The Importance of Reform Pedagogy. Retrieved: February 17, 2021, from http://www.eichelberger.

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The Importance of Reform Pedagogy

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The era of Reform Pedagogy was an era of educational change, and it is an era which today may give a fresh
impetus to education. Reform pedagogical concepts are concepts of a more open school. School requires reform
pedagogical concepts if it is to open up.

The era of educational renewal is generally characterized by its search for more humane forms of teaching.
Nearly all models of reform pedagogy share a common educational aim: to integrate systematic learning and
personal experience in an educational process that is free from fear. The main characteristic is that they are
child-oriented -a notion which above all signalizes the shift in thinking in the historic sense: it is no longer
school and its demands on the child which are at the centre of educational thinking, but the individual child’s
optimum development and a school which facilitates this development.

Development of school invariably includes the participation and full involvement of those concerned, of
teachers, parents and pupils. It is they who can, and in the sense of self-determination must, develop their own
school.

Montessori’s Pedagogy as a Concept of Self-Education

Montessori’s early research interests centered around the scientific study of attention skills which she called
“psychological re-actions” as well as around experiments on the conditions that stimulate attention.

Material Characteristics
The materials are designed in such a way that the child is able to concentrate on a problem that has to be
learned. For example, while studying multiplication the children can concentrate on the learning of
multiplication as such by using the multiplication board, without being distracted by complicated mathematical
operations. Self-control helps the pupils to develop important qualities and skills: the aim is for the pupils to act
responsibly and honestly when controlling their work
The prepared environment, in which these materials are made available to the children, provides a structured
framework for the children’s work. The children choose the materials themselves, they can work with them
independently or the teacher shows them how they can work with the material. Children need a clear
educational framework which helps them to find their way and makes it possible for them to work
independently.
Apart from the prepared environment, the teacher’s behaviour is an essential mainstay of an education which
allows the child to become him or herself. The true task of educators or teachers who work with the
development materials is to take on a role as mediator between the child and the prepared environment with its
development materials. The mediator’s role is a very difficult and demanding one. The material is only a point
of reference for establishing intellectual ties between teachers who transmit ideas and children who take these
ideas on board. Further fundamental demands on a prepared environment are the result of efforts to create
appropriate conditions for the polarization of attention and to give sufficient room to the child to move around
as an essential factor for the development of consciousness:

 The classroom should be large enough for the bigger half of the floor to remain unoccupied.
 The didactic materials are put up on shelves at the children’s free disposal.
  As far as time is concerned, it is necessary to abolish individual periods.
 A compulsive (rigid) timetable and the principle of continuously teaching children in classes are
abandoned.
 Free work is at the centre of school work and life.

About Cosmic Education

The concept of Cosmic Education applies to the entire educational work of Montessori’s Pedagogy. It is the
concept for work in natural sciences, but also for work in mathematics and languages. Cosmic Education is the
superstructure of Maria Montessori’s pedagogy. It contains the important central themes and guiding principles
of that pedagogy: to enable children to form their own ideas. Only then can they become themselves.
Maria Montessori hoped to unite in harmony human conscience and responsibility through Cosmic Education.
Many of Montessori’s ideas may sound idealistic, but they are especially relevant today. She anticipated our
own changing attitude towards Nature. We must not see ourselves as masters of creation, but as part of a whole.
For her, Cosmic Education means to enable children to comprehend, understand and feel as complete
personalities (as part of the cosmos). Not only is it the task of Cosmic Education to give the child an idea of the
interplay of Nature and Man, but also to help the child form his own idea of growth and development, of
existence and of the changes that take place in this universe, above all to develop his own most individual idea
and powers of imagination.

Conclusion
Maria Montessori created a self-contained didactic system. At its centre is the self-determination of the child
with the framework and structure being laid down by the educator.
This pedagogy centers exclusively around the development of the child. In this sense, it is a pedagogy starting
from the child for the child. Montessori’s pedagogy is a performance-oriented pedagogy. However, it offers
more than mere performance orientation; it offers a quality in the dimension of self-determination. And because
it is child-oriented and uses the development materials it offers the distinct opportunity to concentrate on the
child’s individuality in the learning process.