What is the Montessori “Method”

What is the Montessori “Method”?

“One would like to know in a few clear words what this Montessori Method really is.”
Dr. Maria Montessori from The Formation of Man, 1955 ed., p.7

The Montessori “Method” refers to research that Dr. Maria Montessori began conducting with preschool aged children in 1907. In her research, she employed an approach that originated many years before with the research of two French physicians, Gaspard Itard and Eduard Seguin. This approach, called “scientific education”, was essential observing children in their free, self-directed activity, rather than teaching them according to a predetermined plan or curriculum.

With preschool aged children, Montessori discovered that this approach led each child to a normal state of perfect harmony, peace, and order, which she later recognized as the child’s true nature. In time, Dr. Montessori’s use of scientific education came to be known around the world as the “Montessori Method”.

As Dr. Montessori sought to describe her “Method” to others, however, she encountered obstacles due to lack of clarity about the exact nature and function of scientific education, which she viewed as “something vague…the mere intuition or suggestion of a science…that…must emerge from the mist and clouds that have surrounded it.” (Montessori Method, p. 1-2). Within such a ‘mist and clouds”, the “Montessori Method” likewise also remained quite vague and mysterious to practitioners and even to Dr. Montessori herself.

“My method….I find this the most difficult subject of any on which to deliver a public lecture, for I have not evolved a method of ‘education’.”

Dr. Maria Montessori, from Education and Peace, pg. 76

“…For the word “Method” we should substitute something like this:…’means offered to deliver the human personality from the age-old prejudices regarding education’.”

Dr. Maria Montessori, from Formation of Man, p. 63

After Dr. Montessori’s death in 1952, the “Montessori Method” still remains for many, a subject of considerable conflict, confusion and mystery as it varies from one personality, institution, or culture to another. In 1979, however, I resolved this mystery for myself by discovering the exact nature and function of scientific education, and then later a comprehensive technology for conducting this approach in an objective, reliable manner that was never possible before.

Published: Porch Group | Porch.com

March 18, 2023

Lee Havis, Founder/Director
International Montessori Society (IMS)
Author: The Technology of Scientific Education (publ 2023)

https://imsmontessori.org
havis@imsmontessori.org