Philosophy of Montessori Education Essay

Dr m atomic number 18 Montessori started her endure in the field of rearing and churl psychology, when she had already obtained a doctors degree in medicine and surgery. Her scientific provision and recognize were exception whollyy broad based and unique. Her approach to education encompassed the full-page increase of globe from birth to hand aroundhood. The most important contribution of her work, in the present day, is the focussed attention on the fact that no act to solve social and moral problems of the order of magnitude will succeed if it is intemperate just on man-the-adult, and non on the whole man, including his nestlinghood. Therefore too soon fry education becomes important for a better society.Today in social supporttime, there exists an urgent need- that of reforming methods of education and instruction, and whoever strives to r separately this goal is stock for the regeneration of man(The Discovery of Child, Chapter 2, pageboy 2). This motivation to hire raw(a) human phase through early education was the h wholemark of the education philosophy of Dr Montessori. Dr Montessori observed that regular education follows a steady ascent, decent increasingly difficult year after year, after head start at the age of 06 yrs.However, she discovered, through her innovative experiments, that human schooling and development is non steady and linear, but happens in a series of formative planes, starting from the birth of the sm either fry. She also discovered that the complete development of human beingness is made possible by the tendency of the human being to accepted universal actions in relation to their environment and the most productive development was observed when the environment was self chosen and conterminous to the evokes of the baby bird. Dr Montessori felt that adult should non assume that the tiddler is empty vessel waiting to be filled with our knowledge and experience.It is important to understand that the fry has own authorisation for career and a suitable environment is to be created for the tyke to do the opportunity to learn on his own under limited close observation. Dr Montessori maintained that the first full point of life was the most important in a childs development, it is during this stopover that thechilds advocators of absorption and learning be highest and life-long attitudes and patterns of learning are firmly formed. She believed that the child is endowed with unappreciated posts, which can guide us to a radiant future and The richness of human mortalality begins at the hour of the birth(The Absorbent Mind, Chp 1, Page 2). Dr Montessori termed that all(prenominal) creature, whether plant or animal, comes from a primary, simple and un diametriciated jail cell with the characteristics of the creature thus create, bulkyly depending on some unidentified beat back. all germ cell bears within itself a pattern of the organism to be, without telescopic sign, so that every new-born body, whatever species, bears in itself a pattern of psychical instinct, of functions that will set it in relation to its environment, for the fulfilment of a cosmic mission. Dr Montessori felt that this environment must provide not only the way of physiological existence, but stimuli to the mysterious mission inscribed in every creature that is born, all of which was summoned by their environment not only life but the exercise of a necessary office for the conservation of the realism and its harmony. In this way, Dr Montessori, described that there are deuce initial embryos, namely physiological or the physical and unearthly, each with distinct roles to play in the life of a child.She distinguished that these dos of early development, in man as pre-natal and post natal, where-in, this post-natal work is a constructive activity which is carried on in what may be called the formative period, and makes the baby into a miscellanea of apparitional Emb ryo(The Absorbent Mind, Chp 7, Page 62). According to this postnatal development happens only in man and the prolonged infancy of man separates him alone from the animals, whereby man is seen as a being divergent from all others. Dr Montessori believed that for the psychic pattern to reveal itself, two conditions must be fulfilled, first, the environment that he interacts to understand the limit of his universe, second, the granting immunity to reveal himself. She emphasised that when these two conditions are met, the psychic life of the child will not reach its strength and his personality will be stunted.Dr Montessori well-setly felt that, the work of man on the earth is related to his spirit, to his notional knowledge, therefore this spirit and creative intelligence must be the fulcrum of his existence, and of all the workings of human body. It is to the highest degree this fulcrum, the behaviour and physical economy is organised. Dr Montessorisays that the whole man deve lops within this weird halo and therefore first care devoted to the new-born babe, over go all others, must be a care for his mental life, and not just for his bodily life. Dr Montessori described the time line of 3 yrs from birth, as the period of Spiritual Embryo, and all the non-physical qualities namely his intelligence, temperament, personality, spirit and person develop in this stage.Dr Montessori describes that development of child is due to an unconscious role, a vital force, she borrowed a word