Montessori Roadmap

 

Overview

 

Contents:

 

Short Biography

Dr Maria Montessori was a woman beyond her time. Born in Italy in 1870, she went to medical school and became the first woman doctor in Italy.

A genius not only of intellect, but of compassion, she was first drawn to work with the handicapped children. Society during that time referred to these children as ‘idiots’ who were simply relegated to the asylums.

Dr Montessori worked with them and before long, these children began to fare as well as those with no handicap. It was not hard for Dr Montessori to wonder what the results could be when the same method she employed with the handicapped be used also with those who were not handicapped.

The opportunity to do this came in 1907 in a poor section of Rome where she set up her first school called Casa dei Bambini.  She worked with the underprivileged children.

As a woman of science, she observed the children and  developed ways to address their needs. The school she started became a showcase because of how the children developed. Her successes led her to continue in her observations, documenting what she would call ‘the secrets of childhood’ and challenging the set ways of how children were being taught conventionally.

Dr Montessori’s contribution in the field of education lives to this day. Italy has honored her by marking their thousand- lira currency with her portrait.

She died in Holland in 1952 having left a legacy that continues to enrich the lives of countless children and their families.

Articles of Interest about Montessori:

  1. The Wall Street Journal April 2011 on The Montessori Mafia: “the creative elite, which are so overrepresented by the school’s alumni” http://blogs.wsj.com/ideas-market/2011/04/05/the-montessori-mafia/
  2. Harvard Business Review “Montessori Builds Innovators” http://blogs.hbr.org/hbr/mcafee/2011/07/montessori-builds-innovators.html

 

Montessori Core Principles

Montessori Thought is founded on two core principles.

 

Principle 1 :  Children Teach Themselves.

 

Dr Montessori once remarked, “Like others I had believed it was necessary to encourage the child by means of some exterior reward that would flatter his baser sentiments such as gluttony, vanity, self-love, peace.  And I was astonished when I learned that a child who is permitted to educate himself really gives up these lower instincts.”

Trained Montessori teachers will teach. Their training is rigorous in theory and practice, developing skills in presenting all the manipulative materials and scientific charts to the children in all academic disciplines.  But they will not teach as much they are to inspire.  Inspired children, like any other human being, will accomplish more.

How then does Montessori inspire the child?  By creating Prepared Environments.

These environments had been carefully thought out by Dr Montessori through decades of scientific research that began in the 1900s.  She dedicated her life to documenting the natural tendencies and sensitivities of your growing child.   This is what has come to be known as the Montessori Method of Education.

The Prepared Environments change because the child changes too.

Dr Montessori observed that all children go through three distinct changes or Planes of Development in their maturing journey to adulthood.  This is the second core principle of Montessori.

 

Principle 2 :  The Planes of Development.

 

 

In each plane certain ‘sensitivities’  reach their optimum levels and then wane,  only to be replaced by another set of sensitivities that is characteristic only of that succeeding plane.

Montessori’s idea is to ‘deliver the goods’, so to speak, while the particular sensitivities are still present or at their optimum, because they will not always be present.  If we missed out, then we simply miss out to the disadvantage of the child.

These sensitivities are discussed in the folders under this section.

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The Casa Program 3 to 6 years old

“Like others I had believed it was necessary to encourage a child by means of some exterior reward that would flatter his baser sentiments such as gluttony, vanity, self-love, peace. And I was astonished when I learned that a child who is permitted to educate himself really gives up these lower instincts.”

- Dr. Maria Montessori

“Children Teach Themselves” is a simple yet a profoundly insightful truth Dr Montessori had observed in all children. She had always believed that the role of guides or teachers is to create environments that inspire children to learn by themselves. When children are inspired, coming to school becomes pure joy.

The Abba’s Orchard began with the Casa Program for children age 3 to 6 years old. As the children moved up to the next level the following year, another class was added but a different kind of environment was prepared that best suited them.

The environment and syllabus for Casa is for a child whose mind is absorbent, whose sensitivity is for order, and whose social tendencies are towards self.
Purposeful materials designed by Dr Montessori abound and are neatly arranged in a Casa classroom. They entice and engage your child in amazing concentration.

The absorbent mind of your child is a characteristic only of this age period. This allows the trained teacher, at the cue of your child’s initiative and interest, to infuse without coercion, and almost without limits, concepts of Language and impressions of Mathematics. Sensorial and Practical Life exercises are given to hone his sensitivity to order.
The classroom culture encourages your child to unlock for himself what is around him. His successes move him to unlock some more and soon he develops a profound sense of fulfillment. His initiatives are rewarded by his own discoveries, giving your child a solid foundation for a life-long love of learning.

