Women's History Month 

Many of our classrooms are celebrating Women's History Month by sharing some highlights of our very own Dr. Maria Montessori's life and work.

Maria grew up in Italy at a time when girls didn't receive an equal education to boys. She faced prejudice from her male colleagues but she was determined. She not only became Italy's first female pediatrician, but she also later became an early childhood expert - founding schools that put into action her revolutionary educational theories and materials created by her scientific mind, ultimately changing the lives of many children for more than a century to come.

It is amazing to think that Dr. Montessori was able to develop her materials without the benefit of today’s "brain research" technology.

Although she could not view a child’s brain to see which areas lit up when they were using the materials she created, through careful observation she knew what was effective. For example, a child’s fine motor skills, shape and size discrimination, and hand/eye coordination were being strengthened through materials like the "Knobbed Cylinders".

Today, modern neuroscience corroborates the benefits of the Montessori methodology. Maria Montessori spoke of the child's “absorbent mind” being like a sponge which literally soaks up what they see and do.

Fast forward 100 years later and new discoveries in the area of neurology support her hypotheses, showing that the hands do indeed "feed the mind".

What we also love about the methodology that she developed is that it is not only effective for learning new concepts, it helps nurture a love for learning.

Discover the incredible life of Maria Montessori, the pioneering teacher and researcher.

 

Celebrating Montessori Education Week 2024

This week we celebrate the 117th anniversary of Montessori Education during Montessori Education Week. Maria Montessori (1870–1952) was by any measure an extraordinary individual.

 

Dr. Montessori believed that each child is unique, learning at their own pace. This innovative thinking shaped a new type of learning environment designed to kindle the curiosity of each learner. 

 

Fast forward to today. Dr. Montessori would be excited to learn that today’s brain research corroborates what she intuited from her own observational research more than 100 years ago, proving many of her findings to be true in the realms of education and child development:

 

“…in the first few years of childhood there are a number of critical or sensitive periods, or ‘windows’, when the brain demands certain types of input …Rich experiences, in other words, really do produce rich brains.” **

 

Montessori advocated for the importance of taking full advantage of the “absorbent mind” during the period in a child’s development when the mind is most receptive. These are what she called the “sensitive periods”. This time from birth to 6 years old represents a period of rapid growth in a human's intelligence—a time when the child is particularly sensitive to stimuli that promote the development of a certain skill.  Knowing what we now know about the brain, it is clear that the Montessori method of teaching and learning sets students up for success in every stage of their development and throughout their life.

 

 

**excerpt taken from Fertile Minds by J. Madeleine Nash