8/7/2020

SCHOOL & CLASSROOM CULTURES

Module 116

Helen Caldwell
UNIVERSITY OF NORTHAMPTON
Introduction

Early childhood is a period of time when the child’s development is at its highest and most
significant in the human life (Ball, 1994). Therefore, the way children are treated and educated
during this stage will have considerable impact on a child’s personal development in later
phases, especially in terms of personalities and attitudes towards working and living. Among
various pedagogical philosophies around early childhood education, Montessori seems to stand
out as a dominant method which meets the needs of both cognitive development and
adaptability to social environment. Created by a well-known Italian doctor – Maria Montessori
in early twentieth century, this method has quickly required its reputation thanks to its
extraordinary goal of education which aims at fostering children’s optimal development instead
of simply focusing on academic achievement like most of the regular education systems at that
time did. No longer after it appeared, Montessori has been recognized by the international
education community and applied in a number of countries around the world. In 1929,
Montessori established an organization called AMI (Association Montessori Internationale) to
maintain her educational motto and ensure it would be alive even when she passed away.
Fortunately, her wish has been fulfilled. Nowadays, Montessori Method has been utilized in
more than 25,000 schools worldwide and acquired significant achievements over the past 100
years. The method emerged in Vietnam in 2003 and also has been quickly mentioned as a
wonderful educational approach for children. Despite this fact, it still contains several issues
that make lots of Vietnamese parents have to take into consideration before sending their
children to Montessori schools. In this essay, the author is going to critically review this method
as an aspect of classroom culture, from what Montessori is, how it works in classrooms and also
evaluate its pros and cons in early education. A picture of its development process in Vietnam
will be also an important focus of this essay. From this point, opportunities and challenges of
Montessori Method facing Vietnamese education system will be analysed, bringing the readers a
multidimensional view of the current situation of the method in Vietnam.

An overview of Montessori education method

The Montessori Method of teaching was developed in 1907 by Dr. Maria Montessori - an Italian
educator, physician, and scientist. This is a child-centric educational approach, including child-
driven activities, classroom designs for children of different ages, and teachers that encourage
them to become independent.

It was initiated to educate children with mental retardation in a childcare centre called Casa dei
Bambini (Italian for “Children’s House). It is worth mentioning that this centre was located in
San Lorenzo, a poor, inner-city district of Rome where most of children were supposed to be
previously unschooled. This fact, however, could not discourage Dr. Montessori but made her
become more determined to make the Casa a quality educational environment for these
disadvantaged youngsters whom many had thought were unable to learn. And finally, she did
it. Montessori Method quickly spread to serve different populations of children, not only in
Italy but also to the rest of the world.

Montessori education is based on independent learning which enables children to absorb

knowledge on their own or together with their peers by trial and by repetition using Montessori
materials (Kö ksal-Akyol, 2005). The philosophy behind the Montessori education is to bring all
children the best learning environment which can foster their independence and
comprehensive development. The Montessori Method concentrates on self-esteem, articulation
and application of needs, independence, cooperation and respect for others (Kö ksal-
Akyol, 2005; Mutlu et al., 2012).To Montessori, no human being is educated by another
person. They must do it on their own or it will never be done. Therefore, the main goal of
Montessori education is to make learning become a fun and practical activity in which
children will learn actively rather than being forced. Perhaps Lillard said the best about the
purpose of Montessori Method: “If young people are to meet the challenge of survival that faces
them today, it is imperative that their education develop to the fullest extent possible for their
potential for creativity, initiative, independence, inner discipline and self- confidence.” (Lillard,
1972, p. 138).

