The appeal of Montessori

Although the term Montessori is floated a lot in parenting circles on the internet, your average parent doesn't have a real idea of what it is unless their child has attended a decent Montessori school. The 'decent' qualification there is because the term Montessori is not copywrited and any learning centre can use the phrase regardless of what their methods are.

If you want to find out precisely what Montessori is, I advise you to start with the wikipedia entry and Google.  The nutshell background is that it was a teaching method developed by an Italian woman, Maria Montessori, for children with learning difficulties that she went on to apply to 'normal' children with great success.

This entry is for those of you want to know why Montessori?  Is it just another way for unrealistic parents to jumpstart their offspring on the path to Oxbridge or the Ivy League?  Is it simply the latest fad in child-raising?  Is there really any benefit to these crazy educational theories?  Bear in mind that you could get a million different answers to this question, but here's my personal view.

I discovered Montessori in 2007, when I knocked on the door of the local Montessori school looking for a job.  When I first observed the children, I was blown away by how much they could do practically.  Carrying trays, pouring water, cleaning and polishing work – any number of things that I simply would never have expected of a child under six. 

I was a ridiculously impractical child, and I can't say I'm much better as an adult.  The thing that really struck me was watching children of two and three neatly roll up rugs, since I clearly remember being incapable of doing that at the age of five.

For that alone, I would have been a convert to Montessori.  It's too early to be sure if my children have inherited my lack of physical coordination, but my son has mastered rolling up a rug before his third birthday.  (My daughter's only nine months... I should really give her a bit more time before introducing the skill.)

However, the thing that's really held my interest is how Montessori fosters independence.  Previously, I'd assumed that any such idea meant that the child was allowed to do whatever it wanted to detrimental effect.  Actually, Montessori sets very clear boundaries for appropriate behaviour.  Here, independence is about taking responsibility for one's own actions.

For example, children use breakable tableware instead of plastic.   If they do not use their plates and glasses properly, they get broken.  I remember that my son threw a plate in a temper once and was clearly taken aback when it smashed to pieces.  He's never done it again.  Compare that to a child who throws a plastic plate.  You can shout at them or enforce some other punishment but there's nothing that's going to have the same impact of illustrating why it's wrong.

Disclaimers: There probably are children out there who wouldn't care if their plates broke; I personally haven't come across one.  Thrift stores / charity shops are your friend when it comes to supplying your child's tableware!  Finally, I don't exclude plastic on principle; if I see an item that I like in plastic, I'll buy it.

The first time I put Montessori to use in a real life (i.e. outside the classroom) situation was when some friends visited with their three year old son, and their little boy knocked a drink over.  Immediately, he threw himself down on the floor, hid his face and started crying in embarrassment, while his equally mortified parents scolded him.

I spoke to the boy directly, telling him to calm down and we would get him a paper towel to clean up his mess.  Now that he had some positive action to take, he duly pulled himself together and mopped up the spill as well as a three year old could.  I'm sure the embarrassment still lingered, but because we had given him the ability to fix his own error, there was no need to dwell on it.

This is hands down the biggest thing that I've taken from Montessori and applied to my own children.  When they get themselves into a situation, what skills do they need to learn to get themselves out of it?  With my daughter, that might just be giving her a chance to right herself when she topples over.  With my son, it ranges from cleaning up his literal messes to saying 'sorry' for figurative ones (at which point I am supposed to stop being angry with him... that's the painfully difficult part on my end).

While I have become something of a rampant advocate for Montessori, I don't believe that it's an approach that will work for every child and certainly not for every family.  What I really want is to get parents thinking about their approach to childcare and what their rationale is.  Maria Montessori was a big believer that you learned best by figuring things out for yourself.  By extension, we'll parent best by working out our own methods.  All we need are the resources for learning.