flynn088

In the second plane, the children complete the foundation of their social selves. Through their reasoning minds and powers of imagination, they explore their universe, their community and their own place in social life. —Lillard, Montessori Today, p. 114. Before having the freedom to explore outside the immediate Montessori community, students must demonstrate responsibility within the Montessori environment. This freedom begins with choosing one’s own work during the day, working independently, and being a contributing member of the collective classroom community. Contributing members of any community help nurture and maintain the community. Within the Montessori environment, elementary students become responsible for the environment by learning to care for and maintain the classroom. Since the sensitive period for order occurs during the first stage of development, maintaining the classroom’s beauty and order no longer comes naturally. Instead, it must be modeled and practiced until ...

The Montessori teacher’s specific responsibility is to aid human development through awareness of the children’s needs at each stage of self-formation. Through this approach to their education, the children can pass onto each successive plane of development well prepared for the challenges ahead. —Lillard, p. 114 Work journals in the Montessori elementary classroom can be a hotly debated topic. What do they look like? Who is responsible for them? Who decides what work is included? Somewhere along the way, we have lost the meaning of the work journal and turned it into a work plan . Keeping a journal involves more than a student making a list of what he has accomplished during the day. It provides him with an opportunity to reflect on what he has learned. Written after the fact, a journal shows the reader where the student has been instead of dwelling on where he must go. As such, the work journal is an assessment tool rather than a planning tool. Studying Montessori Today, Chapter 7: ...

… the best [educators] could do was to compromise, reducing hours in instruction to the minimum, cutting out from the curriculum grammar, geometry, and algebra, making outside play obligatory and postponing the age for entry into school. But however much free periods have been increased and children urged to play rather than study, strangely the children have remained mentally fatigued notwithstanding all these reforms. —Maria Montessori To Educate the Human Potential, p. 80. Recently, there has been a lot of discussion about children needing more time to play. Studies suggest spending time playing is more beneficial than spending time in the classroom. Play is being touted as the answer to everything from low test scores to behavior challenges. But wait a minute … if that were true, wouldn’t Montessori classrooms have hours of play time built into the day? Wouldn’t the emphasis in the Montessori environment be on play and not on learning? Wouldn’t Montessori children suffer from ment...

The environment must be rich in motives which lend interest to activity and invite the child to conduct his own experiences. —Maria Montessori The Absorbent Mind, p. 84. On my first day as a Montessori teacher, I entered the classroom with a plan already made. I had the whole first day meticulously thought out, down to the minute. The students and I would gather in a circle and get to know one another. We would tour the room and the shelves, eat snack together, and establish our classroom rules. We would also learn proper procedures for using materials, going to the bathroom, and so on. I did not foresee any real work happening for the first few days. Imagine my surprise, when, after greeting the last pupil, I entered the classroom to see 32 lower elementary students at work! Even the students who were new to Montessori had paired up with someone, and they all had mats unrolled with materials on them. They had not waited for instruction from me before they started their learning. It w...

It should be realized that genuine interest cannot be forced. Therefore, all methods of education based on centers of interest which have been chosen by adults are wrong. —Maria Montessori University of Amsterdam Lecture, 1950. The purpose of Montessori’s Five Great Lessons is to awaken a sense of wonder within students and serve as a catalyst to learning. By giving a story that leaves students asking “What happens next?” we open the door to the imagination. What comes next are the Key Lessons, lessons that allow the child to learn more. Where the Five Great Lessons present a whole, big picture, the Key Lessons provide topical details. Montessori Today, Chapter 4: The Key Lessons That Follow the Great Lessons New Montessori teachers, especially those that come from a conventional school background, often ask why the Five Great Lessons are so sparse on details. They want to bring in charts, graphs, PowerPoints, and technology. But when introducing something to students, less is more. ...

In the beginning, there was darkness. Doesn’t that sound like a great opening to a great story? It is almost as good as “Once upon a time.” When we tell a story like Cinderella to a child, we don’t begin by saying “This is a story about the triumph of good and evil.” Or “The moral of this story is that hard work and good character will be rewarded.” We don’t discuss the dichotomy of the notion of romantic love and reality or the dangers of wearing glass slippers. We invite children to listen to a story and let the magic of the words capture their imaginations. “In the beginning, there was darkness.” With these words, the Montessori teacher begins the First Great Lesson and introduces elementary students to the universe. Immediately, students are captivated. They understand this statement. They know darkness; they don’t need anyone to explain it. They have experienced it and can imagine what occurs there. Montessori Today, Chapter 4: The Great Lessons This powerful story about the begin...

