Introduction to

Montessori
Assignment Module 1

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Roll No. D16530

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Q1: Discuss life and work of Dr. Maria Montessori and why is she referred to as a
lady much ahead of her time?
Dr. Maria Montessori was born in Italy in 1870. Most of her life was spent in Rome. Her father

Ale Jandro was an accountant in government services. Her mother, Renilde, had good education
for a woman of her time and was more open to the many transformations that affected daily life
at the end of the 19th Century.
Maria Montessori, an only child, she was a vivacious, strong-willed girl. Her mother encouraged
her curiosity, which the rigid schools of her time did not.
Maria Montessori’s quest for knowledge lasted life long. Maria Montessori attended male
technical secondary school instead of traditional one and her favorite subject there was
mathematics. Initially she wanted to pursue a degree in engineering but she later pursued a
degree in Medicine and became the first lady in Italy to do so.

Maria Montessori graduated at the top of her class in 1896 with a diploma that had to be hand

edited to reflect her gender. A month after graduation, she was chosen as part of a small Italian
delegation to attend the Berlin Women’s Congress that had delegates from all over the world.
Extremely pretty and well spoken, Dr. Montessori made a big splash with her speeches about
women’s education and work conditions in Italy. In her second speech, she advocated an issue
that still has not entirely been resolved in our own times: equal pay for equal work. 

Later, Dr. Montessori developed her medical career. She became involved with the neediest of
patients. The neediest, she soon found, were what were then called “idiot children.” They were
the mentally retarded who were kept in horrific conditions in asylums along with adults suffering
severe mental illnesses. With her usual energy, she researched methods of helping them and soon

gained fame for her remarkable successes. 

Maria Montessori later returned to university to study Philosophy and Physical Anthropology
and became absorbed with the desire to change educational practice. Reflecting on her extremely
successful work with the mentally retarded, she thought how similar activities would benefit

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normal children. But as a scientist, she needed to test her ideas. She had a chance in 1907. She
took on the directorship of a daycare center for preschool children in a newly built housing
project in the slums of Rome. Montessori called this center the “Casa De Bambini” or
“Children’s House.” Offering some of the materials she had used with the older mentally
deficient children, she soon discovered the normal children ignored the fancy toys and became
independently absorbed in more meaningful tasks.

She believed that the child constructs knowledge from experiencing the world. Learning, she
said, was not something that needed to be forced or motivated. Instead, learning is something
that humans do naturally. The early years especially are ones of great mental growth. Throughout
the early years of life, the child absorbs impressions from the world around him. Not with his
mind, but with his life.

 A unification of mental and physical energies comes about when a child becomes
absorbed in work. Montessori called this “normalization.” And concentration, she said,
was the key. The carefully prepared environment at Montessori schools provides the
opportunity for children to grow intellectually and emotionally. There are several
hallmarks of these environments:

-They are aesthetically pleasing using lovely materials. The materials are readily
available and children choose from among them during a long block of unscheduled class
time.

-Activities take place outside as well as inside. Gardening is often a part of the
Montessori experience.

Children with a 3 year age span work together in the same room and learn from each
other. In what Montessorians call primary classes, there are children from ages 3 to 6. Dr.
Montessori experimented with activities and materials throughout her lifetime in order to
find which ones engaged the children easily and repeatedly allowing them to integrate the
physical and mental energies.

The practical life exercises first developed from Dr. Montessori’s desire to improve the
hygiene and nutrition of her slum children. They proved their value over the years
helping children gain self-confidence as they learned to take care of themselves. The
child develops logical thought patterns as she follows through an activity, in this case
washing from the beginning to middle (rinsing and drying) to the end (cleaning up). A
child becomes able to control his impulses and concentrate on the task at hand.
Normalization often first takes place with practical life experiences.
The Montessori approach is based on a delicate balance of freedom and discipline.

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 Children are free to move about in their classroom and yet their movements are limited to
the confines of the room. By the structure of the exercises, the scientifically designed
materials, and by the requirements of the social group of which they are a part, the
children work at their own pace. They can work at their own pace, but they cannot work
with the materials they do not know how to use. They are not free to disrupt others or
misuse materials. They learn to return the material to its correct place and in its original
condition so that it will be there ready for the next child.