To reach these targets, Montessori system, especially early education one, often allows children
to explore a set of games and toys by themselves following their own interest in an unstructured
setting. Obviously, all these activities must be under teachers’ observation and guidance but the
freedom of choices is still the key principle in this method. This is considered a signature of the
method but also an issue that causes lots of debates among education community. Above all, the
underpinning idea behind Montessori Method is Maria’s core belief in children’s justice and
rights. She believed that every single child had a right to an education regardless of class,
culture, race and ability (Montessori, 1961). Perhaps due to this opinion, Maria Montessori
finally put her career as a doctor aside in spite of spending an enormous effort to become one
of the first women in Italy having medical degree, and focused on developing Montessori
education for children. It is said that she spent nearly two third of her whole life, around 50
years on refining Montessori system, extending it from new-born children to age twelve.
Nowadays, Montessori education has become a dominant method among others and shows
no sign of slowing down as it continues to widespread to new regions.
Differences between Montessori education and traditional education

Different from traditional education, Montessori has its own unique features that makes it
become an outstanding philosophy but also brings lots of skeptical attitudes from both parents
and educators.

Classroom design – the learning environment where students spend most of the time at school
can be named as the first and the most typical example of such difference. Montessori
classrooms are often intended to encourage children to learn at their own pace. Therefore, the
rooms are usually full of natural light and arranged with child-sized furniture such as chairs,
desks or cupboards that are all accessible to kids (Dhiksha & Suresh, 2016). Unlike the formal
layout commonly found at regular schools with rows of chairs and desks, Montessori
classrooms are organized to allow children to find any materials they think necessary for their
learning process. As Maria Montessori claimed, “obstacles must be reduced to a minimum and
surrounding should provide the necessary means for the exercise of those activities which
develop a child’s energies” (Montessori, 1966, p.56).

The second distinction between the two systems is the curriculum they are following. In most
regular schools, students are bound by a set of curriculum while Montessori curriculum can be
relatively flexible to children’s performance. It focuses on outlining what students learn and do
(Murray & Peyton, 2008). Without time constraint, Montessori lessons can continue until a child
accomplishes understanding about a unit of knowledge and even allow students of the same age
to work on different content at different times because of individualized pacing (Block, 2015).
This big difference in curriculum selection, accidentally, leads to another gap between
traditional and Montessori schools - the assessment method. Testing is considered a standard
measurement in most traditional schools whilst it is something that “many Montessori schools,
both historically and contemporaneously, eschew” (Manner, 2006, p.2).

The role of teachers in the classroom is worth being mentioned as a different feature between
Montessori education and traditional one. Unlike teachers in regular schools who often play the
central role of the class, Montessori teachers are more of guides than instructors. They assist the
child along with his/her own learning path instead of delivering a uniform lesson, at the same
pace, with the same order to all of their students (Malm, 2004). It is also the main reason why
Montessori is known as child-centered approach.

Age group also differ from Montessori and traditional learning environment. Traditional schools
group children by their age. Students at the same age are supposed to study at the same class or
the same grade. In Montessori classrooms, on the other hand, students learn in a mixed group of
ages. A child can study at the same class with two to three years younger and older than he or
she is. The key advantage of mixing ages is that it boosts children’s curiosity about other kids
around them, then promoting teamwork spirit, communication and other social skills (Kahn,
1995).

Four planes of development

Maria Montessori believed that each child coming to the world “is the construction of the man
in the fullness of his strength and in the fullness of his life’ (Montessori, 1949, p.26). The
construction she specially mentioned is made up of four different phases, according to
Montessori, all children have to pass through. She named them as “the four planes of
development”. These planes are defined based on the development of physical as well as mental
characteristics of children. Thus, each stage has its own features and learning modes that
require different specific approaches.

The first plane extends from birth to six years, Montessori gave it a name “Infancy”. At this
stage, children’s brains are supposed to have sponge-like capacity to absorb everything from
the environment that is necessary for their individual development. In other words, as
Montessori depicts, “it is not a question of development but of creation from nothing”
(Montessori, 1946, p.16). During this plane, children mainly focus on themselves and always
have strong desire for physical independence. It is also the period of time when a part of
personality is shaped. For the first three years, all kinds of learning are mostly done out of
children’s conscious mind. They learn basically through exploring their senses and
interacting with the new world. On the second half of the first plane, from 3 to 6, children
kick off their conscious learning. Montessori defined this period as “normalization”. Simply
speaing, normalization refers to a process of development if undertaken normally. It is
something that spontaneously happens when children are given meaningful work which
engages their attention.