The next period goes from six to twelve. It is a period of growth unaccompanied by other change. The child is calm and happy. Mentally, he is in a state of health, strength and assured stability. —Maria Montessori The Absorbent Mind, p. 18. During the second plane, children move from being egocentric to being social beings. They are self-confident and ready to see what the world has in store for them. According to Montessori, this is the intellectual period. The children’s thirst for knowledge transcends workbooks and tests. They need to know the secrets of the universe, and they will become engrossed in research and topics until they have satisfied that need. The intensity of their focus and concentration far surpasses the things and objects that appealed to them before. Help me discover it myself In the first plane, when children ask “why,” they want to know facts. Or, as Paula Polk Lillard says, although they say “why,” young children really want to know “what.” (Lillard, 1996) The...

It is at six years that one may note the beginning of an orientation toward moral questions toward the judgment of acts. The preoccupation belongs to an interior sensitivity, the conscience. —Maria Montessori From Childhood to Adolescence, p. 12. If the first plane of development can be called the “play-age” (Montessori, The Formation of Man ), then the second plane of development may be classified as the “age of rules.” In fact, Montessori tells us that “A second side of education at this age concerns the child’s exploration of the moral field.” (Montessori, To Educate the Human Potential , p. 4.) It is during this time that children consciously consider, explore, and question universal morality. This is also the age when children learn about and internalize universal principles of right and wrong. As elementary-age children begin to pull away from their family’s identity and start to develop their own identity, they also move toward their own understanding of right and wrong. In ord...

Instead of dividing schools into nursery, primary, secondary, and university, we should divide education in planes and each of these should correspond to the phase the developing individual goes through. —Maria Montessori The Four Planes of Education, p. 1. Dr. Montessori believed that growth, development, and learning happen in waves. She determined that children go through four distinct periods of development, which she called the planes of development. The four planes occur from birth–6 years old, 6–12 years old, 12–18 years old, and 18–24 years old. In each plane, children and youth are drawn to different skills and activities, and Dr Montessori believed that they can make enormous progress if they have opportunities to explore and practice these skills. The first plane is a time of monumental growth and development as the baby grows and learns to move, balance, develop coordination, learn to speak, and exercise her own will. All exploration is done through sensory experiences ...

Montessori’s first plane of development begins at birth and extends through the first full six years of life. It is a time of immense physical growth, monumental brain development, increased physical coordination, body awareness, and movement, development of independence, and tremendous growth of language. The young child works constantly to create himself, finding his way in a complex social structure, developing his will, establishing his independence, and making his thoughts and desires known. All of this intense development is done joyfully through play and sensorial exploration. Through observation, Montessori found that even very young infants make an amazing effort and are able to concentrate greatly during sensitive periods of development. Sensitive periods, or windows of opportunity, are times when a child develops one specific area of interest to the exclusion of others, according to his individual needs. Sensitive periods begin and end abruptly, and are unique to each child....

Over her lifetime, Maria Montessori examined childhood behavior throughout various countries and cultures and during times of war and peace. Her discoveries in human development and behavior uncovered universal principles that apply across cultures and time. In the first chapter of Montessori Today, Paula Polk Lillard discusses key points surrounding the origin and theory of Montessori education. Following is a brief review of Lillard’s discussion, focusing particularly on human development and behavior as it relates to Montessori’s shift from science to education. [Montessori] believed that within the formative years of children lay the answers to humanity’s ability to renew itself in each succeeding generation. — Paula Polk Lillard, Montessori Today, p. 3. Human development is not a constant linear advancement but a progression that occurs during four formative planes Montessori noticed profound differences in what she described as the four planes of development. She recognized that...

With this blog, we begin a new series, reviewing Montessori Today: A Comprehensive Approach to Education from Birth to Adulthood by Paula Polk Lillard. Written for parents and educators, Montessori Today is Lilliard’s overview of Montessori education, with emphasis on the elementary years. Reading the preface for the first time in a while, I found myself moved to share quotes and excerpts with my friends concerning Lillard’s views on Montessori children and the state of conventional education. Although this book was written two decades ago, its message remains timely and relevant. Reviewing Montessori Today: The Introduction and Preface Lillard points to an educational reform movement in the 1960s that embraced an open classroom concept following ideas in John Holt’s book How Children Fail, originally published in 1964. Holt describes how schools work on the assumption that “most children don’t want to learn, are no good at it, and won’t try unless made to.” He further states that scho...