What is the montessori method and how to apply it at home (2/2) posted by Max familias en ruta

Continuing with our first part of "What is the Montessori method and how to apply it at home (1/2)" I wanted to expand one of the most important characteristics of the Montessori method based on readings of books and educational blogs as well as on my own experience both family and professional in charge of the Montessori Vivo project. On this occasion, I would like to share with you something really important to understand the full potential of the Montessori method, such as the environment prepared to see how we can adapt it to our home.

PRINCIPLES OF A PREPARED ENVIRONMENT

The prepared environment is fully geared towards maximizing children's learning and exploration. Taking into account individualized learning plans, children can choose what they want to work with, who they would like to work with, and where they would like to work, and they can do so at their own pace. The environment, which includes both physical space and multi-age class groupings, directly shapes children's experience and their ability to be successful.

The seven key elements of a prepared environment

 1. Freedom and discipline

A central tenet of Montessori pedagogy and philosophy holds that children should have the freedom to follow their natural interests, leading to opportunities to develop their potential and increase their knowledge of the world.

Only in an environment of freedom can the child reveal himself to us. Montessori believed that the child has within himself the model for her own development, this inner guide should allow directing the child's growth. Within the prepared environment, the child must experience freedom in a number of ways, including movement, exploration, the ability to interact socially, and the freedom to learn and grow without interference from others. This freedom ultimately leads to a greater freedom: freedom of choice.

 2. Structure and Order

On the surface, structure and order may seem at odds with the importance of freedom in the prepared environment. The prepared environment is intended to reflect the sense of structure and order in the universe and presents an organized system that children must learn to understand in order to make sense of their environment and ultimately the world. By using the Montessori classroom environment as a microcosm of the Universe, the child begins to internalise the order that surrounds him, which gives meaning to the world in which he lives. The orderly environment supports children's ability to reason and provides consistent opportunities to validate their expectations and interactions with the world around them in predictable and consistent ways.

Order in the environment gives the child a sense of security so he soon learns to trust his environment and interact with it in a creative way. The order ensures the possibility of purposeful activity:

• The materials themselves are always ordered

• The child can find them easily.

• According to the interest you have

• In the sequence with respect to its difficulty or degree of complication

• With regard to the senses or abilities that are designed to develop.

Montessori stated that there is a sensitive period for this that occurs between the ages of one and three years of age. This is when the child begins to draw conclusions from the world around him. If there is no order in the environment of it, the sense can be inactive, since it will not be able to validate its conclusions.

This is not to say that routines or classroom settings or ways of doing things cannot change. However, it does mean that the change should be considered carefully. Is this change for the good of the children? If so, it must be done carefully and its aftermath should be observed to ensure that it is beneficial to children.

 3. Reality and Nature

Montessori had a deep respect and reverence for nature. She believes that we should use nature to inspire children. She continually suggested that Montessori teachers take children out in nature, rather than keeping them confined to the classroom. This is why natural materials are preferred in the prepared environment. Real wood, reeds, bamboo, metal, cotton, and glass are preferred over synthetics or plastics.

School furniture, devices and materials are designed to bring the child in closer contact with reality. Tables and chairs are light in weight and of adequate size. This is where real child-sized objects come into play. Furniture should be child-sized so that the child is not dependent on the adult for movement. Rakes, hoes, jugs, tongs, shovels should be adapted to the hands and height of all suitable children to make the job easy, ensuring proper use and completion of the work without frustration. The materials of practical life are real and work in such a way that:

• Authentic food is prepared and served.

• A real knife is used to peel and cut fruits and vegetables.

• Glass jars are used, which can fall and break.

• Silver and bronze objects darken (oxidise) and must be polished.

• Just like in the real world, the child learns to wait for her turn, because there is only one item of each type in the room.

• The child, who "still belongs to nature", learns about nature in a creative way by caring for plants and animals.

 4. Simplicity and beauty

Montessori environments are beautiful. The simplicity of design and harmony are essential qualities of the materials and devices used in the classroom. Tidy and well cared for, the environment should reflect peace and quiet. The brightly coloured and beautifully designed materials invite the child to hold and use them. Montessori believed that the need for beauty constantly called for the child's power to respond to life. She observed that the aesthetic quality of the objects and in the environment were a “great stimulus for the child's activity”, making her redouble her efforts. Montessori also spoke of the teacher as beautiful, clean, well dressed and sweet-smelling.

Montessori materials

The role of the Montessori material is an important part of the environment, which Maria Montessori often emphasised in relation to the other elements of the prepared environment. The purpose of the material is often misunderstood. Materials are not "learning devices" in the conventional sense. Nor are they your toys to play with. They do not have an external goal of developing skills or teaching concepts to children who use them correctly. The material has an internal purpose, to help the child in his own self-construction and in her physical, psychological, intellectual and social development.

