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Montessori Infant Toddler Programs

Montessori Infant Toddler Programs

by | Emotional Intelligence (EQ), Emotionally Healthy Children, Infant, Infant-Toddler (0 to 3), Montessori Education, Montessori Family Life, Montessori Parenting, Montessori Teachers, Primary (3-6), The Montessori Way

This PDF file is an excerpt from our book, the Montessori Way, by Paul Epstein and Tim Seldin, Copyright 2003

There is an ironic prejudice about education found in almost every country: the older the students are that one teaches, the higher the pay and respect for the teacher. We take it for granted that a professor in a graduate school is a more prestigious position than that of a high school teacher, which is, in turn, considered a more sophisticated position than teaching elementary and, of course, both are far more respectable than that of a nursery-school teacher. And no one in his or her right mind would want to teach infants and toddlers, right? Yet research clearly shows that the most important period in a human being’s educational and emotional development are not the years of high school and college but rather the first six years of life. Human beings are a magical combination of at least three factors: our genetic inheritance, our biological development, and our experiences.

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The Montessori Philosophy

The Montessori Philosophy

by | Free Reads, MFA, Montessori Education, Montessori Teachers, Primary (3-6), The International Montessori Council, The Montessori Way

Over the last century, Dr. Maria Montessori’s ideas have had a growing influence on education around the world. However, while individual elements of her program find their way into more classrooms every year, there is a cumulative impact when schools fully implement the entire Montessori model. When done well, something that is quite distinct for children is possible. Montessori schools are designed to help each student discover and fully develop her unique talents and possibilities. They treat each child as a unique individual, allowing her to learn optimally at her own pace and in the way that best suits her learning style. They strive to be flexible and creative in addressing each student’s needs.

Learning the right answers may get a child through school, but learning how to become a life-long, independent learner will take her any- where. Montessori teaches children to think, not simply to memorize, feedback, and forget.

Rather than presenting students with the right answers, Montessori educators lead students to ask their own questions and to discover how to find the answers for themselves. Older students are encouraged to do their own research, analyze what they have found, and come to their own conclusions. Teachers encourage children to think for themselves and become actively engaged in the learning process.

Intrinsic Motivation

One of Montessori’s key discoveries is the idea that children are intrinsically motivated. They are driven by their desire to become independent and competent beings in the world. They naturally learn and master new ideas and skills. For this reason, outside rewards are unnecessary. Outside rewards create a dependency on external motivation. Far too many children become dependent on others to define their self-image or obtain permission to follow their dreams. In the process of making independent choices and exploring concepts largely on their own, Montessori children construct knowledge, their own sense of individual identity, and their own understandings of moral right and wrong.

Montessori saw children as far more than students. In her view, each child is a full and complete human being, the mother or father of the adult man or woman he or she will become. Even when very young, they share humanity’s hopes, dreams, fears, emotions, and longings. From her perspective, this goes beyond mental health to the very core of one’s inner spiritual life. Montessori programs offer consciously designed experiences that cultivate the child’s sense of independence, self-respect, love of peace, passion for self-chosen work done well, and the ability to respect and celebrate the individual spirit within people of all ages and the value of all life.

Independence and Movement: Acquiring Self-Discipline

Montessori teachers share a conviction that success in school is directly tied to the degree to which children believe they are capable, independent human beings. Young children are shown how to pour liquids, write letters, and compute sums. Older children are shown research techniques, Internet search routines, and forms of expository writing. When children develop a meaningful degree of independence, they set a pattern for a lifetime of good work habits, self-discipline, and a sense of responsibility. 

Children readily take pride in doing things for themselves carefully and well. All children learn through movement. They must actively explore and examine the world around them. Montessori environments encourage children to move about freely, within reasonable limits of appropriate behavior. 

Much of the time they select work that captures their interest and attention, although teachers also help them choose activities that will present new challenges and new areas of inquiry. Montessori teachers also direct students to master the basic skills of their culture. 

Children learn by doing, and this requires movement and spontaneous investigation. Children touch and explore everything in their environment. The mind is handmade, because, through movement and touch, the child investigates, manipulates, and builds up a storehouse of impressions about the physical world around her. Children develop thinking through hands-on learning. 

