into more traditional classrooms every year, there is a cumulative impact that we see when schools fully implement the entire Montessori model, which creates something quite distinct.  Montessori schools begin with a deep respect for children as unique individuals. They work from a deep concern for their social and emotional development.  Montessori schools are warm and supportive communities of students, teachers, and parents. Children don’t get lost in the crowd!  Montessori consciously teaches children to be kind and peaceful.

 Montessori classrooms are bright and exciting environments for learning.  Montessori classes bring children together in multi-age groups, rather than classes comprised of just one grade level. Normally, they span three age levels. Children stay with their teachers for three years. This allows teachers to develop close, long-term relationships with their pupils; understand each child’s learning style very well; and to encourage a strong sense of community among the children. Every year, more non-Montessori schools adopt this effective strategy.  Montessori classrooms are not run by the teachers alone. Students are taught to manage their own community and develop leadership skills and independence.  Montessori assumes that children are born intelligent; they simply

learn in different ways and progress at their own pace. The Montessori approach to education is consciously designed to recognize and address different learning styles, helping students learn to study most effectively. Students progress as they master new skills, moving ahead as quickly as they are ready.  Montessori students rarely rely on texts and workbooks. Why? Because many of the skills and concepts that children learn are abstract, and texts simply don’t bring them to life. Also, in the case of reading, many reading series fail to collect first-rate, compelling stories and essays; instead, Montessori relies upon handson concrete learning materials, direct learning experiences, and the library, where children are introduced to the best in literature and reference materials.

 Learning is not focused on rote drill and memorization. The goal is to develop students who really understand their schoolwork.  Montessori students learn through hands-on experience, investigation, and research. They become actively engaged in their studies, rather than passively waiting to be taught.  Montessori challenges and sets high expectations for all students, not only those considered ‘gifted.’  Students develop self-discipline and an internal sense of purpose and motivation. After graduation from Montessori, these values serve them well in high school, college, and in their lives as adults.  Montessori schools normally reflect a highly diverse student body, and their curriculum promotes mutual respect and a global perspective.

AN APPRECIATION OF

Dr. Maria Montessori "All children are born geniuses. 9,999 out of every 10,000 are swiftly, inadvertently, 'degeniused' by grown-ups. This happens because human beings are born naked, helpless, and—though superbly equipped cerebrally—

 Students develop a love for the natural world. Natural science and outdoor education is an important element of our children’s experience.

utterly lacking in experience, therefore utterly ignorant. Their delicate sensing equipment is, as yet, untried. Born with built-in hunger, thirst, curiosity, the procreative urge, they can only learn what humanity has learned by trial and error—by billions upon billions of errors. Yet humanity is also endowed with self-

 The Montessori curriculum is carefully structured and integrated to demonstrate the connections among the different subject areas. Every class teaches critical thinking, composition, and research. History lessons link architecture, the arts, science, and technology.

defeating pride. All those witnessing the errors of others proclaim that they (the witnesses) could have been prevented those errors had only they been consulted. ‘People should not make mistakes.’ they mistakenly say. Motivated entirely by love, but also by fear for the futures of the children they love, parents, in their ignorance, act as though they know all the answers and curtail the spontaneous acts of their children, lest the children make ‘mistakes.’

 Students learn to care about others through community service.

But genius does its own thinking; it has conﬁdence in its own exploratory ﬁndings, in its own intuitions, in the knowledge gained from its own mistakes. Nature has

 Montessori teachers facilitate learning, coach students, and come to know them as friends and mentors.

her own gestation rates for evolutionary development. The actions of parents represent the checks and balances of nature's gestation control. Humanity can evolve healthfully only at a given rate.

 Students learn not to be afraid of making mistakes; they come to see their mistakes as natural steps in the learning process.