The second plane (from 6 to 12 years) is the milestone that marks significant physical and
psychological changes in children. The loss of baby teeth and the lengthening of the body are
clearly observed during this period. Along with physical growth, children also change the
way they think and act. Instead of just focusing on their own things, children start caring
about the outside world. They show the tendency of “herd instinct” or in other words, they
have a stronger desire to work in peer groups. It is the time children are ready to learn about
collaboration (Montessori, 1994, p.16).
The third plane – adolescence (from 12 to 18) is also such a significant transformation during
which a child goes through the construction of adult self. Montessori remarked this period by
maturation attained through the puberty. She observed the creative tendencies, the
development of "a sense of justice and a sense of personal dignity" as well as doubts, hesitations
and violent emotions in this plane (Montessori, 1994, p.18). Independence is still an important
feature of this period, but very different from other planes, children in the third one mainly
concentrate on economic independence although they are actually ready to do this entirely.

Maturity is the fourth plane of Montessori’s education philosophy. However, compared to other
planes, she wrote comparatively little about it. She supposed that experience children obtain in
lower education stages can lay a concrete foundation for their development in the last period.
During the fourth plane, people begin to figure out who they really are as individuals.

Having researched on Montessori education methods for over 50 years, Grazzini draw a valid
conclusion about four planes of development that: “The developmental life of a human being is a
sequence of births, of the emergence and disappearance of potentialities, of the birth and death
of interests and characteristics which are manifestations of the ruling sensitivities” (Grazzini,
2004, p.9). Each plane begins, bringing forth new characteristics, needs, and behaviours. Once
the plane reaches its peak, it is going to fade and then make room for the beginning of the next
plane.

Five principles of Montessori education

Montessori is an approach to education based on the principle that schooling should work
with the nature of the child instead of against it. Therefore, along with the four main planes
of development, Dr. Montessori also implemented five key principles which she expected all
educators could apply in their own teaching practice to bring children the best learning
environment. These principles included: 1. Respect for the child, 2. The absorbent mind, 3.
Sensitive periods, 4. The prepared environment, and 5. Auto- education.

Respect for the child

Unlike common teaching practice in early twentieth century, Montessori believed that children
should be respected. Respect is also the cornerstone which all other Montessori’s principles rest
on (Morrison, 2009). Respect here means having regard for children’s feelings and wishes, not
interrupting their concentration and giving them freedom to make choices and to learn by
themselves. For a long time, however, we have not respected children enough. “We try to force
them to follow us without regard to their special needs. We are overbearing with them, and
above all, rude; and then we expect them to be submissive and well-behaved, knowing all the
time how strong is their instinct of imitation and how touching their faith in and admiration of
us” (Montessori, 1965, p.28). Thus, as a Montessori educator, the teacher is expected to show
respect to children, allow them and help them to develop a positive self-esteem.

The absorbent mind

According to Montessori, learning comes naturally to children. They simply absorb everything
around them, especially in the first six years of their lives. Montessori called this phenomena
“the absorbent mind”. She suggested “it may be said that we acquire knowledge by using our
minds; but the child absorbs knowledge directly into his psychic life. Simply by continuing to
live, the child learns to speak his native tongue” (Montessori, 1966, p.26). To Montessori,
children are born to learn so parents, teachers and the environment surrounding them are
important factors that can have a great impact on children’s development process.

Sensitive periods

Sensitive periods, also known as “windows of opportunity”, are periods of time when children
are more susceptible to certain learning behaviours and are able to learn more easily. As
Montessori (1966) states, sensitive periods are a part of a child’s revolution which happens to
all children but the timing and sequence vary in each child. Hence, Montessori teachers play an
extremely important part in these periods because through observation, they will be the ones
who identify each child’s sensitive periods and provide him/her necessary resources to flourish
during this time.

