Like they do every year on Aug 31, Montessorians around the world celebrated Dr Maria Montessori's birth anniversary last week. The article provides a few notable dates and events in the life of this “Champion of Children” and a brief introduction to what the Montessori teaching method is, and how it differs from the mainstream early education available in Pakistan today.

The centenary of the opening of the first Montessori school (Casa dei Bambini) was celebrated in 2007 with great fervour by the global Montessori family. For those who missed this great event, www.montessoricentenary.org is a good website to visit for more information.

Maria Montessori had initially trained to become a doctor and in 1896 was one of the first women to receive her doctorate in medicine from the University of Rome. From thereon, there was no stopping Maria Montessori. She went on to write books such as Dr Montessori's own Hand Book, The Formation of Man, The Secret of Childhood and many others.

Apart from writing books, Dr Montessori would also be busy holding congresses and training courses in England, the United States, South America as she delivered lectures around the world. In 1929, the Association Montessori Internationale (AMI) was formed in Amsterdam, the Netherlands and 20 years later, in 1949, Dr Montessori also visited Pakistan to found a Pakistan Montessori Association.

She was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for three consecutive years and in 1950 was a delegate to the Unesco Conference in Florence. Sadly the 1951, ninth International Montessori Congress in London became her last. Maria Montessori died on May 6, 1952. Her books have been translated into many languages including Urdu. Two of them, namely The Absorbent Mind and Discovery of Child have been printed in Karachi by the Pakistan Montessori Association in English as well as Urdu.

Montessori Teachers Training Centre and Pakistan Montessori Association operate under the auspices of Association Montessori Internationale (AMI) in Amsterdam. Training is given in Urdu and English.

What is the Montessori Method?

The Montessori Method of teaching is based on years of patient observation of the child's nature and has been tried with children of almost every civilised nation. Race, colour, climate, nationality, social rank, type of civilisation make no difference to its successful application. In fact, Dr Montessori started her first class in the slums of San Lorenzo, Rome.

The small child has been revealed as a lover of work, intellectual work spontaneously chosen and carried out with profound joy. It is based on the child's imperious need to learn by doing.

At each stage in the child's mental growth, corresponding occupations are provided by means of which he develops his faculties. Montessori schools are supposed to work with this golden rule, no rewards and no punishments.

Moreover, it is based on a profound respect for the child's personality and removes from him the preponderating influence of the adult, thus leaving him room to grow in biological independence.

It also enables the teacher to deal with each child individually in each subject and thus guide him according to his individual requirements. Each child works at his own pace. Therefore, the quick child is not held back by the slow, nor is the latter, trying to keep up with the former. Each stone in the mental edifice is well and truly laid before the next is added. It does away with competitive spirit and its train of baleful results. More than this, every turn presents endless opportunities to the children for getting mutual help, which is joyfully given and gratefully received.

Since the child works from his own free choice, without competition and coercion he or she is free from danger of overstrain, feelings of inferiority and other experiences, which are apt to be the unconscious cause of profound mental disturbances in later life.

Finally, the Montessori method develops the whole personality of the child, not merely his intellectual faculties but also his powers of deliberations, initiative and independent choice, with the emotional compliments. By living as a free member of a real social community, the child is trained in these fundamental social qualities which form the basis of good citizenship.

Montessori and mainstream education

Montessori education is based on helping the natural development of the human being while mainstream education is based on the transfer of a national curriculum.

In Montessori schools, children learn at their own pace and follow their own individual interest while children in the mainstream learn from a set curriculum according to a time frame that is the same for everyone.

Children teach themselves using materials specially prepared for the purpose in Montessori schools while in the mainstream education it is the teacher who teaches.

Understanding comes through the child's own experiences via the materials and the promotion of children's ability to find things out for themselves while in mainstream education learning is based on subjects and is limited to what is given.

Learning is based on the fact that physical exploration and cognition are linked in Montessori schools while in the other schools children sit at desks and learn from a whiteboard and worksheets.

Unlike other schools where the class is teacher-led, the Montessori directress works in collaboration with the children.

The Montessori child's individual development brings its own reward and therefore motivation, whereas motivation in mainstream education is achieved by a system of reward and punishment.

Mainstream education system encourages block time, period lessons while Montessori children work with uninterrupted work cycles.

The most difficult aspect to explain to parents is the multi-age classrooms or the mixed age group where children from the ages of two years plus work with children up to six years of age while the other schools have single-graded classrooms.

The Montessori environment provides working and learning matched to the social development of the child while the Mainstream Education provides working and learning without emphasis on social development.

When I have asked friends working with other methods of education to compare the Montessori Method to theirs, I am told that it is the same. My question to them is if it is the same, why then call it by another name?

Since the larger schools have started their own pre-schools, children leave Montessori schools by the age of three plus, and lose out on the overall development that the Montessori Method provides.

It is important that parents choose the right school for their child especially when they are at the tender age suitable for pre-school. A trained Montessori directress can take charge of around 20-25 children of a mixed age group with the help of an assistant. As according to Maria Montessori “The most important period of life is not the age of university studies but the period from birth to the age of six for that is the time when intelligence itself, his greatest implement is being formed.”