Montessori children enjoy considerable freedom of movement and choice. Montessori children freely move about, work alone, or with others at will. However, their freedom always exists within carefully defined limits on the range of their behavior. Free to do anything appropriate within the ground rules of the community, children are consistently redirected promptly and firmly if they cross over the line. Children may select an activity and work with it as long as they wish, so long as they do not disturb anyone or damage anything. When finished, they are expected to put materials back where they belong. Becoming self-disciplined is a major goal of Montessori programs. Students are taught to manage their own community, and they develop strong leadership skills and independence. 

Respectful Communities of Mixed-Age Groups 

 Montessori schools are warm and supportive communities of students, teachers, and parents. As children grow older and more capable, they assume a greater role in helping to care for the environment and meet the needs of younger children in the class. The focus is less on the teachers and more on the entire community of children and adults, much as one finds in a real family. A child experiences courtesy and trust, two important aspects of optimal learning conditions.

The number of students in a Montessori class is determined by: the physical size of the classroom; regulations governing children-to-adult ratios; and the beliefs of the school community. Originally, Montessori enrolled more than forty-five children in a classroom. Her purpose for this was to ensure that her teachers would help children become capable, independent learners, children who would also turn to one another for lessons and guidance. 

Classrooms today are typically much smaller (usually there will be twenty-five to thirty-five children), bringing children together in multi-age groups, rather than classes comprised of just one grade level. Schools that place children together into small groups assume that the teacher is the source of instruction, a very limited resource. They reason that as the number of children decreases, the time that teachers have to spend with each child increases. Ideally, we would have a one-on-one tutorial situation. 

But the best teacher of a three-year-old is often another child who is just a little bit older and has mastered a skill. This process is good for both the tutor and the younger child. In this situation, the teacher is not the primary focus. Instead, a larger group size puts the focus less on the adult and encourages children to learn from each other. By having enough children in each age group, all students will find others at their developmental level. By consciously bringing children together in a group that is large enough to allow for two-thirds of the children to return every year, the school environment promotes continuity and the development of a very different level of relationship among children and their peers, as well as among children and their teachers. Classes tend to be stable communities, with only the oldest third moving on to the next level each year. 

A strong community develops as teachers and children create close and long-term relationships. Teachers know each child’s temperament, personality, and learning style. Ideally, there would be an equal number of girls and boys evenly divided among the three age levels. 

With the strong emphasis on international education, many Montessori schools attract a diverse student body representing many ethnic, religious, and international backgrounds. The curriculum is international in its heritage and focus and consciously seeks to promote a global perspective, promoting mutual respect. The intent is for children to regard diversity as a call for celebration and not a cause for fear. Older students learn to care about others through community service.  

The Montessori Peace Education curriculum supports this purpose. Montessori’s spiritual perspective leads Montessori schools to make a conscious effort to organize programs of community service, ranging from daily contributions to others within the class or school setting to community-outreach programs that allow children and adults to make a difference in the lives of others. The fundamental idea is one of stewardship. Students also develop a love for the natural world. Natural science and outdoor education are important elements of our children’s experience. 

The Prepared Environment: Curriculum and Materials 

Montessori classrooms tend to fascinate both children and their parents. They are normally bright, warm, and inviting, with an abundance of plants, animals, art, music, and books. Shelves are filled with intriguing learning materials, fascinating mathematical models, maps, charts, fossils, historical artifacts, computers, scientific apparatus, a natural-science collection, and animals that the children are raising. Montessori classrooms are commonly referred to as prepared environments. Each is a learning laboratory in which the children are allowed to explore, discover, and select their own work. The independence that the child gains is not only empowering on a social and emotional basis, but it is also intrinsically involved with helping the child become comfortable and confident in her ability to master the environment, ask questions, puzzle out answers, and learn continuously instead of waiting for adult direction. 

The Montessori goal is less to teach the child facts and concepts, but rather to help her fall in love with the process of focusing her complete attention on some challenge and solving its riddle with enthusiasm and joy. Work assigned by the adult rarely results in such enthusiasm and interest as does work that children freely choose for themselves. 

The classroom is organized into several curriculum areas, usually including language arts (reading, literature, grammar, creative writing, spelling, and handwriting); mathematics and geometry; everyday living skills; sensory- awareness exercises and puzzles; geography; history; science; art; music; and movement. Most rooms will include a classroom library. Each area is made up of one or more shelf units, cabinets, and work tables with a wide variety of materials on open display, ready for use as the children select them. 