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The Elementary Program 6 to 12 years old

 

Contents:

 

The Elementary Program

A
 round the ages of 6 and 7 years old, your child’s make-up changes. Three major events unfold :
His once absorbent mind now becomes a reasoning faculty that is fueled by a marvelous ability to imagine. His questions of “What?” in his younger years are now supplanted by his questions of “Why?” and “How?”
Your child also begins to develop a sense of moral awareness. He wants to know what is right and what is wrong, what is fair and what is not. He reports what he sees as injustice and seeks the adult’s judgment. He looks for a model of integrity.
He also becomes a social being, leaves his solitary shell and begins to explore relationships among his group. These interactions tend to be more than casual. They are organized with a sense of purpose and direction.
All these changes begin at age 6 to 7 and continues up to age 12. Your Casa child now is ready to move up to the elementary environment of Montessori, one that fits his new emerging personality.

 

 

The Cosmic Education

D
 uring this time, the reasoning and imaginative mind of your child allows the trained teacher to hand over the
keys to the universe. This is The Cosmic Education at the core of Montessori’s elementary syllabus. It addresses the three major emerging characteristics in your child’s intellectual, social and moral life.
“If you have given the world to the small child, what is there left?… it is giving the universe because the universe is an imposing reality and an answer to all questions.”- Dr Maria Montessori

Through well-prepared presentations and charts, the sheer magnitude of the universe awes your child and he begins to develop a growing awareness of a loving and a just Creator God, a fundamental impression of truth in your child’s spiritual life.Because the universe represents creation as a unity and therefore its parts interrelated, the Cosmic Education is able to centralize all the interdisciplinary planes of science and the arts : Mathematics and Geometry, the Languages, Biology and Geography, History of Human Development and Civilization, Music and Arts, and Movement Education.
This gives your child the facility to examine the parts and yet feel the security of their places in the Whole.

 

 

Imagination and reason fuel classroom experience

The interdependencies of things define purposes of existence, and soon he approaches his own purposes in life. You may have noticed your child see himself getting into this profession or that kind of work. He rejoices in life and senses the security of his being in this great universe created by his God.

“It is true we cannot make a genius; we can only give each individual the choice to fulfill his potential possibilities to become an independent, secure, and balance human being.”-Dr Maria Montessori

Imagination and reason fuel classroom experience through the Montessori materials and the carefully selected reference books. The trained teacher delivers measured information just enough to ignite exploration that invites your child to conduct researches even outside the confines of the school.At one time, you may have accompanied or driven for him and his classmates to a going-out activity. And you knew in the end, he was learning infinitely more.

While this is happening, his tools in numbers (math), in communication (oral and written), and in logic (reasoning) are honed to give him skills necessary in his quests. The greater the skills, the more solid the experience.

 

 

Multi-Age Grouping

Because your child is developing his social consciousness, his leadership and human organization skills emerge naturally in a multi-age grouping that is characteristic of a Montessori environment.

Grace and courtesy continue to be refined. Confidence in self-expression is built up. Interpersonal relationships are secured. His idea of society becomes formed.By the time he reaches 12 years of age, your child who began his journey in a Montessori environment some 10 years ago has now acquired a fairly good amount of knowledge comparable perhaps to someone a few years his senior in a traditional school.
“There is, then, a unity within the school, a real atmosphere of community work, a chance of real social life, where each age can help benefit from the others.”- Margaret Stephenson

Your child has his moral bearings anchored, wherein your home values play a major and a very important part. He has more than a glimpse of his possible place in the society of adults. He has been equipped with enthusiasm for the adventure of life. Your child is now ready to move on.

“Growth is not merely an increase in size but a transformation.” - Dr. Maria Montessori

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The Erdkinder Program 12 to 18 years old

 

Contents:

 

Montessori Adolescent Program

N
ow your roadmap brings you to your child’s adolescent years of 12 to 18 years old. This is a
most challenging period of transition for him, and also for you, his parents. He will traverse this road from being a child he is not anymore to becoming an adult he is yet to be.

“At puberty, he comes to the end of this period. Nature marks the end. It is an extraordinary change, a point of life which might be called a rebirth.“

- Dr. Maria Montessori
Dr Montessori calls your child a social newborn

As parents, you must understand that the sentiments of your child are now changing. In Montessori’s words, your child “is no longer satisfied to be the pet of the household. He has now a sense of dignity. He feels he is observed. He does not wish to be held at less worth than others. He wants to take the first steps in social life and he is anxious as to the figure he will cut.”

Montessori asks what is now the best environment for this age?

 

 

Montessori Farm Environment

As in the early parts of the journey, the key to providing the answer lies in observing the natural gifts and tendencies of your child, now a growing young man or a young lady.Montessori believes the natural changes in your child are meant to aid him in his crossover to adulthood. Thus they demand
a new environment and a new syllabus, one that simulates the adult world and yet stimulates your child to develop his societal skills.
Montessori’s syllabus for your adolescent requires his mastery of the academic subjects as means to relevant and practical applications in the field. The development of creative expression together with work and entrepreneurship become major components of an experience-based curriculum.

