Gables Montessori Blog

THE TEACHERS IN THE MONTESSORI SYSTEM

montessori-teacher

The role of teachers in the Montessori system is teaching each child on an individual basis. The method does not impose lessons on anyone, the work is based on guiding and helping each child according to his needs. The guide can not intervene until the child requires it.

María Montessori calls the teacher ¨director¨, and the person has to be internally (spiritually) and externally (methodologically) prepared. This expert should organize the environment to help the child to develop a structured «mind».

Children are plenty of possibilities.  The “director¨ is the responsible person for showing children the way to their development. The director has to believe in the ability of each child to respect the different rhythms of development. This practice allows integrating different types of children in the same group (those who learn slowly with those more advanced). The Montessori´s idea is to let the child feel being able to act without constantly relying on an adult to develop his curiosity and creativeness and learn to think for himself.

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Child learning to Maria Montessori

The level and type of intelligence are formed primarily during the first years of life. At age 5, the brain reaches 80% of its adult size. The plasticity of children’s education shows that the potential must be exploited starting early. Knowledge should not be introduced into the heads of children. By contrast, knowledge must be perceived by children as a result of their reasoning. The most important thing is to motivate children to learn comfortably and allow them to satisfy the curiosity and to experience the pleasure of discovering their own ideas instead of receiving knowledge from others.

Allow the child to find the solution of the problems. Unless it is very necessary, do not provide new knowledge from outside. It is better to allow children build it based on their specific experiences. With regard to competition, this behavior should be introduced only after the child had confidence in the use of basic knowledge. Maria Montessori says: “Never let the child to take the risk of failing until he has a reasonable chance to succeed.”

She thought it was not possible to create geniuses, instead of that, she believed in giving each person the opportunity to fulfill their potential to be an independent, safe and balanced human being. Another innovative concept of Montessori is that each child marks his own pace or speed to learn and that must be respected.

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