-Freedom and discipline go hand in hand. The freedom to work undisturbed results in a
kind of discipline that could never be brought about by threats or rewards; which brings
us to the roll of the trained adult in Montessori classrooms. The adult in a Montessori
classroom has a task that is much different from a traditional teacher. While a teacher in a
traditional classroom is active and the child is passive, in the Montessori approach, the
child assumes the active role and the adult often appears passive. This is because
Montessori saw the aim of education is to free the child from adult domination and allow
him to develop along more natural pathways. It is the child who teaches himself when he
works with the materials in the prepared environment.

Montessori understood the need for involvement, Mental, Physical, and Emotional, on
the part of the child in order to construct knowledge. About 100 years later, the ideas she
developed in Rome about the process of learning and how environments and adults
ideally supported still remain at the core of Montessori educational practice.

 Americans became interested in the Montessori vision of education. She made two well
publicized lecture tours through the United States. She was greeted as a celebrity by the
notables of her time. The Philosopher and educator, John Dewey, introduced the lectures
she gave to an audience at New York’s Carnegie Hall. But an even greater opportunity
for Montessori to demonstrate her form of education was the celebrated World’s Fair of
1915 in San Francisco. There she was invited to set up a model classroom in the Palace of
Education. Fair goers could watch the children at work from bleachers outside the glass
walls.

Over the next decades, Montessori schools multiplied and she gave training courses
throughout Europe and even lectured in Argentina. In Vienna, the young Erik Erickson
attended the training program and created a Montessori inspired school.

 In the remaining years of her life, she received many honors and remained a heavy travel
schedule to deliver lectures and training sessions across Europe and even in India. Maria
Montessori died at age 81 – just an hour after actively discussing a trip to Africa to train

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 teachers there.

Her schools are her greatest legacy. All over the world, her ideas shaped schools whose
teachers have been trained in her Philosophy. Her work has also greatly influenced
educational practice outside the Montessori world. The critical importance of the first 6
years of life or the formation of intellectual and emotional constructs is Montessori ideas
that all accept and is now being demonstrated by Brain Tomography. All early education
classrooms now have the child-size furniture with the open shelving she first designed
and often some of the same materials. Multi-age grouping and the provision of non-
scheduled blocks of time for independent work are legacies of Montessori’s contributions
to educational practice – seldom credited to her.
 Dr. Montessori leaves behind not only an outstanding body of research work and
observation of children and their abilities to grow and learn, but also a system of
education which promotes the freedom of the child to become more concentrated,
creative and imaginative as he develops intellectually and emotionally. Her lifetime work
studying child development and education remains well known internationally, numerous
organizations promote her methods and Montessori schools are prevalent in both the
United States and many other countries, the reason why she is referred to as a lady ahead
of her time.

Q2: What are the main requirements to be considered to start a House of

Children? How do you implement them?
A Montessori is a place where children can thrive as individuals physically, emotionally and
academically, which can only happen if their needs are met and interests are Regarded in an
environment of learning. These can be categorized into the following requirements:

Multi-age classrooms
The younger children can benefit from their older peers by learning academically from them
as well as in terms of engaging socially in a hierarchical environment, i.e. with
mentors/teachers and fellow students/peers. The older kids, on the other hand, can develop

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their leadership skills in their role as mentors for their younger counterparts while
simultaneously reinforcing their own learning as they help the younger kids gain skills.

Small classroom strength

The classroom size should not exceed 30 pupils so as to allow ample individual attention and
avoid overcrowding.

Layout and Design

The layout and design of the classroom including the furniture and shelving should be child-
friendly, such that everything is within the reach of the kids and not unsafe or uncomfortable
for them, for e.g. low shelves for accessibility, smaller and lighter furniture etc.

Teacher’s role
The role of the teacher must be that of a guide and helper, and not that of a distant lecturer.
They should design activities for the students that can contribute to their learning process
and be there to assist and support them as and when needed during the course of these
exercises.

Independent Learning
Children should be given a significant degree of independence in the relatively risk-free
Montessori environment so that they are free to choose what interests them, make mistakes
in the way, and subsequently learn and grow from them at their own pace. This sense of

freedom and responsibility empowers them to develop into creative and independent adults.

Outdoor activity
The classroom should allow easy access to outdoors and have ample sunlight and ventilation
for the mental and physical well-being of students.

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Orientation
The environment should be family and home-oriented instead of following a strictly
standardized setup of a conventional classroom.

