Dr. Maria Montessori, spent a great part of her life in observing children and helping them learn according to their natural learning instincts. She developed a system of education more than a hundred years ago, which surprisingly seems useful and applicable, even "today", to the learning and development of children around the world.
Dr. Maria Montessori believed that:
Dr. Maria Montessori believed that:
- Developmentally appropriate movement of the child's body and development of the brain and the thinking process are closely inter-related and such developmentally appropriate movement can certainly improve cognition.
- Children learn better when they feel they are in control of what they are doing. In simple words, learning is enhanced when children have a sense of independence.
- Better learning takes place when the children have an interest in the topic/material that they are learning.
- If external rewards or more appropriately, bribes, are attached to the completion of a task, the children focus on finishing the task at hand for the sake of reward and not for the sake of learning. Thus when the reward or bribe is removed the children are no longer interested in learning that particular piece of information/ material
- Working in unison with others can be very conducive to the process of learning.\
- Learning through "real" life material is much more permanent and effective as compared to learning through abstract concepts.
- Parents, care providing adults and teachers should try to effectively implement a balance of freedom and discipline in the Montessori environment for best results.
- Maintaining order in the environment helps children build internal order."From external order comes internal order"
