EDUC 602

Research Projects

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The paper I prepared begins with a description of the Montessori Method and a historical narration of the professional career of Dr. Maria Montessori. I also included some biographical information as to her origins and the identity of her parents. I then drew a comparison of her methods for developing the Montessori Method and her career to the ISD model. I compared significant events in her career to the analysis phase. Explaining that her experience with children lead her to develop her programs. Then I drew a comparison to her work with the design and development phases, citing her materials that she uses in her classrooms and the classrooms themselves. Finally I compared her implementation and subsequent discoveries to the implementation and evaluation phases in ISD. I concluded with my own personal opinion, that Maria Montessori was an innovator and mostly responsible for modern education. I used four directly quoted sources, one solely paraphrased, and one merely for research and background information.

Since the late Nineteenth Century, educators and medical professionals have been concerned with the physical and mental development of children between the ages of two and seven years. During the first part of the Industrial Revolution and through the beginning of the Twentieth Century, conditions in the cities and industrial centers were deplorable. Adult workers were forced to work long hours and under extreme conditions, likewise children were made to endure arduous working environments with little or no concern for their well being, short of their ability to contribute to the work force. In Upton Sinclair's book, The Jungle, he describes conditions in industrial centers and factories where children were forced into labor that adult employees could scarcely endure. Sinclair describes the managers of these plants as so heartless and driven, that if a man were injured he was replaced and as punishment for slowing production. If a child fell ill, he was fired unless he kept working. The work force was denied any rights due to the over surplus of labor available. For every one worker available for pennies a day, there were several willing to work for pennies a week. At times there were widespread unemployment, hunger, disease and waves of immigration. Necessities were often scarce and work was a commodity not easily replaced. (Sinclair, 1960) During this time social reformers like Dr. Maria Montessori were developing new educational systems and programs for underprivileged children.

The reformers' concern was that while parents were forced to slave long hours, the development of the children was inhibited. The families lived in horrible conditions such as the tenements of New York or Rome. Large families lived together in one or two room apartments with very little space or room for a child to grow. The children were raised, not to become well-educated minds, but to become workers in the industrial society. Scientists, doctors and other outsiders brought to the forefront methods of caring for young children long abandoned for fear of losing precious income to infirmary or post natal recovery. This inspired some changes in the way mothers in particular took care of their children until they were able to be sent out and earn an income. Science contributed by offering new means to prevent the infant and toddler mortality often found in the slums of the period. However, Dr. Montessori saw a need for change in the way the children of her time were nurtured not only in body but in mind as well. She states in Dr. Montessori's Own Handbook: Science has suggested for us certain very simple rules by which the child has been restored as nearly as possible to conditions of a natural life, and an order and guiding law have been given to the functions of the body. For example, it is science which suggested maternal feeding, the abolition of swaddling clothes, baths, life in the open air, exercise, simple short clothing, quiet and plenty of sleep. Rules were also laid down for the measurement of food adapting it rationally to the physiological needs of the child's life. Yet with all this, science made no contribution that was entirely new. Mothers had always nursed their children, children had always been clothed, they had breathed and eaten before. The point is, that the same physical acts which, performed blindly and without order, led to disease and death, when ordered rationally [her italics] were means of giving strength and life. The great progress made may perhaps deceive us into thinking that everything possible has been done for children. (Montessori, 1964 p.2) She continues, Man's destiny is evidently other than this, and the care due to the child covers a field wider than that which is considered by physical hygiene. The mother who has given her child his bath and sent him in his perambulator to the park has not fulfilled the mission of the "mother of humanity." ... Children must grow not only in body but in the spirit, and the mother longs to follow the mysterious spiritual journey of the beloved one who to-morrow will be the intelligent, divine creation, man. (Montessori, 1964 pp. 3-4)

What Dr. Montessori wanted to see was not a plan of the care and feeding of the body, but a plan for the fusion of the growth potential of the body and the mind. She saw evidence early in her medical career that children had a great potential for concentration and exploration in their earliest years of growth. She also felt that during the period of the child's most significant mental development nutrition and sensory stimulation were key elements in growth.

Dr. Montessori was born Maria Montessori, at Chiaravalle in the province of Ancona in Italy. She was born August 31, 1870, to parents of noble stature and moderate wealth. Her father was Alessandro Montessori from Bologna, and is described as a military man, both dignified and soldierly, who in his day was commended for bravery in action. Her mother was Renilde Stoppani, niece of Antonio Stoppani a noted philosopher-scientist-theologian. Dr. Montessori and her mother enjoyed commonalities in appearance and temperament, and shared affection and understand of one another throughout Maria's life. (Standing, 1962 p.21)