Students are typically found scattered around the classroom, working alone or with one or two others. They tend to become so involved in their work that visitors are immediately struck by the peaceful atmosphere. It may take a moment to spot the teachers within the environment. They will be found working with one or two children at a time, advising, presenting a new lesson, or quietly observing the class at work. The focus of activity in the Montessori classroom is on children – who each one is, his or her interests, and styles of learning. The teacher is a guide, providing direct learning experiences whenever possible. 

A Montessori classroom is filled with vast arrays of sequenced learning activities known as the Montessori materials. The materials are displayed on open shelves sized for the height of the children. They are arranged to provide maximum eye appeal without clutter. Each object has a specific place on the shelves, arranged from the upper left-hand corner in sequence to the lower right. 

The materials are arranged in sequence from the most simple to the most complex, and from the most concrete to those that are more abstract. Because of the order with which they are arranged in the environment, children can find precisely what they need whenever they wish.

When children choose a material, they develop an array of personal traits such as independence, responsibility, and time management. While investigating and using the materials to sort, arrange, build connections, and problem-solve, they develop cognitive capabilities. Educational theorists now advocate learning through direct experience and the process of investigation and discovery. The child must be active and engaged, constructing her or his own knowledge. Most students do not retain or truly grasp much of what they “learn” through memorization. Instead, children need to manipulate and explore everything that catches their interest. Part of Montessori’s contribution was her discovery of what is now assumed. But, she went further. Montessori developed a series of sequenced learning materials designed with incredible precision. 

Each material is a concrete representation of an abstract idea. Depending upon the ages of the children, they will use the materials to explore and investigate ideas found in anthropology, art, astronomy, biology, botany, chemistry, earth science, geography, geology, geometry, history, language, m a t h e m a t i c s , music, physics, and sociology. Some materials isolate and teach one concept or skill at a time. Length, for example, is explored by three-year-olds arranging a set of ten rods. The first is 10 centimeters long; the second is twice this length. This progression continues until the tenth rod is in place with its length of 1 meter.  

Children from ages two to six are interested in sequencing and sorting objects. They are drawn to the sensory properties of objects within the classroom: size, shape, color, texture, weight, smell, sound, etc. Children of this age tend to repeat exercises. With repetition, their movements slow and become more precise. Their attention to detail increases; they discover small details in the objects and classroom as they observe and appreciate their environment. 

This is a key in helping children discover how to learn. Elementary and secondary students are interested in sequencing and sorting ideas. They are drawn to the interpretive meanings of literary works, social and historic events, scientific findings, and issues of moral justice. 

Elementary and secondary classrooms are designed to facilitate student discussion and stimulate collaborative learning. In group discussions, students readily propose and debate solutions to open-ended problems. A goal is to pursue topics in depth rather than to “cover the material.” 

At the secondary level, an integrated thematic approach is used to connect the otherwise separate disciplines of the curriculum into studies of the physical universe, the world of nature, and the human experience. Literature, the arts, history, social issues, political science, economics, science, and the study of technology all complement one another. 

The organization of the Montessori curriculum from early childhood through secondary programs could be thought of as a spiral of integrated studies rather than a traditional model in which the curriculum is compartmentalized into separate subjects, with given topics considered only once at a specific grade level. The Montessori curriculum is carefully structured and integrated to demonstrate the connections among the different subject areas. History lessons, for example, link architecture, the arts, science, and technology. 

 An especially important aspect of the materials is that they offer multiple levels of challenge and can be used repeatedly at different developmental levels. For example, the Trinomial Cube, which presents a complex and challenging twenty-seven-piece, a three-dimensional puzzle to the five-year-old, is used to introduce the older elementary and secondary child to the algebraic concept of the exponential powers of polynomials. 

The teacher presents the materials with precision and offers each child an initial exploratory procedure; the child is able to imitate what the teacher did. The teacher’s presentation also enables children to investigate and work independently. A goal is for the children to become self-disciplined, able to use the materials and manage the classroom without direct adult supervision. 

Children progress at their own pace, moving on to the next step in each area of learning as they are ready. Initial lessons are brief introductions, after which the children repeat the exercise over many days, weeks, or months until they attain mastery. Interest leads them to explore variations and extensions inherent within the design of the materials at many levels over the years. 

The Montessori learning materials are not the Method itself; they are simply tools used to guide children into logical thought and discovery. The Montessori materials are provocative and simple; each is carefully designed to appeal to children at a given level of development. 

