The Italian physician Maria Montessori (1870–1952) developed, through many years of practice, an educational concept that allows children’s natural curiosity, joy of discovery and love of experimenting to unfold naturally. Montessori education respects the dignity of children and young people and is guided by their needs in life. Its basic principle is free work in a prepared environment.
Montessori education offers differentiated provision for children and young people of all ages, for those without and with disabilities, but also for the highly gifted or socially disadvantaged. It supports the development of each individual’s personality and is guided by the ideal of a person who acts with social commitment, creativity and a sense of responsibility towards people and nature:
• every child is taken seriously as an individual and accepted as they are (uniqueness and dignity).
• Education should perfect, guide and accompany, but not change (non-directive approach).
• every healthy child has the power to develop positively in line with their abilities (builder of their own self); this development is supported by providing a prepared environment and suitable materials.
• Early learning: a child’s development takes place in sensitive phases, during which a child is particularly receptive to learning certain things; in such a phase a child learns with great joy, quickly, intensively, with concentration and perseverance (absorbent mind).
• Concentration: giving children time to immerse themselves in an activity (polarisation of attention).
• Learning with all the senses, through doing and experiencing: “grasping” the world through hands-on exploration.
• Understanding, mutual respect and consideration, but also assertiveness and standing up for one’s own interests, are as much a part of social learning as accepting and keeping to boundaries.
• Freedom to develop, independence and maturity: in free work, each child decides for themselves, within the rules they know, what they work on, where, with whom and for how long. This fosters not only willingness to make decisions, initiative, a sense of responsibility and independence, but also learning how to learn.
• “Help me to do it myself!”
Worldwide, regardless of culture or religious affiliation, there are thousands of Montessori institutions, and in Germany alone around 700 Montessori schools and children’s houses. They are places of creativity and often the starting point for educational policy and pedagogical reform.