Maria began her education in Ancona until at age twelve her parents took her to Rome where she could be given a better education. By the age of fourteen Maria had already developed an interest in mathematics and was encouraged to pursue a career in teaching. She however refused this idea and sought an education in engineering. At the time this was met with some criticism, but was overcome by Maria's ambition. Not long into her engineering education she decided that biology was where her interests were and set out to pursue a career in medicine. In Italy at this period of time there were no female physicians nor any medical schools which would allow women to study. This was of no concern to Montessori, who managed to become the first woman admitted to and to receive an M.D. from the University of Rome. After a number of years involved with women's movements, Maria became involved with child labor reforms. Soon after her graduation, Dr. Montessori was appointed assistant doctor at the Psychiatric Clinic in the University of Rome. During her time there she was exposed to institutionalized children, for whom she developed a special interest. She was asked by the Minister of Education to deliver a series of lectures in Rome on the education of the feebleminded "which laid the foundation stone of scientific pedagogy in Italy," (Standing, 1962 p.29). As a result of her lectures, Dr. Montessori became the director of the new state orthophrenic school, to which were brought "all those children who were regarded as hopelessly deficient."(Standing, 1962 p.29) After two years of work with the deficients in the orthophrenic school, Dr. Montessori sought to teach normal children, an endeavor which took seven years to accomplish. She returned to the University to study philosophy and psychology, during which time she served as both lecturer and student. Maria also practiced medicine and studied in detail the nervous diseases of children. It was around this time Dr. Montessori made the contributions for which she is best known. In E.M. Standing's book, Maria Montessori: Her Life and Work, he writes: If Montessori had died at the beginning of 1906- she was then thirty-six years of age- she would hardly have been heard of beyond her immediate circle. By 1908- only two years later- her name was known all over the world. In that short interval she had made the discovery for which all her previous life had formed a preparation. It is really no exaggeration to say that, like Columbus, she had discovered a new world. (Standing, 1962 p.35)

The world Standing refers to is the world within, or the soul of the child. It was for this discovery Standing credits Montessori's fame, not her method. Montessori's method of observation and guided free learning are merely the tools she used to explore the new world she had discovered.

The Montessori Method as it is referred to, is based on the life work of Dr. Maria Montessori, the woman, the physician, and the educator for whom it is named. The practices of this method are focused on the development of pre-elementary aged children, primarily those age two to seven, and originally from the deprived or less fortunate strata of society. This latter criterion was later expanded to include any child. The principle idea stressed by Montessori is that a child's mind is absorbent, not like a sponge absorbs, but a combining into itself. The child effortlessly absorbs the knowledge with which it is presented, for example the child's first language. The child is able through absorbtion to articulate the sounds and patterns of speech of his language without the knowledge base an adult learning a language needs to possess. The Montessori Method using the absorbent mind philosophy, encourages the child to pursue without interuption or intervention a series of tasks through which it can aquire knowledge. This is done in an environment free of the restrictions placed on children in regular classrooms. The idea of the child group is abolished, the teacher stands not as the authoritarian leader but as an observer. To say that Montessori classrooms however are disorganized and chaotic is a common misunderstanding. The environment in which the child is encouraged to pursue learning is extremely ordered. The Montessori classroom is a completely prepared and structured environment in which the learning takes place. The activities are not merely random games, but specifically designed progressive exercises which incorporated prior knowledge while stimulating the absorbtion of new skills. The activities are organized around specific periods of growth in which children are particularly sensative to various degrees of sensory input. The encouragement to touch or to speak, traits which are usually stiffled in the home, exists to promote the stimulation of knowledge. In the chapter, The Americanization of Montessori, in Revolution in Learning, Maya Pines writes:

She saw the child of three as carrying with him "a heavy chaos." "He is like a man who has accumulated an immense quantity of books, piled up without any order, and who asks himself, What shall I do with them?'" Culture, she said is not the accumulation of knowledge, but "the prepared order" in the mind which is to receive such knowledge. Her goal, the, was to train children to be like connoisseurs: so sensitive to the specific attributes of things around them, and so expert in classifying them, that everything would possess interest and value for them. (Pines, 1967 p.105) She continues: They would learn all this freely- but in specially "prepared environment." She coined the motto "Things are the best teachers." And she invented the richest array of eduational toys seen to this day. (Pines, 1967 p.105)

The order of "things" in the Montessori classroom and the independence of experiencing the instructional tasks are critical to the success of the Montessori Method. It is through the progressive experiences the child is able to develop new and progressively more difficult skills.

Although the ISD approach did not exist during the period of time Maria Montessori was developing her system of education, she would have benefited from the use of the ISD model. There is also little evidence to illustrate Montessori's intentional use of any formal organizational model in her development, however had it existed, she most certainly would have embraced it for her own development. In addition, the Montessori Method itself, although brilliantly organized, does not use any instructional development tools for use by the instructors or lesson planners other than those originally designed by Dr. Montessori. However, close inspection of the historical events leading to the implementation and subsequent refinement of the Montessori Method reveals that there is some similarity between Dr. Montessori's development of her methodology and the steps outlined by the ISD model.