Maria Montessori was permitted to maintain, sustain, and cultivate her innate genius. Her genius invokes her awareness of the genius inherent in all children. Her intuition and initiative inspired her to discover ways of safeguarding this

 Montessori students learn to collaborate and work together in learning and on major projects. They strive for their personal best, rather than compete against one another for the highest grade. ¢

genius, while allaying the ignorant fears of parents. But the way was not always easy. Hers was the difﬁcult frontiering task of genius.”

—Buckminster Fuller

A Day in the Life OF A MONTESSORI CHILD by TIM SELDIN It’s dark at 7:05 on this mid-winter’s morning

Teddy’s morning supervision is in his normal

At 8:30, his two teachers arrive, along with

when Jeanne Saunders pulls up to the drop-

classroom.

several more children. Others follow over the

off circle at the Montessori school that her three children have attended since each was two years old.

Jeanne has made this trip so often over the years that the school feels like her second home. She works downtown and typically can’t leave work until after 5:00. Her husband teaches in the local public schools and gets off much earlier. He’ll pick the children up from the after-school program by 4:30, but if he’s late, he knows that they will be fine until he arrives. The school prides itself on being ‘family friendly,’ and working families appreciate its extended day and summer camp. Teddy, Josh, and Jennifer definitely think of the school as their second family. Jennifer is one of those children who, after ten years in Montessori, speaks about her school with affection and conviction. Visitors often find her coming up, without a moment’s hesitation, to greet them and offer a cup of coffee or campus tour. When people ask her if she likes Montessori, she will smile and say, “Sure. How could anyone not love it here? Our teachers are our best friends, the work is really interesting, and the other kids are like my brothers and sisters. It’s a family. You feel really close to everyone.” Jennifer walks Teddy, age four, and Josh, who’s seven, up to morning supervision. After dropping them off, she walks down the hill to the upper school, where she is a seventh grader. She joins two of her friends in the commons, sits, and talks quietly, waiting for her first class to start.

After hanging up his coat, he walks over to Judy, the staff member in charge of his room until school officially begins at 8:30. He asks if there is anything ready to eat. Judy suggests that he help himself. He scoops out a bowl of cereal from a small bin and adds milk. He takes his morning snack over to a table and eats. Children and their parents drift into

next few minutes until all thirty students and two teachers quietly move about the room. Montessori children work with hands-on learning materials that make abstract concepts clear and concrete.

They allow young students to develop a clear inner image of concepts in mathematics, such as: How big is a thousand? What do we mean when we refer to the ‘hundreds’ column? and What is taking place when we divide one number by another? This approach makes sense to children. Through this foundation of concrete experiential learning, operations in mathematics, such as addition, become clear and concrete, allowing the child to internalize a clear picture of how the process works.

Teddy and another child have begun to work together to construct and solve a mathematical problem.

the room every so often, and gradually the number of children in the early morning program grows to fifteen. After eating his breakfast, Teddy walks over to the easel and begins to paint with Teresa, a little girl, just three, who has only joined the class over the last few weeks. They paint

quietly, talking back and forth about nothing in particular. Eventually, Teddy tires of painting and cleans up. He is tempted for a moment just to walk away and leave the easel messy, but he carefully cleans up and puts his materials away, as he has learned from more than two years in Montessori.

Using sets of number cards, each decides how many units, tens, hundreds, and thousands will be in his addend. The cards showing the units 1 to 9 are printed in green; the cards showing the numbers from 10 to 90 are printed in blue; the hundreds from 100 to 900 are printed with red ink; and the cards showing the numbers 1,000 to 9,000 are printed in green again, because they represent units of thousands. As Teddy and his friend construct their numbers, they decide how many units they want, find the card showing that quantity, and place it at the upper right-hand corner of their work space. Next they go to the ‘bank,’ a central collection of Golden Bead material, and gather the number of unit beads that corresponds with the number card selected.

