1.

12 Development of Montessori Method

Now Dr. Montessori’s new enthusiastic apply her ideas on typical children.
Although Casa dei Bambini was the base of Montessori Method, it has some very
humble beginnings. There were fifty to sixty children from extremely underprivileged
families kept in one room with one untrained teacher. Most of them were malnourished,
victims of the ignorance of their parents, of their parents, distrustful of strangers, and
hostile towards the environment. They were rowdy, unsettling, and difficult to handle, as
they had very little exposure to the civilities of human culture. Almost all of them started
coming to the Children’s House crying and reluctantly. Dr Montessori had no previous
experience of teaching typical children. She had no pre-set plan of action, curriculum, or
apparatus to suit the children’s needs. It was amid such horrendous circumstances that
she started her journey of the discovery of the child, which would later revolutionize the
educational philosophy of her time, and the times to come. It was an extended day
school, and the children remined at the center from morning till evening while their
parents worked. They also gave the children two meals per day, bathed them regularly,
and gave a program of medical care.

At this stage, Montessori did not know if her experiments would work. However,
she began by teaching the older children how to help with everyday tasks as she did in
the Orthophrenic school.

Montessori must have some hope of success ,but the results surprised her. The
materials seemed to work miraculously. Unlike her special needs children naturally got
attracted to the materials she introduced.

Montessori introduced exercise of practical day to day living like cleaning,

dressing, gardening, etc. To her amazement, children aging three and four years took
the greatest delight in learning practical everyday life skills. The older children began to
take care of the school. They also assisted their teachers with the preparation and
serving of meals and the maintenance of a spotless environment. The discipline
problems vanished dramatically.
 Montessori, when criticized for her method being too structured and academically
demanding of young children, laughed out saying,

“I followed these children, studying them studies them closely, and they taught
me how to teach them “

The educator’s jos is to serve the child, determining what each student needs to
make the greatest progress.

After around six months of the inauguration of Casa dei Bambini, the mother’s
requested Dr. Maria Montessori to teach their children how to read and write. By the
demands of parents she introduced the alphabet to the children showed tremendous
progress in literacy and each achievement was like an explosion. They learned to do so
quickly and enthusiastically. Using special hands on material.

The other area, which fascinated the children, was numbers. Montessori
discovered an unlimited potential in children to learn.

“Children read and do advanced mathematics in Montessori schools not

because we push them, but because this is what they do when given the correct
setting and opportunity. To deny them the right to learn because we, as adults,
think that they should not is illogical and typical of the way schools have been
run before.”

Her work with the children Casa dei Bambini became the basis of the
development of Montessori method. Hundreds of visitors went away amazed at the
amazing progress and excellent behavior shown by the children. News of the school’s
success soon spread throughout Italy. Montessori opened a second Casa dei Bambini
on April 7, 1907, in San Larenzo. The third Casa dei Bambini was opened in Milan on
October 18, 1907, and the chain reaction began. By 1910, Montessori schools could be
found throughout Western Europe and were being established around the world. N The
United States, the first Montessori school was opened in 1911 and was soon followed
by the inauguration of several others. By 1913,, there were approximately 100
Montessori school in the USA.
 He work further attracted the attention of the world through her publications,
public speaking, teacher training programs, and international visits.

1.13 Scientific Pedagogy

School helped her lay the foundations of her educational system on scientific
grounds. She referred it as Scientific Pedagogy. She felt a moral responsibility
towards this section of humanity (Children). She decided to Follow the child.

a. Observed children scientifically.

b. Hypothesized about their developmental needs.
c. Developed material and experimented.
d. Noted down responses and refined her ideas.
e. Improved existing materials and developed new materials.

This scientific approach is the primary reason for the success of her system,
even after the lapse of more than a hundred years.