horme to describe this vital force, which is sympathetic to the force that created Nebulae, pushed by the universal unconscious intelligence of force. She thought that, this force is similar to the force that is pushing or driving the entire world towards teleological end in the philosophy of the French Jesuit Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Dr Montessori opined that the child has a different relation to its environment, the child absorbs the environment and it becomes his soul and reincarnates in himself all in the world about him that his eyes see and ears assure and child is transformed by them.This vital kind of memory, which does not consciously remember, but absorb images into the individuals very life, has been given a special name by Sir Percy Nunn, called Mneme(The Absorbent Mind, Chp 7 , Page 74). each the social and moral habits that shape a mans personality, the sentiments of caste, and all kinds of other feelings, that make him a emblematic Human being similar a typical Indian, a typical Italian, or a typical Englishman, are formed during infancy, in virtue of that mysterious mental power that psychologists have called Mneme.It is with the combination of this powerful memory and the vital force, that the child experiences the environment and imbibes the attitudes for life, which result in his regeneration through different stages of development. Dr Montessori said Man unlike the animals, is not born with movements already co-ordinated he has to shape and co-ordinate his own movements. Nor has he even a influence aim this too, must find for himself (The Absorbent Mind, Chp 7, Page 77). The child has to self construct and learn from his environment, through various planes of development, happening in his life at different ages. Dr Montessori defined 04 main panes of development, from the birth to 24 yrs of age, each lasting for 6 yrs.Children are motivated from within. The child has within him the person he will become, and it is our role as nurturing adults to encourage the process of the childs self-construction (http//www.pcmontessori.org/about/montessori.php). Therefore, the child has to develop his own powers for reacting to life. Dr Montessori identified two aids one is internal aids and out-of-door aids that stand by the child to develop, of which the internal aids are sensitive period and the absorbefacient headland.She narrates that, children have the ability and passion to excel at certain activities at spe cific periods of time in their life, which disappears after the passage of that specific time interval of time in the childs life. She adds that, during such a period the child is endowed with special sensibility, which urges the child to focus attention only on certain aspects of environment, excluding others. medium periods are those blocks of time, when the child is absorbed in only one characteristic of his environment, excluding other. Sensitive periods are active mingled with 0-6 yrs of age.There are six sensitive periods defined namely (1) Sensitive to order, (2) Learning through their five senses, (3) sensitiveness to small objects, (4) Sensitivity to co-ordination of movement, (5) Sensitivity to language, (6) Sensitivity to social aspect of life. The baby has a creative aptitude, a potential energy that will enable it to build up a mental world from the world about it (The closed book of Childhood, Chp 3, Page 33). This the child learns through the sensitive periods, w hich follow each other and are overlap as well. While above periods describe the pattern the child learns in gaining knowledge of his environment, the absorbent explains the process of the knowledge gained from this learning.The absorbent mind is dissever into the un-conscious (0-3yrs) and conscious mind (3-6yrs). In the un-conscious mind, the child absorbs from the environment, and therefore, there is a great requirement to make the environment as interesting and striking for the child, which helps the child to create his own impressions about the environment and develop the idea of analyses and argumentation on the basis of these impressions.The conscious mind follows the unconscious mind and takes all the inputs from the preceding un-conscious mind, for development of his mental functions, with the help of already ceremonious power of memory, analyses and reasoning. With the conscious mind, the child has an established will and memory, which he uses for further self construct ion. The child at this stage is able to write, read, understand numbers etc., Dr Montessori defines some laws ofdevelopment, which actually reveals the kind of experiments she had carried out and clearly defines the requirements for the child to learn different things at different stages of development. There are eight laws of development which offer over a course of time.They are (1) Law of Work The child, when given work in a disposed(p) environment, with any kind of behaviour, yields to the learning mode and gives up any kind of aggressive behaviour. This in put to work shapes his personality and existence which come face to face in the prepared environment. (2) Law of Independence When provided with independence, the child strives to listen to its inner guide for actions and this helps in his innate development. (3) Power of Attention At a certain stage of development, the child becomes sensitive to his environment with great intensity and an interest not seen