 In developing these materials, Dr. Montessori carefully analyzed the skills and concepts involved in each subject and noted the sequence in which children most easily master them. She then studied how children seemed to be able to grasp abstract concepts most easily and designed each element to bring the abstract into a clear and concrete form. 

The Control of Error 

The design of many of the materials gives children immediate feedback. Called the Control of Error, this feature makes it possible for Montessori students to determine for themselves if they have done each exercise correctly. 

Children choose their learning activities within carefully defined limits as to the range of their behavior. Making mistakes is a vital part of the learning process. Discovery, investigation, and problem solving involve making wrong turns, getting stuck, and trying again. An important part of the learning experience is to recognize an error and learn how to make corrections.  

These experiences are part of the process of becoming self-disciplined. A young child takes ten cylinders out of a wooden case; the cylinders vary in height and diameter. The control of error lies in the construction of the objects: a cylinder can only fit into one place in the wooden case. Another child learns the names of African nations. In this case, the control of error is initially found with the teacher, who uses the “Three-Period Lesson” to teach and re-teach the correct names of nations. Once the child knows these names, the control of error becomes his own knowledge. 

Each repetition is not an exact copy of the previous use. Children continuously refine their work and learn more. The principle of control of error guides this process. In addition to the design of the materials, prior knowledge is also a control of error. 

Knowledge of colors, shapes, and size for younger children — knowledge of addition and multiplication for older children — results with self-corrected learning. The Three-Period Lesson Montessori teachers will use the Three-Period Lesson to help children develop a rich vocabulary in all areas of study. Children best learn the meaning for names when they can associate the name with an object. In the following example, a young child is taught the names of secondary colors. During the first period, the child is shown an orange-colored tablet. The teacher names the color: “This is orange.” The child is now shown a green-colored tablet. The teacher names this color: “This is green.” Finally, a purple-colored tablet is shown, and the teacher states, “This is purple.” During the second period, the child makes a link between the language and her own experience. The teacher gives the name, and the child finds the object. The teacher asks, “Show me orange.” The child points to the orange tablet. “Show me purple.” The child now points to the purple tablet. 

Considerable learning and teaching occur during the second period. If the child is asked, “Show me green,” but she points to the purple tablet, the teacher simply re-teaches. Returning to the first period, the teacher points to the purple tablet and restates, “This is purple.” The teacher again points to the green tablet and restates, “This is green.” In the final period, the teacher points to one of the tablets and asks, “What is this?” The child answers, “Orange.” If the child answers one of the other colors, the teacher will again re-teach the colors by renaming and reconfirming them using the first- and second-period lesson formats. Maria Montessori understood that learning occurs best when stress and apprehension are removed from the learning situation. 

The Three-Period Lesson format is based on readiness.  Complex vocabulary words are introduced when it is appropriate. Montessori educators believe that it is important for children to learn vocabulary, which is why so much emphasis is placed on nomenclature (enhanced vocabulary).  The three- and four-year-olds do not merely identify triangles; our teachers name triangles precisely: isosceles triangle or scalene right triangle. A rich vocabulary is also taught to lower elementary students; such as terms from botany as well as the various land and water forms that make up our planet’s surface. The more words children know, the more they actually see around them.

If iPad Will I Touch Tablets? Montessori and Technology

If iPad Will I Touch Tablets? Montessori and Technology

by | Child's Work, Computers in the Classroom, Educational Program Coordination, Montessori Education, Montessori Family Life, Montessori Parenting, Online Learning, Parenting on the Same Page, The International Montessori Council, Tomorrow's Child

What are we (as Montessori educators and parents) to do with this new reality?

What will Montessori be in an ever-changing future?

We now live in an ever-changing future, and our Montessori goals are necessary preparations for children who need to learn how to adapt. We’ve been citizens in this kind of future for some time, and I suggest this one is different from other changing futures, such as the agricultural revolution or the industrial revolution. This one is different because its magnitude is all at once. It is continuous, and it is global. We are all affected; the sheer speed of this ever-change can be instantaneous. ‘Viral’ was once a feared proclamation of a deadly outbreak of disease. Today ‘going viral’ is a popularity contest based on a number of ‘thumbs ups’ and ‘likes.’

