What Is Montessori?
The prepared environment and the role of the teacher
To me, the prepared environment is the base of a Montessori education. It is through the environment that the adult attempts to meet each child's individual, changing needs. The environment is clean, orderly and attractive. To begin with, the adult entices the child to work, through presenting and re-presenting a variety of activities, waiting patiently for the day when one of the activities will “call” to the child, and the child's concentration will be caught.
Then the adult must quietly step back. The adult's role now is to protect that fragile concentration from interruption, for in the early stages, if it is broken, days or even one or two weeks might pass before the child's concentration is caught again. Even a friendly, “How are things going?” or an awareness of being observed, might be enough to shatter that concentration.
Now the child's choices of activity are different. The child makes choices based not on surface appeal or randomness but based on a deep inner desire to work on certain activities. The adult's role is to observe and reflect, changing the environment and making new presentations and re-presentations based on the child's needs, as interpreted from observations. Children will not be in this perfect state of knowing their own needs all the time; sometimes children will be slaves to whims, so the adult must learn to distinguish between random choices and the choices that stem from a real inner need.
Trust the child
I think the hardest task of a Montessori teacher or parent is to trust that children will educate themselves if allowed to follow their own interests in the way described above. According to Maria Montessori, there should be no compulsion. Children are invited and enticed to work, not coerced. Every time I get nervous and feel tempted to instigate some compulsion in my children's schooling (usually after a bad week or two of not much work being done), they reassure me by carrying out a wonderful piece of work that I'm certain they would not have bothered with if their time was taken up with set tasks.
Respect
Closely tied to this trust in the child is a great respect for the child. Not only are children treated with respect in all interactions, but their concentration is also respected. Adults do not interrupt a child deep in work, and children are taught not to disturb another child's work: if one child wants a piece of equipment being used by another child, they must wait until the equipment is back on the shelf.
Children's ability to care for themselves and the environment is also respected. It has been observed that children derive enjoyment and a sense of pride and self worth from being able to look after themselves and their environment. To that end, presentations of practical life activities are made to enable children to build practical life skills and children are allowed to do as much for themselves as they are capable of and as they want to.
The principle of respect encompasses every aspect of a Montessori environment. As well as respect between people, there is also respect for the things in the environment and indeed for everything in the wider environment of the world. The Montessori materials are treated with care.
It is acknowledged that help can be a hindrance: when a child is capable, but only just, of doing up the buttons on a jacket and is trying hard to do so, it would be quickest to take over and do the task oneself, but that is not what the child wants, nor is it actually helpful to the child.
If a child completes a task or activity, ignorant of some sort of error, the child is not corrected. Instead the adult makes a note to re-present that activity at a later time.
The materials
Maria Montessori created a set of apparatus from which children can discover for themselves, and then practise, many different concepts. Even complicated mathematical concepts are presented concretely with physical apparatus so that through seeing and building for themselves, children can reach their own understanding of each concept.