The prepared environment

In Montessori education, children are believed to learn the best in a prepared environment
where they can do things for themselves. This environment needs to be equipped with ample
materials, making learning experiences available in an orderly format (Morrison, 2009).
Children, in Montessori prepared classrooms, are supported to absorb knowledge
independently and actively. Freedom is the key characteristics of this learning environment.

Auto-education

Auto-education or self-education refers to the concept that children are able to educate
themselves. This is one of the most important beliefs of Montessori pedagogy. Therefore, the
role of Montessori teachers is to provide a well-prepared environment along with necessary
instruction and encouragement for children, but not to directly teach them how to do things.

Pros and cons of Montessori education method

The Montessori Method has long received consideration as an alternative choice to traditional
ones. It requires that reputation mostly because of undeniable benefits it brings to a wide range
of learners, especially children in their early childhood. The philosophy that children can learn
best in their own ways and own pace seems to be attractive to both educational community and
parents who are seeking an ideal environment for children’s comprehensive development.
However, along with the merits, this method also receives lots of criticisms about its initial
investment for materials, learning tools and human resources.

Pros

First and foremost, Montessori Method is designed to create lifelong learners. Through offering
children freedom to choose available tasks and activities in a well-prepared environment, the
method definitely gives children a chance to actively explore the environment surrounding
them. Therefore, children are more willing to learn rather than being reluctant to do so. As a
result, it will be much easier to instil their curiosity of different subjects such as history,
geography, science and art. Learning, thanks to it, becomes an enjoyable activity that can stay
with the child forever (Paper pinecone, 2019).

Furthermore, Montessori education which highly focuses on independent and hands-on

learning is likely to help children to progress in their development as individuals. As Anitra
Jackson - a Montessori writer and educator suggests “The best thing about Montessori
environment is that it allows children to learn at their own individual pace” (Jackson, 2018).
However, this fact does not mean that children do not learn about collaboration. Spending
nearly 50 years studying early education, none better than others, Montessori understands that
children learn are fascinated by what other children are doing. From this fact, Montessori
created mixed-age classrooms which enable children to interact with a diverse social circle, then
give them a chance to forester peer-to-peer learning along with developing social skills such as
how to collaborate effectively or communicate with each other with mutual grace and respect.
This idea is claimed by Kö ksal-Akyol (2005) and Mutlu (2012) when they both agree that the
Montessori Method cultivates self-esteem, articulation and application of needs,
Má independence, cooperation and respect for others.

Another outstanding advantage which is worth mentioning is that Montessori education is not a
reward-based system. It means grades or awards will be no longer a burden to children;
instead, they are assessed via a portfolio or teachers’ observation. This fact is likely to cultivate
a love for learning in children as they learn actually because they want to do so, not for showing
good grades to your parents. Independence, thus, becomes a factor that can be reinforced
through this kind of education. While Montessori schools give children more freedom, children,
under the observation and guidance of the teachers, will learn more about self-discipline,
especially how to control their emotion, behaviours and concentration during learning process
(Mutlu, Ergişi, Bü tü n-Ayhan, & Aral, 2012)

Cons

Receiving mixed comments from education community is something unavoidable to all

education methods, Montessori is not an exception. Along with nice compliments from parents
and educators, this method itself has been still a controversial topic for around a century.

Firstly, it is clearly seen that Montessori education can be prohibitively expensive to some kinds
of schools, especially regular ones due to its vast initial investment for high-quality learning
materials and teachers’ intensive training. In general, only wealthy families can afford to send
their children to fully functional Montessori schools, normally private ones because not all
public schools can have enough facility to offer Montessori option. Therefore, to some extent,
Montessori Method can be regarded as inaccessible to everyone. With private programs, strict
admission regulating and tuition-charging, it is still a long way for most low-income kids to
attend such schools.

