International Montessori Week!
This week, we honor Montessori education’s 114th trip around the sun! Montessori education is more than just the name of our school and the curriculum we use to educate children; Montessori is a mission and a movement:
- “From its humble beginnings more than 100 years ago as a single schoolroom for a group of underprivileged children in Rome, Italy, Montessori education has taken a firm foothold on the education landscape. In the U.S. alone, approximately 5,000 Montessori schools now serve over one million children from infancy through adolescence. Thousands more Montessori schools exist worldwide (AMS, 2021).”
Montessori education calls on us to serve each other as humans (adults and children):
- “The evidence is clear: Montessori is not only here to stay, but it is also growing at a rate that would have gladdened the heart of its founder, Dr. Maria Montessori—a woman who dared to reimagine how we learn and recognized the dignity and capacity of all human beings (AMS, 2021).”
Montessori education demands us to take care of our environments (schools, classrooms, home, online, cities, countries, continents, and the Earth):
- “Utilizing scientific observation and experience gained from her earlier work with young children, Dr. Montessori designed unique learning materials for them, many of which are still in use in Montessori classrooms today, and created a classroom environment that fostered the children’s natural desire to learn (AMS, 2021).”
- “Children show great interest in working with puzzles, learning to prepare meals and clean their environment, and engaging in hands-on learning experiences. Dr. Montessori observed that the children exhibited calm, peaceful behavior, periods of deep concentration, and a sense of order in caring for their environment (AMS, 2021).”
Montessori education exists for the World to flourish:
- “Human flourishing, as Maria Montessori put it, means becoming a person of one’s time and place with the means and wherewithal not only to function within but to shape society (NCMPS, 2019).”
May you flourish as Montessori education flourishes on!
Sources:
American Montessori Society (AMS)
National Center for Montessori in the Public Sector (NCMPS)