Thursday, October 29, 2009

Maria Montessori


Maria Montessori was an Italian educator who devoted her life to the education of children from six to sixteen. Her method mainly consisted in letting children work with specific materials within a rich environment that had been carefully created by the teacher. For instance, children at kindergarten would work with materials that foster the development of autonomy and organizational skills. Then at elementary school, they would work with timelines and charts in order to develop abstract reasoning abilities. Nowadays, Montessori´s ideas can be seen applied at Kindergarten when children are allowed to choose self-correcting materials to play and games that involve the psychosocial and academic functioning. For instance, doing the ironing, cooking, shopping, etc.
As a teacher to be, I would like to try the use of timelines, charts and connective narratives in order to enhance imagination and ability of abstraction in the learners. Last but not least, I would like to be a Montessori teacher in the sense of being a facilitator of learning rather than the source of all information.

4 comments:

Lau said...

As you say Ayelen, I see children´s development of autonomy as very important. Independence is the base of children`s evolution, this would enable them to perform and relate different activities.

nayla said...

Aye
You are totaly right, children's development of autonomy is very important and we have seen this thanks to Montessori's activities
It's been a pleasure to work with you in this project

Marucha said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Marucha said...

Hi Aye!
To foster the development of autonomy and organizational skills some teachers ,who follow Montessori's ideas, also prepare this kind of prepared environment for the children in which the size of the furniture is in accordance with the size of the children.This is another point to have in mind.
=0)