Montessori School of Orlando

Childhood is characterized by joy and spontaneity. It is not merely a waiting-room before real life begins, but a time in which life is meant to be lived to its fullest. Yet, it is also a time when children need to learn the discipline involved in acquiring the knowledge and skills essential to becoming independent and successful in adulthood.

Dr. Montessori defines education as “an aid to life”. According to her, children need “to grow, and not to know”. “Growing” is the end to which “knowing” is the means. The task of education is to provide children of the pre-school years with the nourishment, the stimulation, and the protection they need to coordinate the development of their incompletely formed organ systems with their emerging personalities.

The Montessori Method is a comprehensive and systematic attempt to provide children with the knowledge and the skill they need in direct response to their developmental needs in order that they become fully integrated in mind and body.

Although children are not born with an instruction booklet telling us how to “operate” them, they do have a blue-print that needs to be discovered by us. The Montessori Method is assistance given to children based on the discovery of these blue-prints. Dr. Montessori held that children need to be observed scientifically to be understood. As a result of such observation and study Dr. Montessori was able to design:

an environment specifically designed to enable children to work at their self-formation,
a rigorous course of preparation for adults who take on the responsibility of aiding children
Montessori materials (the material means of growth and development) designed and chosen because they were proved effective by the children themselves.

The Montessori Method is predicated on the premise that there can be no discipline without freedom. According to Dr. Montessori, neither knowledge nor skill ought to be imposed on the child. Children who are offered assistance at the right time and in the right manner will preserve the strong motivation to learn that they are born with. Such children do not have to be forced to learn: they are eager to explore, to discover, and to acquire the knowledge and the skill they need.

Montessori students become properly prepared and preserve their self-motivation, eager to take on the challenges of living and learning. They are able to look after themselves and their environment, and to establish proper social relations with their peers and their adult guardians. They are well prepared to understand and to take control of their cognitive processes early in life, laying the proper groundwork not only for a long and fruitful academic career, but also for a fulfilling life.