Montessori Students /Digital Natives

When I began teaching in the mid-seventies, children lined up waiting for their turn with the Geometric Cabinet. It was so popular that I used to think about getting a second one for my classroom. I never did, because that would have violated the one-material rule: Have one set of the material to cause sharing and respect. There were other very popular materials, too, that children waited for their turn, more or less patiently.

For some time now, I’ve noticed a different interest from children who are growing up as Digital Natives. There are children who are no longer drawn to many of our treasured didactic materials. Very few young children today are drawn to the Touch Tablets and more. This is a serious turn of events. The materials provide a concrete  representation of an idea, and the idea is understood through tactile and other sensory exploration. According to Montessori theory, repeated use of the materials leads children to understand the embedded idea and grow cognitively. The use of the materials also leads children to develop concentration, persistence, and self-discipline. And it’s not just the children. We are also seeing a different interest from parents who grew up as Digital Natives. They were born in the digital world, and they know no other. Digital Natives are digital learners. Digital learners come with an expectation for “what is learning” that is different from our own. They use digital technologies incessantly. And this is transforming human relationships in fundamental ways.

Digital learners live much of their lives through their devices and without distinguishing between the online and the offline. Instead of thinking of their digital identity and their real identity as separate, they are just one identity with representations in two, or three, or more different spaces, real and virtual. We used to teach children not to hit anyone. Today a ‘hit’ and a ‘like’ are synonymous. Now it is good to ‘hit.’ Digital Natives learn software and shareware ‘instantly.’ They are endlessly and relentlessly creative. They construct and express themselves in new social environments. They take (online) courses to learn how to better position themselves in the digital marketplace.

Design usurps memorization as the fundamental learning activity. As stated by Google CEO, Eric Schmidt, in The New Digital Age, digital learners “perceive information as malleable; it is something they can control and reshape in new and interesting ways. That might mean editing a profile … or encyclopedia entries on Wikipedia, making a movie or online video, or downloading a hot music track … Whether or not they realize it, they have come to have a degree of control over their cultural environment that is unprecedented.”

There is also growing fear among digital learners. There is incredible access to uncensored information: access to hate information, cyber bullying, addiction to violent games, online predators, and more. Unsupervised and unsafe Internet usage can lead to identity theft and even abduction. We are tasked to educate children in safety. We are tasked to give children the tools and skills to keep themselves out of harm’s way.

I have long been a proponent of including technology in our prepared environments. I admit now that I am very worried—not just for the children—but for the future of our Montessori pedagogy. I used to say our Montessori materials engage a child with all of her senses, and this is optimal for full-brain development and learning. Now, the children and their parents, who come to our schools, bring different expectations, understandings, and aspirations.

Here is what we are seeing from the digital learners at our school:

  • Many of our three-year-olds prefer working with others instead of choosing their own work or participating in parallel play. Why? Are they isolated from humans because at home and elsewhere they are using iPads or other digital devices? Is it because they are watching movies or TV on smart phones when immobilized in car seats or when they are at older siblings’ sports or other events?
  • Many children want an initial presentation at the shelf. That is, they are not willing to carry all of the materials to a table or rug on the floor. They even comment that, on their tablets, they can see some of what the activity will be about before deciding to do it.
  • A five-year-old declared he knew all about the 100 Board because he has that app on his tablet. When using the real 100 Board in the classroom, however, he could go no further than 30 because, he said, “The iPad always resets at the third row.” He had at home, in other words, the unpaid app version of the 100 Board.
  • Another five-year-old knew the Addition Strip Board because, he said, “I do that on my iPad.” The classroom guide observed that when he used the real classroom version, he computed sums by counting on his fingers. When she asked him if he did the same thing with his iPad, he said, “No. I just punch the square, and if it’s wrong, it goes away.

Until recently, I was comfortable with technology as a supplement to our catalogue of materials; a supplement and not a replacement. But now, in our ever-changing future, certain technological advancements are occurring, and we will soon face a real ‘game changer.’ In the language of technological innovation, I fear that we are about to become disrupted.

The Evolution of Education

Our pedagogy is based on Dr. Maria Montessori’s discoveries of the child, beginning in the late 1890s and continuing through 1952. Montessori discovered that when children are placed in an environment designed for how they naturally learn, children will experience a transformation from impulsive behaviors. They will concentrate. And when children concentrate, they next develop self-reliance and become self-disciplined. For this to occur, the design of the environment, the design of the materials, and our own preparation must enable a child’s choice and spontaneous activity.