Mutual Respect
Children must be taught to have mutual respect for their peers. This can be achieved by
encouraging them to collaborate and cooperate with one another rather than being pit
against each other as competitors.

Parents involvement
Parents should be actively involved in the progress of their children by way of regular
meetings with their teachers so that they may accordingly groom their child outside of the
classroom environment.

Q3: What are the discoveries made by Dr. Maria Montessori by observing the
child?
Dr. Maria Montessori’s, educational approach based on observation and experimentation .
She used a scientific approach. She worked tirelessly observing children, analyzing results and
developing new materials. In start she worked with mentally disabled children and achieved
astonishing results. After that she thought to work with normal children. She believed the
‘secret of childhood’ that every child have a potential and it’s the responsibility of adults to
help them and flourish this potential. Montessori was the revolutionary who created her
method from observation, not just from old theories. Here are some of her observations that
have the most importance for early learning activities:
· She carefully observed the inclination of child’s interest and developed the
materials/activities accordingly.

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· She observed that child whose concentration on graded wooden cylinders was so strong
that efforts to distract him were useless. And when the child had finished he seemed rested

and happy. The child’s ability for deep concentration and love towards the work was
phenomenal.

· She also observed the child’s need for repetition which fulfilled a child’s need. She then
decided to give children the freedom to be able to accomplish their work.
· Maria Montessori also observed that children had a great sense of orders . Children put
things back to where it belonged. She respected this and allowed them to do it by placing the
materials in an open cupboard rather than locked cupboards as it was initially done. This
cemented the way for the freedom of choice for the child to choose their work. She observed
that real discipline comes through freedom.
· When Montessori gave a lesson on blowing the nose she received great cheer from the
children. Children are always being practiced about keep their nose clean but no one has
calmly taught them how to do it. This made her realize that even small children had a sense
on personal dignity . Montessori always emphasized the respect for even the youngest child.
· She observed that her children have more interest in academic activities instead of toys. She
noticed that children preferred work over play, especially in school timings.

· She observed that young children are highly energetic activity powerhouses, always seeking
out experiences that will help them grow and develop. She observed that children have the
ability to select their own work/activity. They are not work for any incentives or rewards.
Their inner motivation is fair enough to motivate them for a particular work.

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· She observed that a child can learn almost everything in early childhood , as it was
previously thought, that many things are too complex for children.
· She observed and believed that real obedience comes through love, respect and faith.
Elders/ teachers should be polite and sharp enough to understand the child’s behavior.
· She believed that the child’s behavior depends on the environment. A child can be
disobedient, stubborn etc. or a child can be disciplined, happy and healthy. It depends on the
environment. If proper, healthy and interactive environment provided to children and their
rightful needs fulfilled,they behave normal otherwise not. The second condition is called
deviation.
· She noticed that children are willing to do their work by their own. They feel happy and
satisfied while doing daily household activities. Like cleaning, washing etc. She concluded that
children want to learn “Help me do it myself” strategy.
· After continues research and observation she came to know the traffic patterns of the room
arrangements for children. Room should not be congested and over loaded. Children love to
sit on floor during many activities so there should be rugs or floor mats for them.
· She noticed that children are more comfortable with their sized furniture and things. So
whole building and rooms are designed according to children interest and comfort ability. The
furniture, washrooms etc. are designed and sized for children. Windows low to the ground
and low shelves used so that children can have the outside view and used things from
shelves.

· She discovered that for building child’s complete personality, they need to do activities
regarding sensorial concepts, physical activities, languages, math, art, culture and many
more. After all these observation and changes first “Casa dei Bambini” (House of Children)
came out. The fame of Maria Montessori, her House of Children and method quickly spread
all over the world.

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Q4: What does P . I . L . E . S stand for in terms of human development? Discuss
the physical, lingual and intellectual development taking place during 3 to 6
years of age.
P.I.L.E.S is an anagram that stands for Physical, Intellectual, Lingual, Emotional and Social
Development.
Development in the age group of 3-6 involves children putting into practice all that they have
learnt from observing. At this stage, it is important to give the child freedom to do this on
their own terms, as any interference can be a roadblock to their learning and development of
their personality.
Physical Development during 3 to 6 years of Age: During these years, a child is very physically
and imaginatively active. As they exert themselves, their muscles and motor skills develop.
This involves activities like the following:
- Outdoor activities and games like running, tri-cycling, jumping from low heights,
playing ball etc.
- Being able to put on and take off clothes without assistance
- Tiptoeing and balancing on one foot for short periods
- Dancing to music
- Eating on their own without spilling or making a mess
- Being able to grasp and hold on to objects, as well as move them around
- Washing and drying hands on their own
- Tearing pages off a book
- Climbing stairs, albeit slowly and with both feet on the step when descending.

