SUNSHINE MONTESSORI BOWMANVILLE
Maria Montessori was the first woman to attend medical school and the first female Doctor of Medicine in Italy, living from (1870-1952). She developed her unique educational method, the Montessori method through her work. After further study, observation, and experimentation, she found that the principles of her method are applicable to all children. Dr. Maria Montessori and her methods have greatly impacted the effect of education and how children are understood today.
“We discovered that education is not something which the teacher does, but that it is a natural process which develops spontaneously in the human being.” Dr. Maria Montessori
Montessori is a philosophy and method of education, which emphasizes the potential of the young child and develops this potential by utilizing specially trained teachers and teaching materials. Montessori recognizes in the child a natural curiosity and desire to learn. The specially designed Montessori materials awaken this desire and channel this curiosity into a learning experience that the child enjoys.
Dr. Maria Montessori believed early childhood education should not be to fill the child with facts from a pre-selected course of studies, but rather to observe and nurture the child so that a solid foundation is built to encourage his own natural desire to learn for a lifetime.
The seven sensitive periods Dr. Montessori refers to are as follows:
1. Order
2. Movement
3. Language
4. Writing & Reading
5. Refining of the Senses
6. Social Interaction
7. Love of Small Objects
A sensitive period is a window in the development of the person. It is a genetic component, available to all humans regardless of cultural background. The use of the sensitive period is what will vary from culture to culture, family to family, even child to child within the same family.
Sensitive periods are blocks of time in children’s lives when they are absorbed with the acquisition of some knowledge or skills they come into contact with their environment and it is through their environment that children are moulded and brought to perfection. Young children’s unique aptitude for learning is what Dr. Montessori identified as the “absorbent mind”. In Dr. Montessori’s books, she compared the young mind to an absorbent sponge. The use of the environment in Montessori allows each child to choose the material he/she works with at their own pace and interest, rather than by being forced. Dr.Maria Montessori and modern-day research prove that children can learn to write, read, and calculate in the same natural way that they learn to walk and talk. That is why modern-day researchers, doctors, and Dr. Maria Montessori believed that the most important years for learning are from birth to age six, which are more important than a university.
When a developing child enters a sensitive period and changes a potential into a new skill or ability, components of that skill reach down to the unconscious:
0-6 Absorbent mind, sensory experiences
1½-3 Language development
1½-4 Co-ordination and muscle development, interest in small objects
2-4 Refinement of movement, concern with truth and reality, awareness of order sequence in time and space
2½-6 Sensory refinement
2½-6 Susceptibility to adult influence
3½-4 Writing
3-4½ Tactile senses
3½-6 Reading
Dr. Montessori recognized that young children in their formative stages absorb almost all of their learning from the environment which includes attitudes, language, movements, and behaviour.
A Montessori teacher believes in the powers of the individual child, who wants to do things by him/her self and act on their own. The child, therefore, chooses the activity and sets the pace. The trained Montessori teacher knows the developmental needs of children and creates a learning environment with an atmosphere of calm, order, warmth, and joy.
In summary, the development stages that children pass through from birth to six is characterized by a special interest in a particular activity. If the child is given the opportunity to engage in that activity within the specified time frame the child’s needs will be normalized and will form a solid foundation for future learning. The Montessori prepared environment facilitates the development of these sensitive periods.
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