The whole of our pedagogy is rooted in touch, in the work of the hands. With the coordination of the hands comes independence and the child’s triumphant cry of, “I can do it!” With the coordination of the hands comes the development of intelligence. In her book, The Montessori Method, Montessori wrote:

I teach the child how to touch, that is, the manner in which he should touch surfaces. For this it is necessary to take the finger of the child and to draw it very, very lightly over the surface… Often, after the introduction of such exercises, it is a common thing to have a child come to you, and, closing his eyes, touch with great delicacy the palm of your hand or the cloth of your dress, especially any silken or velvet trimmings.

To touch is to learn. This occurs throughout the world and throughout time. The Sandpaper Letters, for example, are used by children to develop a cognitive understanding of the phonetic sounds of the alphabet. The child traces the letter and voices its sound. The child develops further literacy by associating objects with each letter and sound. The textures, colors, sizes, and weights of the objects are designed to attract and hold the child’s attention. This is true for all of the materials we place in our prepared environments. The materials call children to explore, investigate, concentrate, and make discoveries. The objects seem to express, “Do you want to know? Come find out.”

During the 20th century, our Montessori heritage stood in marked contrast to what we still call ‘traditional education.’ I can speak only for myself; perhaps you enjoyed your schooling. What I remember most was the agony of boredom, the fear of a teacher’s ridicule, the embarrassment of being wrong when called on, and the shame of being laughed at by others. Traditional education is rooted in a factory model of education. Teachers act like top-down managers and dispense information and assignments to children in predefined units and grades. We were told which book to take out, and for how long, and who would answer the first question, then the second, and then time was up. And, ready or not, interested or not, we moved on at the direction of the teacher/manager.

Throughout the education-as-manufacturing process, a ‘one size fits all’ controls the procedure. Instead of individualized instruction, children are interchangeable products. As children progress from grade to grade, they become more assembled. The teacher/manager measures success and failure in terms of grades and promotions. The teacher/manager is measured in turn by student test scores. A finished product occurs at graduation. The parallels between the school house and the factory are clear: teachers are managers; school assignments prepare children for work place tasks; grades will become salaries.

Memorization is the primary basis for learning. We memorized teacher-dispensed content, facts, dates, and formulas. We memorized the information and gave it back. We were scored for an accuracy of recall, and then we forgot about it. Many of us did fairly well; however, some of us fell within a tolerance of the education/manufacturing process known as one or more ‘standard deviations.’

In a traditional 21st century classroom, students are praised for their ability to find correct answers to predetermined questions. Intellectual risk taking, creative thinking, and asking questions is often discouraged. The ability to get a good score on a test is valued more than the ability to get fully engaged in the learning process and pursue ideas that excite a student. (www.wordpress.bhmschools.org/integration)

We memorized because it was assumed that what we needed to know was all that which our parents and our grandparents needed to know. Our future, when we grew up, would, resemble their own. We were raised in an ever-similar future.

Throughout the education-as-manufacturing process, a ‘one size fits all’ controls the procedure. Instead of individualized instruction, children are interchangeable products.

This kind of pedagogy stands in sharp contrast with our Montessori pedagogy. Our legacy is that of the prepared environment and developmentally appropriate, multi-sensory, hands-on learning activities. Montessori teachers are guides, who help children engage in investigation and discovery. Our goals include fully developing each child’s potential and forming habits of lifelong learning. Learning to think is not the same as learning to memorize. Developing habits of persistence, taking on challenges, engaging with problems, and creatively designing solutions are not the same as learning to memorize.

We now live in an ever-changing future, and our Montessori goals are necessary preparations for children who need to learn how to adapt. We’ve been citizens in this kind of future for some time, and I suggest this one is different from other changing futures, such as the agricultural revolution or the industrial revolution. This one is different because its magnitude is all at once. It is continuous, and it is global. We are all affected; the sheer speed of this ever-change can be instantaneous. ‘Viral’ was once a feared proclamation of a deadly outbreak of disease. Today ‘going viral’ is a popularity contest based on the number of ‘thumbs ups’ and ‘likes.’

Most telling, we are also the producers of this global change. Not feudal lords, dukes, and kings. Not mad men. Not industrial giants and manufacturing companies. Our everchanging future is driven by technological innovation and planned economic disruption. It is driven by a global participation in the consumption of digital devices and by the incessant 24/7/365 use of those devices. We each access more digital power than all other generations combined. Our access to knowledge and information multiplies daily. More and more of us text, and instant message, and take pictures, and make videos, and use FaceTime. We like, tweet, post, blog, open source, and do a whole host of verbs that didn’t exist just a few years ago. We’re all participants in producing constant change.

