What is Montessori? “Learning to love to learn”
Briefly, it is a system of education in both the philosophy of child growth and a rationale for guiding such growth. It is based on the child’s developmental needs for freedom within limits and a carefully prepared environment that guarantees exposure to materials and experience through which to develop intelligence as well as physical and psychological abilities. It is designed to take full advantage of the self-motivation and the unique ability of young children to develop their own capabilities. Children need adults to expose them to the possibilities of their lives, but the children themselves must direct their responses to those possibilities.
Our philosophy as Montessori educators is to strive to develop the self-esteem of each individual child. What Montessori refers to, as a ‘normalised child’ is a child that has a degree of self-confidence, who recognises his own worth and appreciates his shortcomings. When interested, a child becomes self-motivated. Self-motivation leads to becoming self-disciplined. When self-disciplined, a child engages in a process of mastering learning and develops their potential.
The basis of the method is the viewpoint that each child has an innate desire to learn. The prerequisite to learning taking place is the existence of a prepared environment where the child can be directed to ‘work’ and learn.
Our love for children
Intellectually we strive to develop the child’s understanding of academic subjects at his individual pace and so structure the learning environment to meet the needs of many children at different levels.
Socially, we strive to assist the child to interact with others with assertiveness, confidence and compassion. Conflict resolution is attended to on a daily basis.
The environment is structured to satisfy their curiosity and thirst for knowledge.
It is a unique cycle of learning designed to take advantage of the child’s sensitive years of learning when they can absorb information from an enriched environment.
A child who acquires the basic skills of reading and maths in this natural way has the advantage of beginning their education without drudgery, boredom and discouragement.
Montessori education
We built on the understanding that:
Children are to be respected as different from adults and as individuals who differ from each other.
Children possess unusual sensitivity and mental powers for absorbing and learning from their environment. The most important years of growth are the first six years of life, when unconscious learning is gradually brought to conscious level. Children have a deep love and need for purposeful work. The child works, however, not as an adult for profit and completion of a job, but for the sake of the activity itself. It is this activity, which accomplishes the most important goal for the child, the development of their mental, physical and psychological needs. By pursuing their individual interests in a Montessori classroom, children gain an early enthusiasm, or love of learning, which is the key to becoming a truly educated person.