The second biggest shortcoming that should be mentioned in this essay is the less-structured
curriculum of Montessori Method. Different from regular schools, children have more freedom
to make choices among available ones in the classrooms. It does not mean that they can do
whatever they want but obviously, the curriculum is not as rigid as what is normally found in
regular schools. Once children have more freedom, they may not choose to pay attention to
some subjects even these subjects are extremely important for their later development. Another
case that possibly happens is children tend to over prepare for some classes but neglect others
(Hainstock, 1997). Therefore, curriculum looseness isn’t always a good thing. Some students
prefer structured, routine activities which can give them more sense of discipline, order and
safety.

Independence, sometimes, is not everything that students need in their life. When students
grow up with an independent and self-guided mindset, they may think collaboration is
something not necessary and then find it hard to collaborate with others or work under
authority in the future. Meanwhile, in most of the jobs, teamwork is an essential skill that almost
all employers require from their staff in today’s world. In this case, too much independence may
become a bad thing that have negative impacts on the career.

Fourthly, another common criticism that Montessori Method is about the lack of testing and
grading system. Most critics believe that testing is still necessary for students’ progress as
through this kind of assessment, necessary data about learners’ performance can be collected,
profoundly contributing to determining whether the goals of education are being met or not
(Hughes, 2003). The fact that Montessori schools do not share the same standard assessment
system with other regular schools may become a big obstacle to children and their family. On
one hand, the parents may struggle to track their kids’ performance at school to have suitable
support for them. On the other hand, the children themselves may also get troubles when they
need to switch from this system to conventional one. Due to this reason, lots of parents hesitate
to send their kids to Montessori schools despite being aware of undeniable benefits this system
can bring to their children.

Last but not least, many scholars suppose that they do find the aspiration in the Montessori
education. This method focuses too much on hands-on experience. For example, it is common to
see children at very young ages spend their all day at school to learn how to fold clothes, sweep
floors and wash dishes. Willcott (1968) argues some children may not need to do these manual
activities when they grow up if they have grey matter jobs. Perhaps this method, at the very
beginning point, was designed for the children of poor families in which members were mostly
workers in factories in the suburb of Italy. However, the world has changed dramatically since
that time, children now need more aspiration and soft skills to survive in this modern life.

The situation of Montessori Method in Vietnam

With a number of outstanding advantages, Montessori education method has been applied in
both public and private Vietnamese nursery schools since 2003. However, the application of this
method in Vietnam is not sufficient enough as it should be. Instead of using the whole
Montessori programme, most Vietnamese schools just simply use the method as a reference in
their teaching or sometimes apply a part of its philosophy and learning tools into teaching
practice (Tran, 2017). Therefore, finding a truly “authentic” Montessori schools in Vietnam is
still a big challenge to most of parents. The following passages of this essay are going to use
SWOT analysis to critically review the current situation of how Montessori Method has worked,
pointing out both opportunities and challenges facing this method during nearly 20 years
existing in Vietnam.

S – Strength

In the previous section, significant benefits of Montessori Method has been thoroughly
discussed. With regards to Vietnam’s situation, these perks absolutely remain valid. According
to a reputable newspapers in Vietnam called Era of education, children who attend Montessori
classes in Vietnam tend to love going to school more than others in regular schools. These
children are also observed to be independent, having good self-discipline and problem-solving
skill (Nguyen, 2017). This fact increasingly reinforces parental confidence in the method. More
and more parents decide to send their kids to Montessori schools despite the fact that the
tuition fee for each child is not a small number to most Vietnamese families.

W - Weakness

Along with limitations previously discussed in the essay, Montessori education also contains
several issues which are found not really suitable to Vietnamese culture.

First and foremost, the class size in Vietnam is often very big, ranging from 30 – 40 kids per
class with the presence of only two homeroom teachers. If a school follows Montessori Method
truly and completely, how to manage that class effectively is not an easy task to any teacher.
With such big class size, lack of classroom management may easily lead to an awful chaos which
not only turns the lesson into a disaster but also discourages children to actually absorb
knowledge.

