12 Points of Montessori Education

 

1.  It is based on  years of patient observation of child nature.

2.  It has proved itself of universal application. Within a single generation,
it has been tried with complete success with children of almost every nation.
Race, color, climate, nationality, social rank, type of civilization – all these make
no  difference to its  successful application.

3.  It  has revealed  the child  as  a lover of work , spontaneously chosen and carried out with profound joy.

4.  It is based on the child’s imperious need to learn by doing. At each stage in the child’s  mental growth, corresponding occupations  are provided by means of which he develops his faculties.

5.  While it offers the child a maximum of spontaneity, it nevertheless enables him  to reach  the same, or even a higher, level of scholastic attainment as under the old system.

6.  Though it does  away with the necessity of coercion by means of rewards and punishment, it achieves  an active discipline which originates within the child and it  is not imposed from  without.

7.  It is based on a profound respect for the child’s personality and removes from him the preponderating influence of the adult, leaving him room to grow in biological independence. The child is allowed a large measure of liberty ( not license ) which forms the basis of real  discipline.

8.  It enables the teacher to deal with each child’s individually in each subject, and thus guide him according to his individual requirements.

9.  Each child works at his own pace. Hence, the quick child is not held back by the slow, nor is the latter, in trying to keep up former, obliged to flounder along hopelessly out of his depth. Each stone in the mental edifice  is  “ well and truly laid ”  before the next is added.

10. It does away with the competitive spirit and its train of baneful results. More than this, at every turn it presents endless opportunities among the children for mutual help – which is joyfully given and gratefully received.

11. Since the child works on his own free choice, without competition and coercion, he is freed from danger  of overstrain, feelings of inferiority, and other experiences which are apt to be the unconscious cause of profound mental disturbances in later life.

12. Finally, the Montessori method develops the whole personality of the child, not merely his intellectual faculties but also his powers of deliberation, initiative, and independent choice with their emotional complements. By living as a free member of a real social community, the child is trained in those fundamental social qualities which form the basis for good citizenship.

Montessori  World Educational Institute
San Luis Obispo, CA
Source and Author Unknown
BR 520: 4- 90