What exactly does a montessori school teach?

Question

What exactly does a montessori school teach?

Answer 1

nothing

Answer 2

Since you asked in preschool, I assume you're asking about the Montessori 3-6 classroom.  Although there are programs in Montessori for infant all the way up through high school, I'll answer with 3-6 and try to give you a good, broad picture of the rest of the educational system as well.

Maria Montessori was actually a medical doctor who later became in charge of a small day care area where she wanted to see if her ideas on education that she formed while working with mentally retarded children would work on children that generally had no known medical issues that would inhibit their learning.  This is important because, being a doctor and scientist, the Montessori method is a very scientific method of education.

What Maria Montessori did was observe children.  She set up an environment where children were free to explore.  Through the practical life materials, they began to develop life skills of how to care for themselves.  They began to develop their senses through the sensorial materials.  They began building their concentration to fascinating levels.  They began taking on an inner discipline that confused teachers who came in to try to give them rewards, to children very uninterested in medals, candy, and other such external rewards.  Everyone was amazed at how easily these children learned to read and write, do math, and treat each other with respect.  They did it all while loving it as well, which is even more amazing.

It wasn't long before Montessori schools branched out into what are traditionally thought of as more academic areas.  In the 3-6 curriculum, there are 6 overall areas:

--Practical Life:  This area is designed to help students develop a care for themselves, the environment, and each other.  Children learn how to do things from pouring and scooping, using various kitchen utensils, washing dishes, shining objects, scrubbing tables, and cleaning up.  They also learn how to dress themselves, tie their shoes, wash their hands, and other various self-care needs.  They learn these through a wide variety of materials and activities.  

While caring for yourself and your environment is an important part of Montessori Practical Life education in these years, it also prepares the child for so much more.  The activities build a child's concentration as well as being designed in many cases to prepare the child for writing.  For the first three years of life, children absorb a sense of order in their environment.  They learn how to act a certain way naturally by absorbing it.  These ages, from 3-6, the children are learning how to both build their own order and discover, understand, and refine the order they already know.  So it's typical for you to see a child spend a half hour working on one practical life activity with a strong concentration and attention to detail.  Language preparation comes in many forms in the practical life area.  The setup is from left to right, top to bottom, as much as possible.  Many of the fine motor skills being used involve a pencil grip and help the child develop that grip to be able to later use a pencil more easily.

--Sensorial:  All learning first comes to us through the senses.  By isolating something we are trying to teach the child, the child can more easily focus on it.  For example, we do not teach colors by having the child think of everything that is blue - blue jeans, the sky, iceburgs, a picture of a blue cartoon elephant hanging on a wall.  We teach them by using color tablets.  The color tablets are all exactly the same except for one thing - their color in the middle.  This helps take away the confusion for the child and helps them to focus on specifically what blue is.  We also feel it is important to be exact with children and provide them with correct information.  We do not call an oval an "egg shape."  An egg isn't even in the shape of an oval - it's in the shape of an ovoid.  Children learn much more quickly if you're exact and accurate with them, since it takes away so much of the confusion.  The sensorial area also falls over into the math area quite regularly.  The red rods in the sensorial area are a direct link to the segmented rods in math that teach 1-10.  The pink tower has a connection to units and thousands that the child learns later in the 3-6 curriculum.  Even the trinomial cube will be used in the elementary years to figure out complex mathmatical formulas.

--Cultural:  This includes both the studies of the world and various cultures.  Montessori children come out of a 3-6 environment not only understanding the concept of a continent, country, and state, but also the names of many countries around the world.  I had one student that fell in love with the Montessori maps and decided to learn all the countries of the world by the time he was finished with Kindergarten.  More power to him.  He came pretty close, but just had fun doing it and it was easy for him, so why stand in his way? :)

More importantly, the goal is to get an understanding that there are various cultures and these cultures have a lot to offer us.  When a student is doing the map of Asia, pictures, stories, facts about different Asian countries, and a variety of learning opportunities open up to give the child a real sense of the world and how it is different - even within the same area.

--Science:  Children at this age are very detail oriented.  They know what a bird is.  Now they want to know the various body part of a bird.  They want to know the life cycle of different animals.  They begin to really look at the parts of a plant and wonder, "What are those long things coming out of the middle of a flower?"  The science curriculum takes the opportunity for the child's natural questioning and draws a fascinating curriculum for the 3-6 age range.  What I really enjoy about this area is this is where I learn the most.  Children ask questions I cannot answer, so I have to find it out.  Or we might be studying something I know nothing about, so I have to learn as well.  When the teacher is learning, the children really see that and get excited about learning too.

Language:  The language curriculum involves everything from vocabulary development to writing to reading.  Children learn their basic letter sounds through the use of sandpaper letters, where the letters are cut from sandpaper and glued to a wooden board.  As the child traces the letter, they get a real image for how the letter feels. They can also feel if a mistake was made because of the different feel of the sandpaper from the board.  They begin making words before they can read words with the movable alphabet.  It's fun to watch children spell out a word, but not be able to read it.  Quite interesting, too.

--Math:  The math area is the area most people find the most fascinating.  Children go from a very concrete understanding of math to a more abstract concept.  Children in a Montessori classroom know the difference between 1, 10, 100, and 1000 because they have felt it countless times.  They felt it originally in the pink tower and later in the math materials.  It includes things such as addition and subtraction of 4 digit numbers, basic multiplication and division, and the understanding of various mathmatical concepts such as odd and even.

The learning goals of Montessori are quite different than that of traditional education.  By not having set goals that have to be met, the child is free to explore these materials and activities when he or she is ready.  As a result, we get the maximum results the child can produce rather than something set by a syllabus.  If we were to say that Montessori does have goals, it would be to develop a person who:

--Has a lifelong love of learning

--Has a more empathetic view to the world

--Is self-motivated

--Is able to form answers and analyse situations on his or her own rather than relying on someone else, such as a teacher.

--Has internalized discipline

--Understands that no matter what they do, they are an important part of society

With that comes a very individual respect for each child by the teacher.  So if a child is not learning to read, the child is not pushed to read.  The teacher sees them not as either children that can follow the rules or can't follow the rules or as someone that is "not learning" or "not as bright as the rest of the class," things I often hear traditional teachers say.  The teacher sees them as a developing person who has great potential that should be fostered.  The teacher sees the child where he or she is and tries to create learning opportunities at that point.

Hope this helped!

Matt

Answer 3

Life skills. Responsibility. They involve the children in all daily activities (meal prep-setting table, preparing meal, clearing table).

They are a real hands on type of learning, really excellent for children who learn best that way

Answer 4

they have a different way of teaching of their own.

and also have their own different teaching material

Answer 5

Montessori schools teach all of the same subjects that traditional schools teach.  The main difference is that the learning is child-centered rather than curriculum/teacher-centered.  Children learn at their own pace and are not forced to learn faster than they are ready, nor are they held back by other students.  Montessori children tend to be much more independent.  To learn more about Montessori education, try reading one of the following books: Montessori for Parents, by Dorothy Fisher, The Secret of Childhood, by Dr. Maria Montessori, or A Parent's Guide to Montessori, by Aldine Wolf.  You can also try visiting this website: http://www.montessori.edu

Answer 6

Montessori School teaches:

    * awaken your child's spirit and imagination

    * to encourage his normal desire for independence and high sense of self-esteem

    * help him develop the kindness, courtesy, and self-discipline that will allow him to become a full member of society

    * help him learn how to observe, question, and explore ideas independently

You will also learn many Montessori Material that will strengthen your child's ability.

Answer 7

Have you read the wiki?  There are also 3 links at the bottom.