“Children love adults; that is how we must know them. No adult can become a teacher of love without special effort, without opening the eyes of her consciousness in order to see a world more vast than her own.”

-Margaret Stephenson
Montessori sees an environment of nature, of calm and quiet that invites reflection and meditation yet encourages the adventurous soul of the adolescent to explore. She sees a healthy space of clean air and an organic source of good diet that address the needs of his rapidly maturing physical body. She sees a natural space for work, for entrepreneurship and for study.

 

 

The Adolescent Mind

Dr Maria Montessori sees a Farm School.

In the global Montessori movement, The Abba’s Orchard Montessori Farm Campus in La Granja Estates, Pualas, Baungon, Bukidnon is the first of its kind in the Asia-Pacific.

Why Farm School for the Adolescent?

Montessori believes only a farm environment with an experience-based curriculum can provide the optimum conditions that will respond to the tendencies and sensitivities of the adolescent in his maturing journey to adulthood.

 

The Adolescent Mind. From his absorbent mind in Casa, and his reasoning and imaginative mind in Elementary, the mind of your adolescent child tends now to be reflective, interpretive, and creative. He needs now to reflect internally upon the knowledge he has acquired in the past, and acquiring in the present, and he needs to be able to interpret them personally and express them socially. Spiritually, he muses his God-given mission.

 

 

The Montessori Adolescent Curriculum

This is the time when most parents say their child now has his own mind.Montessori sees the farm environment beckoning the youth to reflection.

“… the calm surroundings, the silence, the wonders of nature satisfy the need of the adolescent mind for reflection and meditation.”

- Dr. Maria Montessori

In recognizing these tendencies, Montessori’s curriculum calls for opportunities for self-expression. The avenues are in Language, and in Music and the Arts.The Language curriculum is a constant in all academic pursuits where logical presentations of findings are part of mastery tests. Presentations come in the form of public speaking (or elocution) and the theater arts.
Language covers also training in round-table discussions (or Socratic Seminars) and debates which are periodic venues for expressing personal views on an array of fields of studies and interests. Music and the Arts provide options for creative work and expressions.

 

 

The Adolescent Spirit

Montessori also observed that the adolescent mind will tend to have less ability to concentrate. This is borne not out of lack of willingness, but because this is simply a physiological characteristic of this age. Half a century later, modern neurological technology on synaptic research would confirm Montessori’s observation that these changes do occur particularly in early adolescence (age 12 to 14).

Given this, Montessori saw the importance of weaving in the intellectual work with manual work, particularly manual work that provides relevance to the adolescent’s academic pursuits.

But Work in Montessori thought serves more than eliminating boredom and providing practical relevance. Work addresses the very need of the adolescent spirit.

The Adolescent Spirit. The sensitivity of the adolescent is one of being able to have a sense of personal dignity and a sense of justice.

“This is the time, the ‘sensitive period’ when there should develop the most noble characteristics that would prepare a man to be social, that is to say, a sense of justice and a sense of personal dignity.”

- Dr. Maria Montessori

 

 

Adolescent Valorization

Montessori’s writings reveal her observations during adolescence: “there are doubts and hesitations, violent emotions, discouragement … a need for the strengthening of self-confidence.“
As parents, you need to appreciate that the fulfillment and joy of your child when he was in Casa were his own discovery of the world around him - and so that environment was prepared for him.
When he moved up to elementary, his fulfillment and joy were his own discovery of the reasons for the world around him — and so he was given the keys to the universe in what is called the Cosmic Education.
Now as an adolescent, Montessori sees that your child’s fulfillment and joy will be his own discovery ofhis worth in the world around him.
And much like an adult that he is to become, the adolescent finds dignity or self-worth in work, in a chosen vocation, where his contribution to a community is real, is felt and is recognized. It is here where your child’s confidence is edified, where his doubts and hesitations are addressed and where his person, his very being, in Montessori’s words, is valorized.

 

 

Adolescent Entrepreneurship

The essence of the Farm School with its accompanying curriculum revolves around Work. Work can be the rotated tasks in farm upkeep like doing the kitchen detail, or milking the cow, or cleaning the barn.
Work can also be in entrepreneurial ventures like a vegetable garden or a goat farm or honey production. Work is also found in a farm extension like a bed-and-breakfast hostel for visiting parents and guests.

 

 

Occupations Projects

But also work can come in what is called Occupations Projects, which are relevant and practical applications of academic pursuits.Mathematics and Geometry, for example, will find application in a Mapping and Topographic Survey project of the farm property. Biology and Chemistry will find application in a Pond or Lagoon study.

