Nurturing Young Minds Through Montessori Education

When talking about a Montessori school you must first explain what that is, why this type of schooling is beneficial, and what this has to do with Child Welfare & Development. Montessori Education is a child centered educational approach based on the observation of children from birth to adulthood even though the schooling itself focuses on ages three to twelve years old. It studies and observes the human spirit and development of the whole child focusing on the physical, social, emotional, and cognitive aspects. This education system was created by Maria Montessori who believed that the social development of a child is just as important as the cognitive development. She believed that executing functioning skills (such as independence, responsibility, prioritizing, organizing, having the ability, and much more) were very important skills to have for your future and would benefit children to learn them at a younger age. As we all know the environment a child is raised in and learned in has a huge impact on them and how they develop as a person and so Maria Montessori believed this was a much more beneficial way of teaching for children than Traditional teaching. Maria Montessori believed that, “We discovered that education is not something in which the teacher does, but that is a natural process which develops spontaneously in the human being” (www.ami-montessori.org), this probably being the reason for her to develop this education system in the first place.

Looking at everything from a biopsychosocial approach I noticed quite a few things I feel impacted the development of the child. One thing I learned about the school is that everything is very hands on and personal. Everyone works with each other and all the children got the same amount of attention they wanted and/or needed. In traditional school the teacher normally has way too many students really to certain children the amount of time or attention they need. At this school they learn how to develop relationships from a young age and how to connect with others which I believe is very important. This schools main focus is developing the whole person and not just their mind which definitely shows in how they teach them. They nurture them in a way and they got an understand where the children are very well behaved so they hardly have to discipline them. They show the students that they are there to help and actually care about them and not just passing them along. The way the kids interact and help each other is amazing, they are friendly and work together to get things done so they can have fun afterwards. Learning how to develop healthy friendships and relationships is a very imortant skill to have and I think developing that at such a young age is truly amazing.

When I first walked into the observation room I noticed how clean the area was, especially for it to be a room for three to six year olds. The ways they were taught were very interesting because they had so many materials to learn from such as flashcards, drawing things out, putting things together, and more. The teaching was also very hand on which is one beneficial aspect to Montessori schooling vs traditional schooling. They either teach one on one or they teach very small groups of maybe three to five kids. The most effective way of learning though is not actually from the teachers but from the materials provided and their peers. This way of teaching keeps the child constantly engaged in something so they are always learning something new. They learned things such as: food preparation, cleaning, buttoning, bow tying, letter matching, drawing, separating things into their proper categories, making jewelry, and the list goes on. They teach them how to write letters by tracing a letter that is made out of sand paper on a card three to five times and then have them mimic it by themselves to see if they got it. This is very different from traditional schooling where they give you a note book with the letters in it and you trace the dotted lines. They also teach them the sounds of the letters first instead of the traditional alphabet. I found this sort of odd at first but then realize how useful it was when a kid started spelling words such as “cup” and “book” just based off the sound. He spelled cup with a k but the point is that he was spelling a lot of words pretty well for a three-year-old just because of the way they taught him to sound each letter out. They will later teach them the alphabet but it won’t be as hard since they already know the sounds associated with each letter.

Like I said earlier in the paper they mix the ages with three different ages which is beneficial because the younger children can learn from the older ones. There are 24 kids per section (8 kids per age: eight 3 year olds, eight 4 year olds, 8 five year olds). I found it interesting that things were section off by subject (Math, English, Science, etc.) which probably made it very easy to find and get to what the child needed to once they learn where everything was. I think this helps with organization because since they already are learning how to keep things similar together in their own little groups they won’t have that much trouble when it comes to high school and college. They do homework on white cloths so each student feels like they have their own space to work and focus on whatever subject is at hand. The room was also very warm and welcoming with it being very colorful with paintings and pictures but having a cream colored background. The lighting was very gentle for the room compared to harsh European lights. They also had a fish tank and a guinea pig which I can see being cool to watch how they move and do things, also probably is very calming to watch and you can learn how to take care of animals if taught and actually having the opportunity to do so hands on. There were plants, mirrors, and a boom box which I believe just give a natural feel of home along with the pets and lighting probably making it easier to work because it feels so familiar.

I think one of the most important things I learned throughout this trip is that the kids were care free and able to just be kids. In traditional schooling like I had from the time we started we were always told that testing is everything. The crammed a ton of information in our head and told us if you didn’t get good test scores it would be almost impossible to amount to anything. From a young age we were stressed because we wanted to be successful and make it in the world, we focused so much on trying to be the smartest student with the best test scores that we forgot how to be kids. We were never told the importance of functioning skills, they were lightly brushed upon and we were just punished if we didn’t figure it out. From this observation I saw how by letting kids learn functioning skills first and not bombarding them with testing that they can still learn very affectively and freely. I kind of envy them for not being as stressed and struggling as much as I did as a kid. I also found it interesting that one fourth of them have some type of learning disability but they function just as well as everyone else with this type of teaching because they don’t focus on separating them from everyone else. They don’t focus on the disability, they almost in a way pretend it doesn’t exist so the student feels like everyone else which I thought was beautiful. Overall, this experience was amazing and I was so happy I got to do it and see how beneficial it can be. It cost quite a bit of money but for anyone who can afford it I would tell them to send their child to this type of school.