She had the skills of observing and the genius of coming to conclusions which
are sometimes referred to as ‘The Revelations to Dr. Maria Montessori’

All her work shows the exactness of a scientist and the empathy of a warm heart.
“My method is scientific, both in its substance and in its aim”

Her exploration of the child did not stop with her early success. She kept
observing, hypothesizing, and experimenting with the children around the world to
refine, expand, and develop her method further. It was after nearly twenty-two years of
such experimentation that Dr. Montessori could say hat she had found a method of
helping children in their developmental and educational pursuits. This, later on, came to
be known as the Montessori Method.

3.5 (a) The prepared Enviroment is scientifically Designed

 Dr. Montessori did not develop her method through commonsense or
philosophical intuitions but through the scientific method. She observed her children and
hypothesis, about their developmental and cognitive needs. In order to test each
hypothesis, she then developed and experimented with different materials, activates,
and techniques like a scientist. “Scientific observation then has established”

 The Indoor prepared environment

 The Outdoor prepared environment

3.5 (b) Indoor prepared Environment

Montessori environment is nothing like a conventional classroom, and more like a

house of children- where children live. They are too young to be institutionalized. The
outside world is mostly unsuitable, disproportionate, and too complex for young beings.
They need a place where they feel at home, and Montessori’s prepared environmental
fulfills that need.

The prepared environment is a child- sized world- self- sufficient and complete in
itself. The classroom is spacious enough for the children to move about freely. Both
furniture and mats are made available for the children to work comfortably on a table or
floor according to their choice.

Children take care of their house and participate in chores like any number of the
house. Learning objective are embedded in the environment in the form of concrete
materials, and children learn through their interaction with the environment, teachers
and peers.

Division of Space into Subject Areas

The indoor prepared environment in almost all Montessori houses of children is

divided into at least five different subject areas namely.

a. Language
b. Mathematics
c. Practical life
 d.
e. Sensorial life
f. Culture & science

3.5 (c) The Outdoor Prepared Environment

The Montessori outdoor prepared environment is an extension of the indoor

prepared environment. The activities and materials made available in the outdoor
environment are as thoughtfully and carefully planned as those offered in the indoor
environment. Like the indoor environment, the outdoor environment should focus on
providing opportunities for;

a. Care of the environment.

b. Freedom of choice & child- led learning.
c. Concrete & hands- on experiences.
d. Gross & fine motor movement.
e. Practical life skills.
f. Creative play.
g. Physical education.

“ There must be provision for the child have contact with nature, to understand
and appreciate the order, the harmony and the beauty in nature … so that the
child may better understand and participate in the marvelous things which
civilisation creates”

Spaces for physical activities such as running, playing ball, jumping, skipping,
hopping, balancing, digging, climbing, hanging and other such games should be made
available. Games that encourage teamwork and cooperative should also be included.

“Let the children be free; encourage them; let them run outside when it is raining;
let them remove their shoe when they find a puddle of water; and, when the grass of the
meadows is damp with dew, let them run on it and trample it with their bare feet; let
them rest peacefully when a tree invites them to sleep beneath it’s shade; let them
shout and laugh when the sun wakes them in the morning as it wakes every living
creature that divides its day between waking and sleeping”

Dr. Montessori realized that an environment with disproportionate and

inaccessible objects is as hindrance to the child’s freedom to function according to his
developmental needs. So she engineered a child-sized world, where everything is not
only according to the size of children but also within their easy reach.

There is “A place for everything, and everything has a place”

Dr. Maira Montessori advocated that children should be provided with a beautiful,
calm, serene, and orderly environment – rather than with a room stacked with furniture,
brightly colored

 The walls are painted in neutral colors

 Floor and table lamps are used to get a soft lighting effect. Florescent lights,
that create a very bright and harsh look, are avoided.
 Classrooms are kept simple and uncluttered.
 Busy artwork displays, bulletin boards, and alphabets taped along the walls
are avoided in favor of carefully chosen and attractively displayed artwork.
 There is no blackboard because there is hardly any whole-class teaching.
Secondly, it adds an institutional look.

3.5 (g) encourages Movement

Another feature of the prepared environment is that it is designed to encourage

movement, rather than discouraging it, as in conventional school.

3.5 (h) Social learning

The prepared environment does not only include the materials on the shelves,
but also the teachers and the community of peers.