The Montessori Principles
Some Differences Between Montessori and Traditional Pre-schools
The goal of both Montessori and traditional pre-schools is the same: to provide learning experiences for the child. The biggest differences lie in the kind of learning experiences each school provides and the methods they use to accomplish this goal.
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- the idea of the child as different from, not just a smaller edition of the adult;
- the observation that infants are learning from birth on, that age six is late to start thinking about the child’s education and three is not too early to begin schooling;
- the importance of the environment in which learning is to take place;
- the significance of early stimulation for later learning and its implications for the education of the culturally impoverished child;
- the judgement that real learning involves the ability to do things for one’s self, not the passive reception of a body of knowledge;
- that the things that teach (the child’s learning materials) should be intrinsically interesting and self-correcting, should train the senses in the perception of and therefore in the ability to deal with reality;
- that imposing immobility and silence hampers children’s learning and that given interesting work to do children will establish their own order and quiet;
- the concept of “sensitive periods”, phases of development appropriate to the learning of specific motor and cognitive skills such as “reading readiness”;
- the right of every child to develop his own fullest potential and the idea that the school exists to implement that right;
- the idea that the school must be part of the community and involve the parents in education to be effective;
