The Montessori Method: FAQs (Part 1)
The Montessori Method: FAQs (Part 1)
We believe that choosing the right school for your child counts as one of the toughest and important decisions you will take in your life as parents. You have every right to question and demand answers all the more, when you're considering a pedagogy like The Montessori Method that sounds convincing but far from conventional.To infuse some much needed awareness and assurance, the following questions and answers are based on our interaction with several parents who shared similar if not the same inhibitions with regard to The Montessori Method.
What is “Montessori”? Is it just pre-school?
The Montessori Method of education is named after and based on the philosophy and teachings of Dr Maria Montessori, an Italian Pediatrician. Although the method is very popular at the nursery/pre-school level in India, it is not limited and can be adopted to teach children up to 15 years or 10th grade like other countries have done so.
Do Montessori children learn to read and write quickly?
The Montessori Method is child-centric, and doesn’t force the child to write when he/she turns three years old.However, the method assures you that your child will learn to read and write by age of four and a half. We expect parents to have patience and faith in their genes if not in the Montessori Method.
Will the mixed age group do injustice to my child?
It’s definitely the best features of the method. By interacting with children of different ages (2 to 6 years) your child will learn to share, care and respect children both older and younger than him/her. By helping the younger children the older ones also develop traits like leadership.
It also helps to establish a sense of community in the classroom, by inculcating values like compassion,tolerance self-esteem etc. that build character and right attitude as they learn to celebrate each other's progress in unity.
What are subjects/the areas of learning? Do they gel well together?
All the areas of learning, (EPL, Sensorial, Arithmetic, Language and Culture) complement each other and work in a correlated fashion.
For example: If the sensorial activity involves differentiating between the texture, color and size of dry and fresh leaves, the language activity would focus on describing those characteristics, which builds their vocabulary. The teacher would then request them to collect 10 dry and 5 fresh leaves which is an arithmetic activity. The parts of the leaf are then explained during the botany activity. Click here to read Part 2 of The Montessori Method (FAQs)