That we do all of this social media may yet prove to democratize our entire planet. And, if we are truly clever, we may yet even save ourselves from, at least, one other ‘everchanging future.’ This one is the ever-massive environmental destabilization, including the destruction of drinkable water. Say what you will about real reality and virtual reality. The ever-changing future is really real.

So, what is Montessori in this ever-changing future? Will children touch tablets? Will parents, who grew up as Digital Natives, identify with and understand our didactic materials? Will they want these for their children?

Certainly we have contended with technology in our prepared environment for some while now. I still recall personal computers in my middle school classrooms in the early 1980s. A ‘new generation’ of software appeared in the 1990s, offering Montessori-like computer based learning. More recently, there are Montessori apps, lots of them. I have felt for many years that our heritage was secure. And parents were in agreement. I would ask, “Do you prefer your child push—with their mouse or finger—an image of a pink cube, or carry real cubes?” I would ask, “Do you prefer less sensory stimulation from computer screens and tablets, compared with all senses engaged?”

These questions are about to become irrelevant because this digital world with these kinds of apps is about to go away. The kinds of digital learning about to become possible will require us to ask, what will Montessori be in an ever-changing future?

Teaching Thinking

Digital learners throughout the world are expressing changed expectations for how, what, where, and when to learn. It is no longer about does the app mimic a Montessori didactic material? In the 21st-century digital classroom, the profile of learning has changed. Digital learners do not memorize. They expect to learn how to think, create, analyze, evaluate, and more. This is not the factory model of schooling, and we are no longer the only non-factory game in town. Digital learners in non-Montessori schools routinely connect and collaborate with one another in real and virtual time and space. They explore, investigate, collaborate, solve problems, and communicate. They expect to become lifelong learners. Digital learners expect teachers to provide differentiated, personalized instruction. They expect hands-on learning experiences. They expect to explore real-world issues using models and simulations.

These words should sound familiar. We’ve used these words and their synonyms to describe and promote our legacy since 1907. Now, throughout the world, educators are determined: The factory model of traditional education will give way to teaching thinking. In digital classrooms, teachers are no longer a main source of information; text books are no longer a main source of information. Learning is no longer at the discretion of the teacher as factory manager. Given the omnipresent Internet, learning is whenever, wherever, and forever. Twenty-first century students collect and create information anywhere and anytime. They Bing, Google, Ask, Yahoo, Amazon, text message, blog, podcast, flip board, YouTube, mp3, mp4, RSA, Wiki, Facebook, FaceTime, crowdsource, and tweet. Twenty-first century students collect and create information when they publish and evaluate work using Ning, OneNote, Wiki, Picasa, Shutterfly, Photoshop. They collaborate with SkyDrive, Dropbox, Facebook, Skype, and Twitter.

The 21st century teacher is an information architect who guides students to validate information, problem solve, and communicate information Twenty-first century goals for students include developing a questioning disposition, embracing change, and thinking like entrepreneurs. Technology is not used to entertain. Using technology, a 21st century teacher can offer flexible learning paths— individualized instruction with open-ended, higher-order questions. Using technology, a 21st century teacher can evaluate authentic applications of learned knowledge and skills. (http://bionicteaching.com) The digital classroom is likely to be flipped—you take your lessons at home, and then work with your teacher/guide at school.

Twenty-first century homework engages students in collaborating, creating, publishing, and more. At any given moment, a learning experience might include:

  • What are the effects of erosion on an average beach? How can we counteract this? Use any resource you wish.
  • You have $1,000 to donate towards hunger relief. To which organization in which country would you give? How could you assess the impact of your donation?
  • Make a model of one trillion.
  • Read the terms and conditions of YouTube and summarize the key ideas.