Physics and Geology will find application in doing a Shallow Well study that requires a wind-powered pump. History and Humanities will find application in doing a Demographic Survey of a nearby village.In all of the above, study themes and work groups are designed for limited number of students to ensure that each one will have a role to do. The role is what creates for your child his sense of value – his personal dignity. It also allows him to develop a sense of justice – because he starts to realize that if he does not deliver on his role excellently, his work group or his farm community suffers. Thus, in a very real and practical sense, the impressionable youth learns to serve others.

 

 

Adolescent Economic Independence

And there are several other roles he takes on. While they make his academic pursuits relevant and engaging, this multiplicity of roles allows the youth not only to discover himself but to develop a keen sense of adaptability, a trait demanded by the complexity of our times.

“Therefore work on the land is an introduction both to nature and to civilization and gives limitless field for scientific and historic studies.”

- Dr. Maria Montessori
There is one other thing about work that Montessori highlights. Work allows your child to realize a socio-economic world and his own economic independence.

“If produce can be used commercially, this brings in the fundamental mechanism of society, that of production and exchange, on which economic life is based.”

- Dr. Maria Montessori

 

 

Socio-Economic Morality

The Farm School curriculum design allows the valuation of the economic work of the student. This valuation of his work and produce ushers your child to the gateways of the adult’s socio-economic world.

When he sells, or buys with the money he earns, it introduces him to a larger society of other producers and consumers.

The concept of money becomes real to him. He comes to grips with its power and his moral responsibilities to handle his money. He actualizes his self-sufficiency.

“The very foundation of social morality is bound up with money… Among other laws the child is learning now, there is something grand to be grasped here, to realize that this is the most important fact in the organization of society and in social morality.”

- Dr. Maria Montessori

Beyond learning how to earn, it is learning how to spend. Beyond learning how to make profit from the vegetable garden enterprise, it is learning how to make profit honorably.Montessori believes the farm setting provides the grounds to explore and influence this morality. In its most passive state, the farm defines and teaches the simplest essentials of living — needs and wants are easily distinguishable.

 

 

The Adolescent Body

Still, the youth must not face these crossroads alone. He needs the guidance, modeling and passion of the enlightened adult.
We cannot lose out on, and much less trivialize, the key and the most fundamental moral principle of social organization.
In summary, WORK for the Adolescent- Valorizes his person, - Makes his academics relevant and engaging, - Interests him to entrepreneurship, - Gives him a keen sense of adaptability, - Ushers him to the socio-economic world, and - Allows him to see his value in serving his community

Indeed, there cannot be a better way to prepare the youth for life. The Adolescent Body. Dr Montessori writes on the dynamism of the physical metamorphoses of the adolescent :

“The period of life in which physical maturity is attained is a delicate and difficult time, because of the rapid development and change which the organism must go through.”

- Dr. Maria Montessori

 

 

Farm School Living

The human organism becomes so delicate that doctors consider this time (adolescence) “to be comparable to the period of birth and rapid growth in the first years thereafter.” The comparative was certainly not made to highlight physiological realities as much as it is to make imperative the level of attention and concern given the newborn be also afforded the adolescent.

We hear the physician in Montessori as dispensing prescription for a healthy environment for the young man.

“Special attention must be given to the diet. A non-toxic food rich in vitamins and sugar is suitable for this age.”“Homegrown vegetables and fruit that have thoroughly ripened on the tree are treasures that can be had only by those who live in the country.”“Life in the open air and sunshine, bathing and swimming, must be made use of to the greatest possible extent, as in a sanatorium… “For the time when the body is underdeveloped, it is better to live in flat country where long walks may be taken.”

Evidently, all of the above are feasible only in a countryside style of living. And that is what the farm setting is about.

 

 

Adolescent Physical Education

  
   
The Farm School curriculum for Physical Education provides options for Orienteering, Mountaineering, Swimming, Rock Wall Climbing and Soccer.
The Infinity Lap Pool at the Alwana Campus, Cagayan de Oro City

 

 

Montessori Erdkinder

T
his Montessori Roadmap is an invitation for you, the parent, to explore an alternative education for your growing child.

The Abba’s Orchard is equipped to offer the full curriculum of Montessori starting from the Infant Community (for children below 3 years old), and Casa (for children between 3-6 years old), going to Levels 1 and 2 (elementary program for 6-12 years old), and culminating in the adolescent program Dr Montessori calls the Erdkinder, German for “the children of the soil.”

The vision has remained the same – the vision to see the child grow into a lively, self-motivated, confident and accomplished individual – one who is equipped to perform his purposes in life as a responsible member of society and as a man prepared for his God-given mission in this world.
“And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.” Luke 2:52

The Abba’s Orchard Montessori School: addressing the Intellect the Physical the Spiritual and the Social

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