We would like to thank Tim Seldin & Paul Epstein for allowing us to use the following extracts from their book “The Montessori Way”.
Kumeu Montessori pre-school is highly recommended by parents and assessed as offering “high quality” education by the Educational Review Office (ERO), which recently conducted its 2005 audit.
Kumeu Montessori has been offering local families a real alternative to kindergarten since 1993.
Education should not be something ‘done’ to children but rather with them.
The Montessori way offers ‘partnership education’.
Take a minute to think about your own education, how many of you still hate maths or feel to this day that your education let you down in achieving you goals?
Many of us were raised by an educational paradigm that relied on domination and submission, of winning and losing, of external rewards and punishment, of top-down ranking, fear, manipulation, indoctrination and pressure to conform.
Unfortunately this is still the primary paradigm in schools to today which has resulted with emotional unhealthy and academically stunted adolescence.
If you want something different for your child do not follow this same well trodden path.
TThe 'Montessori way' focuses on partnership, independence, mutual trust and respect, on both individual and collaborative achievement, while developing minds and hearts. Each Montessori school is built upon the educational legacy of Dr. Maria Montessori and her influential work, which began nearly one hundred years ago. Since 1907, the year of her first school, children and adults have engaged in an approach to learning that addresses all aspects of growth: cognitive, physical, social, emotional and spiritual. In Montessori schools throughout the world, children develop the habit of lifelong learning. Guided by teachers trained to observe and identify children's unique learning capabilities, children learn in educational partnership with their teachers. Because children's interests are heard and honoured, Montessori students develop confidence and become self-directed. A powerful learning formula emerges as a result of this self-directed, self-initiated orientation to learning.
When interested a child becomes self-motivated. Self-motivation leads to becoming self-disciplined. When self-disciplined, a child engages in a process of mastery learning and fully develops his or her potential. Dr Montessori called this the normal approach to education. We call this the Montessori way.
The Montessori way refers to: the knowledge of how children naturally learn; a curriculum based on that knowledge designed for the developmental needs of infants, toddlers three-six year olds, elementary, middle and secondary students; a method of instruction involving learning how to observe and how to develop learning environments in which teachers challenge each child to extend fully his or her unique style of learning; a profession; a school characterized by calm, orderly, focused and respectful learning behaviours.
In 1907 Dr Montessori discerned a fundamental premise about children and humanity in general: All children are uniquely intelligent. This premise challenged long held beliefs about intelligence and the inherent nature of mankind as violent and competitive. Whereas Montessori wrote about unique, individual potential, it is fashionable today to discuss each person's "multiple intelligences".
This is the belief the intelligence is not fixed at birth and that the human potential is without limits. The validity of this belief has been confirmed by the research of Piaget, Gardner Coleman and many others.
Accordingly, then, the practice of highly selective educational institutions requires further examination: Does the design and conduct of schools including the forms of testing they use, privilege some forms of intelligence while ignoring others?
We know the each child is a full and complete individual in her own right. Even when very small, she deserves to be treated with the full and sincere respect that would be extended to her parents. Respect breeds respect and creates an atmosphere within which learning is tremendously facilitated.
Montessori educators work with infants, toddlers, young children and adolescents. In each age we see an inherent tendency towards discovery, cooperation, kindness, and non-violence. These observations challenge ideas about life and human motives in the social order, including subjecting millions of children to impoverished learning conditions.
EEach day, children exhibit vast wonder of the human spirit, the endless faces of intelligence, creativity, and inventiveness in the Montessori schools throughout the world. This suggests a far richer and more pleasant, productive and peaceful world than most of us have ever known or imagined. The Montessori Way stands in sharp contrast to current fervor to use children as measures of adults' performances: Test scores, not completed potential; prescribed standards and objectives not self-empowerment. Parents are required to accept a political definition of teacher effectiveness. Teaching "to" the test and rehearsed test taking may result in schools with test scores that reward adults with jobs and funding. But what is the cost to children?
CCurrent brain research urges adults to establish learning environments that are stimulating and relaxed; intriguing and safe for exploration. Thinking, problem solving and forming trusting relationships are all possible once a child is freed from stress.