In an ever-changing future, children use technology to think and to make changes and design their future as engaged participants. They collaborate as authors, originators, inventors, creators. They are learning to plan, design, implement, and communicate. How will our didactic learning materials stand up to technology that enables simulations, modeling, systems thinking, and still more? We are oriented towards children developing coordination which, in turn, will enable them to concentrate, develop self-reliance, and become independent. Can we be so sure that these occur exclusively with only our didactic materials? Will parents, who are also Digital Natives, still choose Montessori? I cannot definitively answer this question. But these data are suggestive:

Sources: Laura Devaney (10/28/13)-eSchool News

A year ago, we decided not to permit Minecraft during our afterschool programs. Several parents protested—not their children!—and they came back loaded with evidence of the educational whole-child benefits of Minecraft. Their sources included faculty at MIT and elsewhere. Minecraft is a thinking tool.
Children can plan entire cities, study environmental issues, and learn a programming language. Research on the benefits of Minecraft documents that children develop spatial reasoning, construction skills, and habits of learning how to learn.

Do Digital Devices Belong in the Montessori Prepared Environment?

Montessori educators have debated for several decades whether or not digital devices belong in the prepared environment. Some are adamant and proclaim no. Some ask what Dr. Montessori would do. Some are concerned that excessive use of digital devices erodes the child’s brain. And there is still more that is about to occur.

“Five years from now,” states an announcement from IBM, we will be able to understand touch and smell through our digital devices. IBM. (Touch: 5 future technology innovations from IBM) This to me is the real game changer. Touch and smell through our devices. Our brains will not differentiate real from virtual; our brains will not care. Already people wear sensing digital devices to frame a scene with their fingers and then take a picture. Other devices project images we see onto any surface. We continue, in other words, to learn through touch, but digitally. This is not the distant future; we should expect a new generation of digital classroom experiences rather soon.

There is no reason for us to think either/or—either our didactic materials or technological devices. Many of us do, instead, think both/and, both materials and devices. Each is a tool for learning, for communicating, for solving problems, and more. The Pink Cubes are a tool that offers a possibility not presented in other tools. A digital device offers a possibility for thinking not found in other tools.

There is, presumably, more to life than being logged into a digital device. I sincerely believe that in the ever-changing future there will be device-free learning moments. I sincerely believe that these moments are necessary complements and will perhaps even prove to make possible a whole-child education, with or without our Montessori devices. For example, since this past summer, outdoor construction has occupied most of our first through sixth graders during recess time. Their constructions have had various names and purposes. They began as office buildings. Then they became forts, but early in the fall, it was generally agreed that forts were not in keeping with our Montessori peace education purposes. So, their constructions were renamed as houses and shops. Well, renamed sort of. Last fall, a student paper came out from our E2 program with the headline, “Fort Crown: Split Up in the Big Fort.” The article went on to state, “Bill and Tom split up with the hotel. The hotel members are fine, happy, and they rebuilt very well. Bill and Tom also built their pawn shop there.”

These are essential opportunities in which children engage and participate. They collaborate as authors, originators, inventors, creators. They think, plan, design, implement, and communicate. I do agree with Richard Louv’s Last Child in the Woods:

Nature—the sublime, the harsh, and the beautiful—offers something that the street or gated community or computer game cannot. Nature presents the young with something so much greater than they are; it offers an environment where they can easily contemplate infinity and eternity. A child can, on a rare clear night, see the stars and perceive the infinite from a rooftop… Immersion in the natural environment cuts to the chase, exposes the young directly and immediately to the very elements from which humans evolved: earth, water, air, and other living kin, large and small. Without that experience … “we forget our place; we forget that larger fabric on which our lives depend.”

The Role of Montessori Educators and Parents in the Ever-Changing Future

What role will Montessori educators and parents play in an ever-changing future? I propose the establishment of a Montessori task force charged with establishing a 21st Century Montessori Pedagogy. I suggest we begin to:

  1. Develop 21st-century vision and purposes for schools;
  2. Evaluate developmental/brain studies;
  3. Define learning in the context of the ever-changing future;
  4. Identify principles for real and digitally prepared environments and learning materials and experiences;
  5. Research uses of digital and Montessori learning tools;
  6. Analyze the current catalog of Montessori materials;
  7. Propose Montessori digital learning tools; and
  8. Implement a Montessori digital teacher education.

Not either/or. How will we incorporate our Montessori heritage and legacy with emerging digital-based learning possibilities? How should we prepare environments when the distinction between real and virtual is collapsed? Which historic didactic materials should we maintain when digital devices will enable us to experience a full sensory array? What new materials do we need now? How will we design our Montessori ever-changing future?

TOMORROW’S CHILD © ♦ APRIL 2014 ♦ WWW.MONTESSORI.ORG