before. When a c hild works, he develops his ability to concentrate which replaces his instinctive interest with intellectual interest, this leads to the child becoming calmer and controlled. (4) Development of Will The child, through reiterate work, slowly establishes his will. Dr. Montessori observed three stages of this Will development.First, as the child repeats his work many times over a period of time, he gains power over his own movements. The child then moves to the second stage that is judge self clear up as a way of life. After achieving self- discipline as a way of life, the child reaches the third stage of the developed will involving the power to obey. (5) Development of Intelligence For a child, development of intelligence through the comparison and differentiation of the already learnt attributes of the environment and this is the key to reason life itself.It helps to put the images of consciousness in order. (6) Development of Imagination and creativeness Dr. Montessori believe d that development of the powers of imagination and creativity develops as mental capacities are established through the interactions with the environment. She believed that when the child has developed realistic and ordered perception of is environment, he capable of selecting and emphasising process necessary for creative endeavours. (7)Development of Emotional and Spiritual life The child possesses within him at birth the senses that respond to his stirred side to the spiritual environment, due to which he learns he receives emotional and spiritual stimuli from all personnel whom he is close to. A sensitive period is at work, a divine command is breathing through helplessthings, enliven them with the spirit(The Secret of Childhood, Chp 3, Page 38). Dr Montessori maintained that development has to be go with with constant spirit for achieving greater heights.Dr Montessori named environment and freedom as the external aids of self construction, this she advised instructors to m ake changes to the environment to accommodate the requirements of the child, to be able to nourish the requirements of the child. Since, at all times the child is interacting with its environment, it is super mandatory to maintain the environment to provide best opportunity for the child to learn. Every object must have a definite place, where it is kept, and where it remains, when it is not in use (The discovery of the Child, Chp 17, Page 182). Since all objects form the substitution part of the environment, it is required that the environment is not be disturbed for the child to learn from it. Freedom for a child provides an opportunity to express himself which in turn helps to grow the developed pattern resulting in the overall childs growth. This freedom and prepared environment leads to normalisation in children.The teacher involved in this method of teaching has to provide the freedom and hear that the environment is created for the child to avail every opportunity to learn , with all the freedom to learn things. According to Dr Montessori, there should be balance created between the mind and body of the child, to work in agreement and harmony and this will create normalised children, else there would be deviations in the child. Dr Montessori has classified deviated psyches into fugue, barriers, attachment, possessiveness, inferiority, fear and lies.Each of these category, has strong different reasons behind them, which encompasses the environment the child has been brought up in, how the child was treated in its childhood etc., Dr Montessori has framed different methods and advises for teachers in dealing with these children. Dr Montessori emphasises that normalised children are the result of freedom and ideal environment provided to the children, which will result in cohesion of children, due to the developed respect for others, helping nature, harmonious mind. in any case qualities of co-operation, discipline, social sentiment, obedience and chara cter are developed by child that will lead in the making of a better society and better human kind.The teacher, when she begins work in our schools, must have kind of faith that the child will reveal himself (The Absorbent Mind, Chp 27, Page 287). Dr Montessori, places colossal responsibility on the teacher, of that of creating a conducive environment for child with all freedom and required observation prowess, to assess and correct the child. Dr Montessori wants the teacher to have infinite faith in the child that the child will kick into a flower with its own colour, shape, size and fragrance. they who know the most essential mourn the deepest oer the fatal truth.The tree of Knowledge is not that of Life ( female horse Montessori- Her Life and Work, Chp 21,Page 368). These words were from Bryons Manfred. EM Standing, author of Maria Montessori Her Life and Work, describes the need for completing the idea of Dr Montessori Education for life through dissemination of Montessori M ethod of learning in creating harmonious children and greater future which is at peace with each other and with the environment.BibliographyDr. Maria Montessori, The Secret of Childhood, Orient Black Swan, India Dr. Maria Montessori, The Absorbent Mind, Kalakshetra Press, India Dr. Maria Montessori, The Discovery of the Child, Kalakshetra Press, India EM Standing, Maria Montessori Her Life and Work, Penguin Putnam Inc, New York http//www.pcmontessori.org/about/montessori.php