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 Lingual Development during 3 to 6 years of Age: Linguistic ability also rapidly develops
during this stage, and it is not uncommon for children to pick up on multiple languages
easily during these years. This happens in progressive stages; phrases, simple
sentences and subsequently, complex sentences. Exposure to media alongside social
interaction with parents, peers and teachers etc form the basis for their vocabulary.
This Is why it is vital that parents and teachers alike engage them in meaningful
conversation, read to them, watch informative TV shows with them, listen to
wholesome music etc. so they may naturally adopt the language. Common linguistic
skills attributable to this stage are:

- Improvement in grammar, sentence structure and enhanced vocabulary

- Inquisitive nature; asking a lot of questions

- Ability to engage in meaningful conversation

- Reading stories repetitively and enjoying humorous storytelling in particular
- Enjoying singing songs and rhyme
- Facing a little difficulty in pronouncing v, r or th sounds. Ability to communicate in
more than one language
Intellectual Development during 3 to 6 years of Age: Children are more flexible and
adaptive than adults, which means they are more open to changes in the self as well
as the environment. It is therefore beneficial to expose them to a dynamic set of
activities and games for their intellectual development. Examples of such activities
include:
- Knowledge of primary colors and basic shapes through drawing and painting etc.
- Counting

- Solving puzzles

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 - Handling stationary objects like pencils, scissors etc.
- Matching shapes, colors, alphabets and numbers etc.
- Blowing bubbles
- Building a variety of things with Legos
- Teamwork and understanding about roles and rules

Q5: Write a comprehensive note on the role of teacher in a Montessori

classroom.
Teaching falls under the category of cooperative arts, whereby the activity of the artist in this
case a teacher, is not the sole cause of production. In layman terms, for the process of
learning to happen, a teacher is dispensable as the learning itself will take place in the mind
of the student to some degree even with little to no teaching influence.

This suggests that conventional teaching methods of merely ‘imparting’ information in a

dictatorial manner without engaging the minds of children by encouraging active learning and
problem solving does little to uncover their human potential.

Anna Burke Neubert, in her book, A Way of Learning (1973) gave certain guidelines to
help teachers, referred to as ‘directresses’ in their role as mentors and guides for children.

The teachers should look at each child individually, assess their interests and needs, and
prepare material and activities accordingly to address them.
They are also advised to set up an environment that facilitates and complements this
learning process by allowing children the freedom to move around and engage with their

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 surroundings, rather than being restricted to their desks without any sense of
independence.

They must also observe and evaluate the performance and progress of the kids periodically
and tailor the activities to fall in line with their changing needs. This means that each child
must receive individual attention and not be treated as a mere roll number in the student
register.
As peace educators, it is vital that teachers play a role in helping children interact and
socialize effectively with their peers and adults alike so as to develop into productive
members of society.
It is important to note that the main role of the Montessori teacher is to act as a guide and
mentor who can support children as and when needed with warmth and no judgment, while
simultaneously knowing when to step back and allow autonomy to the students.
Subsequently, as agents of the parents, they should communicate the progress and needs of
their child so the learning can happen outside of the classroom walls as well.
Conclusions
The systematic observation made in a Montessori environment made possible obtaining a
global image towards the attitude of the educators in the classroom. The observation helped
us to discover the fact that the preparation of the Montessori educator is realized on
different levels.

Getting the knowledge it refers to the fact that a person becomes a Montessori educator only
after she is trained in a Montessori Course. In these courses the educator learns the way of
teaching , the principles of the Montessori pedagogy, he learns to make objective observation
by observing children for hundreds of hours and there are also many hours of supervised
practice (O’Donnell, 2007, Only the AMI Montessori diploma gives the educator the
information he needs. From now on she needs a lot of experience with children. The next role
of the educator is to prepare the environment. She needs to arrange the space taking into
account the child’s age, needs and size. Montessori (1966) encourages that the Practical Life
materials to use “attractive materials, child sized, color coding, simplicity”

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