The material provides the stimulus that captures the imagination of the child and helps him to initiate and extend the concentration process. This means that, if the materials are to be effective, they must be properly presented to the child at the appropriate time in this development. The material is limited in quantity and there are only one of each of the materials in the classroom.

 5. Social Environment

Multi-age classroom groupings provide great benefit to children as part of the prepared environment. The benefits increase in children as a result of learning within the Montessori social environment. The opportunity to be the youngest, middle or oldest child offers these children unique perspectives and experiences at each stage. At different times they may be helped by older children or aspire to do the things that older children do, serve as role models and mentors for younger children, and have regular opportunities to develop compassion and empathy for them. the rest. Additionally, children's ability to work and play in a variety of group settings is explicitly supported by the social environment that is intentionally created as part of the Montessori methodology.

 6. Intellectual Environment

If the above aspects are not recognized, the intellectual environment will not achieve its purpose. The purpose of the Montessori environment is the development of the child's entire personality, not just her intellect. By guiding children through the five areas of the Montessori curriculum (Practical Life, Sensory, Language, Mathematics, and Cultural Issues), the child has the structure that is at the forefront of creative work in a Montessori classroom.

A great deal of time and effort goes into creating a prepared Montessori classroom, which is designed to meet the individual needs of all children. Through this appropriate environment for the development of material and sensory the child moves hierarchically from the simple to the complex and from concrete to the abstract, children are given the freedom to fully develop their unique potential through a carefully prepared learning environment.

A prepared environment for the child not only allows him to be more productive in his learning and exploration but also tells the child that he is important. Their needs and abilities have been taken into consideration and that they live and work in a place where they can be successful, not only in their school activities but in those activities that are practical for everyday life.

 7. The Montessori Guide

The Montessori guide is an indispensable ingredient that makes the prepared environment possible. All the mentioned elements of the prepared environment are created and ordered following the model presented, promoted or guided by the creative work of a sensitive adult, the guide becomes the dynamic link between the child and the environment he has prepared. (Paula Polk Lilliard, ‘Montessori, a modern approach”, pp 50-90).

In her short essay, El Niño, written in Adyar, Madras, India, Dr Maria Montessori summarises her thoughts on the importance of the environment in these words:

“Giving the child freedom does not mean abandoning him to her own resources. The help that we give to the soul of the child should not be passive indifference to all the difficulties of its development. Better, we must be guided by prudence and loving care. However, even with only very careful preparation of the children's environment, we will have already done a great task, because creating a new world, a children's world is not an easy task. "

The first montessori classrooms as inspiration

The carefully prepared learning environment that Dr Maria Montessori created for her students in the first “Casa dei Bambini” in the San Lorenzo district of Rome was strikingly different from the school classrooms that children go to in exchange. century. The public schools of that time were always cold, dark, poorly ventilated and funereally decorated classrooms, where the floors and half of the walls were painted black, so that dirt from little hands and feet would not show.

In contrast, Montessori classrooms were spotlessly clean, much like an operating room, well ventilated and filled with sunlight. Instead of the traditional tables bolted to the ground in long lines, the children in the Montessori Houses had low shelves and small, child-sized tables and chairs in light tones, so that the children could see when they arrived with dust or dirt and therefore, they might be given the opportunity to dust and wash as an exercise in motor development, which became a routine part of their daily care for their own environment.

Old Montessori classroom

The tables and chairs were lightweight so that the children themselves could carry them and so that they could move and make noise by scraping the floor if a careless child tripped over or collided with one of them. Montessori called this "error control."

Children freely choose the work in the classroom, responding to internal needs and working individually for the most part. Individual work fosters independence, once a child has been presented with a lesson, they are free to use the material as they wish (if it is not being used by another child).

Children are encouraged to repeat the lessons as many times as the child wishes, so the concept is fully absorbed. A child is not necessarily going to receive a new lesson every day, time and repetition, as well as concentration, observation and discussion, are essential for the complete creation of the child.

Children are encouraged to respect the work of others, not to touch, distract or disturb other children who are working. Having only one unit of each material from each lesson in the classroom helps children to respect the work of others, be patient, and take pride in their own achievements.

Children are expected to respect their environment. They are shown where the lessons (materials) are on the shelf and how to use and return them in the correct way. Older children help restock supplies on the shelves and clean up at the end of the day.

We take care of the way we show children's work in the environment. It can create bad feelings/competition among children and encourage children to complete work for the sake of praise and recognition from adults and peers. It is crucial to help children realize that the process is what is important, not the end product.