Secondly, the fee that Montessori schools in Vietnam charge each month for a child is
unaffordable to most of families with average finance condition. According to World Bank
statistics, the average income of a Vietnamese person is around 3000 dollars per year (World
Bank, 2019). Let’s imagine, if in a typical family, the husband and the wife both go to work, each
month they can earn around 500 dollars per month. Unfortunately, 500 dollars is exactly the
minimum monthly fee that parents must pay to let a kid attend a Montessori school in Vietnam.
Thus, it may be not exaggerated to say that Montessori system in Vietnam is established for
upper class only.

Another big problem of Montessori education when it is applied into Vietnamese education
system is its controversy against fairy tales. For a long long time, fairy tales have become a
cultural heritage to most of Vietnamese people. They are born and brought up with fairy tales
that their mothers and grandmothers tell them every night. Through fairy tales, Vietnamese
people learn about traditional customs, national history as well as the proper manners that
people should treat each other. However, Montessori Method is opposed to using fairy tales in
educating children in early childhood. Maria Montessori did not think that little kids should be
exposed to fairy tales too early, at least under age 6 when their reasoning skills have not been
fully developed. The reason she presented is that children under that age are not likely to
differentiate between reality and fantasy (Mason, 2013). To some extent, she might be true for
Vietnamese people, they will never be ready to give up fairy tales which they believe a special
gift of their childhood.

O - Opportunity

Despite the high cost of tuition fee and some other limitations related to culture aspect,
Montessori has been extremely popular in Vietnam. Existing in Vietnam for nearly 17 years,
nowadays, Montessori system has been extended to around 70 nursery schools across the
country (Tran, 2017). However, the number of authentic Montessori schools in Vietnam is
limited. According to Era of education, only 3 nursery schools in Ho Chi Minh city and 8 ones in
Hanoi are recognized to meet requirements of AMI – Association Montessori Internationale
(Giao duc thoi dai, 2019). Thus, it is true to say Montessori education still has much room for its
development in Vietnam, especially in the context of increasing priority for investment in early
education for children in Vietnam currently.

T – Threat

Although the ideology of Montessori education is widely spread around the world, application
in exact without considering differences between countries’ economic politics and traditional
cultures will lead into an ambitious metaphor that has no achievement (Cai, 2019).

In Vietnam, many nursery schools are simply imitating the Montessori Method in order to
attract more enrolment without deeply understanding the true connotation of Montessori
pedagogical philosophy. Hence, in some cases, children will not attain what they can actually
gain from this system. Not to mention, many teachers working in Montessori schools even have
not passed the systematic Montessori training yet. This fact will definitely have a negative
impact on the professionalism in teaching as well as the learning quality of children. Obviously,
with the fee their parents have to pay a month for the school, they deserve something better.

Conclusion

Throughout the explanation of Montessori Method for children in early childhood in this essay,
the key idea that should be memorized the most is that for a comprehensive implementation of
Montessori education, there must be respect for children and their learning process. By
developing the wonderful method, Maria perhaps did more than initiating a new approach to
education. She opened the door of a colourful world to children, let them explore it by
themselves with excitement and interest. Perhaps Paolino said the best about Montessori
method when suggests “The children that experience the world through the eyes of a
Montessori foundation are furthered prepared to understand how we exist amidst the external
world, including other people, nature, and ultimately the universe” (Paolino, 2019, p.23). In
Vietnam context, Montessori education, with the child-centric approach, is undoubtedly the
method that Vietnamese system is aiming at for the early childhood education. The biggest issue
that most educators concern is the financial resources to fully invest in Montessori teaching
tools and teachers’ training. In addition, when it comes to application in reality, how to turn
Montessori schools become more accessible to the majority of Vietnamese living standard will
be another challenge to policy makers. These questions have not been answered yet but
hopefully in the future, they will be.
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