Dr. Montessori’s original experiment and research with children offered hope for a whole new education, and the emergence of a new humanity of perfect peace, order, and harmony in the world — all of this based on her breakthrough discovery of the child’s true nature in 1907.
Discovering the Child’s True Nature
In the early 1900’s, Dr. Maria Montessori, sought to conduct experiments with children, using a type of scientific education that two French physicians had begun several decades before for mentally deficient children. She felt that this type of scientific teaching, to observe children in their free, self-directed activity, would bring better results than conventional teaching that was so much centered around an external curriculum of adult-centered instruction.
One of these French physicians, Dr. Eduard Seguin had developed specific self-teaching materials that Dr. Montessori felt would be especially helpful for a type of true natural learning development. While she had intended to work with school aged children, the opportunity for experimenting with preschool aged children was offered instead. So, in 1907, this was her fist experiment in an environment she called a “Children’s House”.
Children’s House
Using the Seguin materials and the approach of scientific education, Dr. Montessori made a remarkable discovery in the young children, that they came to concentrate on some one particular piece of work, that somehow brought about a total change to their whole state of being; from a condition of disorder, inattention, and disharmony, to one of spontaneous self-discipline, love of order, and a perfect harmony with others. Seeing this repeated consistently with all the children, she called this change a “normalization”, and announced the resulting new state of being as the child’s true nature. After 1907, parents and teachers came from all over the world to see how she had brought about these amazing changes in children. In response to an overwhelming desire to learn this new education, she began offering instruction in scientific education, which eventually came to be known as the Montessori Method.
The Montessori Method
Dr. Montessori offered instruction in her “Method”, which was her general understanding of scientific education to observe children in their free activity. In addition, her courses gave great attention to presentation of the Seguin materials as well. Throughout the rest of her life, she acquired a loyal body of followers using her method, even though it was largely dismissed and disregarded in the field of conventional education.
After Dr. Montessori’s death in 1952, the community of loyal followers began to separate, as different personalities and organizations arose, each one offering their own brand of certification and philosophy in the field. Lacking precise, objective guidelines for the Method itself, many practitioners simply followed the guidance of some prominent personality or their own culture. And in this confusing situation, Dr. Montessori’s original discovery of the child’s true nature was largely abandoned as hopelessly idealistic and impractical.
Further Discovery and Research
In 1969, Lee Havis began studying in this field, confronting the confusion first as a classroom teacher, and then in the role of training Montessori teachers. In this way, in 1979, he discovered the hidden secret to scientific teaching that allowed Dr. Montessori to discover the child’s true nature in 1907. And with this understanding, he founded the International Montessori Society (IMS) to support and disseminate this exciting new knowledge to others.
Individual Child Framework
The ‘secret’ that Lee discovered was actually a framework for observing a child, as the “hub” of an environment consisting of three specific components: (1) physical objects, (2) other children, and (3) adult personality. In this framework, the function of scientific teaching becomes removing the disorder in those three elements, until just the influence of laws of nature are felt by the “hub” child, which then allows him to return to his true “normalized” nature.
True Natural Scientific Teaching
After 1979, IMS offered many ways to learn about this new understanding of scientific teaching, which was largely dismissed and opposed by conventional elements within the Montessori community. And, in this difficult situation, problems arose in the practical application of this approach, which Lee sought to resolve through IMS workshops he conducted all over the world. In addition, he engaged in further direct corrective learning as well. Finally, in 2003, this work brought about a “technology” of scientific education, in the form of practical tools for scientific teaching with children.
Technology of Scientific Education
In 2003, the technology of scientific education, now answers the practical question of “how” to follow laws of nature to bring about the child’s true nature. The technology consists of specific techniques, protocols, safe words, and lesson presentations, which are elaborated in several ways, which are available to obtain through the IMS website. Most recently, this knowledge has been offered through a series of “webinars” on the subject.