The work done by the child is for the child and not for the parents. The Montessori environment is created so that the child works according to her internal needs, for the construction of themselves.

Children are encouraged to dress themselves and be responsible for their own belongings. Children should wear clothes that they can manage so that they can be independent.

Asking permission to go to the bathroom, to the water fountain, or to repeat a lesson is not necessary.

Thus, Montessori designed an environment in which all furniture, each piece of material, all qualities and characteristics are considered and presented only if it serves the best interests of the child. The public classroom, with its chair and large teacher's desk at the front, is still intended to serve the teacher. In the Montessori classroom, the teacher does not have personal property, since the class belongs to the children.

Montessori classrooms in the 21st century

Today, the Montessori classroom remains a carefully prepared learning environment designed to serve and belong to children. It is an environment in which each child has the opportunity to discover the intimate relationships between freedom and responsibility, between the order of learning and between works and joy. It is in this environment that each child has the opportunity to develop to their full potential, through a process of individualized activities that are adjusted to their own personal needs and rate of development. And all of this is accomplished in a group setting within the that there is social life in harmony, rich and with purpose.

In the prepared environment, there are a variety of activities, as well as a great deal of movement. In a preschool classroom, for example, a three-year-old boy can wash his clothes by hand, while a four-year-old boy, in the immediate vicinity, finds himself composing words and phrases with letters known as the movable alphabet, and a five-year-old boy is doing multiplication using a specially designed set of beads. In an elementary classroom, a small group of six to nine-year-old children may be using a timeline to learn about extinct animals, while another child decides to work alone, analyzing a poem using special symbols. of grammar. Sometimes an entire class may be involved in a group activity, such as storytelling, singing, or movement. There are environments prepared for children at each plane of successive development. These environments allow children to take responsibility for their own education, giving them the opportunity to become human beings capable of functioning independently and therefore interdependently.

The environment prepared at home

The environment must be carefully prepared for the child by an informed and sensitive adult. The adult must be a participant in the life and growth of the child in the prepared environment.

Although the above principles are described by a school setting, all of them can be applied to homeschool, with the exception of the student/teacher ratio. Most families who are introduced to Montessori find that they begin to apply the principles within their expectations of home and family life, even if they are not homeschooling.

A prepared environment will differ with each family based on the child's own needs and development, as well as the practices of the family and the home itself.

How to incorporate the ideas of a prepared environment in your home? At your own pace. They experience a mixture of freedom and self-discipline in a place specially designed to meet their developmental needs.

Quotes about prepared environments:

“The first objective of the prepared environment is, as far as possible, to make the child grow up independent of the adult. "

-Maria Montessori, The Secret of Childhood (267)

“The first essential element for the development of the child is concentration. You need the whole foundation of your character and social behaviour. He has to find a way to focus, and for that, he needs things to focus on. This shows the importance of her environment, but no one who acts on the child from the outside can cause him to concentrate ”.

-The Absorbing Mind p 202, Ch. 22

“… The realization of the peculiar absorbing nature of the child's mind, which has prepared for him a special environment, and then, by placing the child in his womb, has given him the freedom to live in it, absorbing what he finds there. "

-María Montessori: her Life and Work p 265, Ch. XVI

“The first objective of the prepared environment is, as far as possible, to make the child's growth independent of the adult, that is, it is a place where he can do things for himself. Living his own life - without immediate help from adults. " Ibid p 267, Ch. XVI

“… Living in this way, freely in a prepared environment, the child enters into vital communication with this environment and deals with love. This love for the environment does not exclude his love for the adult, it excludes dependence. ” Ibid p 267, Ch. XVI

“In this environment, only things that can be present will help development. Outside should keep everything that would act as an obstacle, not least if an adult also wants to interfere. Even things that are neutral or irrelevant must be rigorously excluded. The constructive psychic energy granted by nature to children for the construction of their personality is limited, so we have to do everything possible to see that it is not dispersed in the activities of the wrong kind. Ibid p. 26, Ch. XVI

“There is a constant interaction between the individual and the environment, the use of things shapes man, and man shapes things. This reciprocal exchange is a manifestation of man's love for his environment -harmonious interaction-. When it exists, as in the child, it represents the normal relationship that should exist between the individual and his environment and this relationship is one of love ”. Education and Peace p 57, ch. 7

Bibliography

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Montessori. M. (1967). The absorbing mind. New York, NY: Dell Publishing Company.

Montessori, M. (2007). Education for a new world. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Montessori - Pierson Publishing Company.

Standing, E. M. (1998). María Montessori: her life and her work. New York, NY: Penguin Putnam, Inc.

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