This process is repeated with the tens, hundreds, and thousands. The two addends are combined in the process we call addition. Beginning with the units, the children count the combined quantities to determine the result of adding the two together. If the result is nine or less, they simply find the large number card that represents the answer. If the addition has resulted in a quantity of ten beads or more, the children stop at the count of ten and carry these unit beads to the bank to exchange them for a ten bar: ten units equals one unit of ten. This process is repeated with the tens, hundreds, and thousands.

child-sized environment. When they are hungry, they prepare their own snack and drink. They go to the bathroom without assistance. When something spills, they help each other carefully clean things up. We find children cutting raw fruit and vegetables, sweeping, dusting, washing windows. They set tables, tie their own shoes, polish silver, and steadily grow in their self-confidence and independence. Noticing that the plants need watering, Teddy carries the watering can from plant to plant, barely spilling a drop. Now it’s 11:00, and one of his teachers, Ann, comes over and asks him how the morning has been going.

They engage in

It’s about 10:00 now, and Teddy is a bit

converting from the letter name, d, to the sound it makes, duh. Continuing on with two or three additional letters, Ann slowly helps Teddy build a collection of letters that he knows by their phonetic sounds. Ann leads Teddy through a three-step process. “Teddy, this is duh. Can you say duh? Terrific! Now, this is a buh (the letter b). Teddy, can you show me the duh? Can you give me the buh? Fine. Okay, what is this (holding up one of the sandpaper letters just introduced)?” Teddy responds, and the process continues for another few minutes. The entire lesson is fairly brief; perhaps 15 minutes or so. Before long, Teddy will begin to put sounds together to form simple three-letter words.

hungry.

He walks over to the snack table and prepares himself several pieces of celery stuffed with peanut butter. He pours himself a cup of apple juice, using a little pitcher that is just right for his small hands. When he is finished, Teddy wipes his placemat.

Teddy’s day continues just like the morning began.

He eats his lunch with the class at 11:45, after which he goes outside with his friends to play in the snow. After lunch, the Spanish teacher comes into the room and begins to work with small groups of students.

Clearing up his snack has put Teddy in the mood to really clean something, and he selects table washing. He gathers the bucket, little pitcher, sponge, scrub brush, towel, and soap and proceeds slowly and methodically to scrub a small table. As he works, he’s absorbed in the patterns that his brush and sponge make in the soap suds on the table’s surface. Teddy returns everything to its storage place.

When he is finished, the table is more or less clean and dry. A four-year-old washes a table for the sheer pleasure of the process; that it leads to a cleaner surface is incidental. What Teddy is learning, above all else, is an inner sense of order, a greater sense of independence, and a higher ability to concentrate and follow a complex sequence of steps. Teddy moves freely around the class, selecting activities that capture his interest.

In a very real sense, Teddy and his classmates are responsible for the care of this

Eventually, she taps Teddy on the shoulder and asks him if he would like to join her for a lesson. He smiles, but graciously declines. He is too engaged in the project that he’s chosen.

conversation about his latest enthusiasms, which leads Ann to suggest another reading lesson. She and Teddy sit down at a small rug with several wooden tablets on which the shapes of letters are traced in sandpaper. Ann selects a card and slowly traces out the letter d, carefully pronouncing the letter’s phonetic sound: duh, duh, duh. Teddy traces the letter with his tiny hand and repeats the sound made by his teacher. Teddy doesn’t know this as the letter d. For the next year or so, he will only call it by its phonetic sound: duh. This way, he never needs to learn the familiar process of

In the afternoon he does some more art, listens to selections from a recording of the Nutcracker, works on his shape names with the Geometry Cabinet, and completes a Puzzle Map of the World. When the day is over, Teddy has probably completed twenty to thirty different activities, most representing curriculum content quite advanced for someone who, after all, just turned four two months ago.

But when his dad picks him up at 4:50, his response to the usual question of “What did you do in school today?” is no different from many children: “Oh, I don’t know. I guess I did a lot of stuff!” ¢