Throughout the early part of Dr. Montessori's career she spent a great deal of time working with under privileged children. She was the director of one of the first schools designed specifically for the education of those children considered to be deficient. Dr. Montessori also worked closely with mentally retarded children during her tenure with the University of Rome, and it was during her encounters with these children that she began what could be likened to the analysis phase of the ISD model. Dr. Montessori spent several years working closely with the children at her school and those later admitted to her school, who were considered hopelessly deficient, but were not diagnosed as mentally retarded. It was during this time she began to analyze the special needs and developmental attributes of these special children. Dr. Montessori also sought to broaden her teaching to include children who were considered normal but came from families of less than adequate means. At this point an inference can be drawn that she had established the need, her audience and the requisites needed for admission to her program. This conclusion on her part is similar to the conclusions drawn from the analysis phase of ISD. E.M. Standing states that this period may have merely been coincidental, but it seemed to Dr. Montessori essential:

Looking back over the first piece of Montessori's career we can easily see how all that she did turned out to be preparation, and a most fitting preparation, for the great discovery she was to make at a later period. But we must not make the mistake of reading her future into the past. Before it came it was still the future; and it was still unknown to her. That she felt she had some sort of special mission to perform is clear, but exactly what that mission was, or how she would fulfill it, was still beyond her ken. She could only see her way a step at a time. The future was still shrouded in a mist, and would have to reveal itself stage by stage. Montessori was certain that, if she did her part fully in the present, the future would look after itself. (Standing, 1962 p.31) standing indicates that Montessori felt a mission of some kind was meant for her, she need only move forward one step at a time. This is the exact same concept the ISD model employs. The development of the next stage or portion of a lesson for example, must be preceded by thorough utilization and completion of the stage before it. Without analysis, design and development can not begin, at least not to be completed to a satisfactory end. Whether Dr. Montessori knew consciously that she had employed what would later become a method of instructional development or not, she knew she could only to proceed after completing her first step. In this case, it was the study and understanding of her audience, the establishment of a need and the motivation to provide an answer to that need. Or analysis as it is called.

Dr. Montessori worked for many years on her approach to satisfying the needs of the children she would later teach. She studied their abilities and their limitations and she evaluated the results thoroughly. With the information she possessed, she designed an environment into which the children were placed, free of the influences or distractions of the home. An environment in which the child was at ease with discovery, in which the child was encouraged to touch, to speak, and to question without end the order of things. Dr. Montessori, having established the classroom, then sought to fill the space with things that would stimulate the children's natural desire to discover. She designed games and toys, not to entertain but to enrich the children. The toys taught basic skills and developed new avenues to explore them. This was the what is known as the design phase. Dr. Montessori perhaps spent less time in this arena than in the other areas of her ISD continuum, however she did in fact spend time designing the instruments she would later put into use. David Gettman, in Basic Montessori: Learning Activities for Under-Fives, describes the prepared environment, "everything in the Montessori environment is designed for use by children." (Gettman, 1987 p.14) This illustrates that the convenience of the instructor is not a factor nor that the children were placed randomly amongst desks and chairs, but invited into a nurturing environment designed for their use. " Designed for use by children." (Gettman) Montessori chose to create a place that was not a hostile place but a retreat for the children. Less than careful observation would show that a child in the adult's world is like a fish on dry land. The most superficial factors alone are not suited to the child's size nor his insatiable capacity to absorb stimuli. Montessori carefully designed and planned a world in which the child would fit and feel at home, establishing at least some part the existence of her design phase.

The third step in the ISD model is the development of the material established in the design phase. Dr. Montessori herself may not have skillfully carved the furniture or cut the blocks for the children's activities, but she coordinated the production and oversaw the completion of each element. The materials used in the Montessori environment "are simple, basic shapes in pure, wholesome materials - small wooden cabinets and containers with neat, enamel-painted elemental forms inside, squares of wool and cotton fabric, plain ceramic jugs and basins, and other similarly uncomplicated artefacts [author's misspelling]." (Gettman, 1987 p.15) Montessori had discovered that the children preferred and enjoyed the simplicity (Gettman, 1987) and those traits are reflected in the materials available for use today. The ISD model does not expect that the designer be able to develop the materials entirely on one's own, however through careful design the designer need not be present. Dr. Montessori was able to rely on the simplicity of her materials to make it them easy to duplicate.

At the completion of the development phase designers using the ISD approach are encourage to evaluate their efforts through several means, one such means is the pilot program. Dr. Montessori was no exception, although she wasn't quite aware of that fact. She established a pilot program for sixty children, and an untrained proctor. The school opened in January 1907, and despite humble beginnings was to become a world renowned institution. Dr. Montessori implemented her program and within a years time had become recognized for her achievement in education. She enjoyed moments of new and surprising revelations. Often when children were expected to act one way and she found them so absorbed in their activities they preferred to continue rather than enjoy than enjoy more playful toys:

Some of Dr. Montessori's rich friends -society ladies in Rome who were interested in her work with these poor children- had presented her with a number of costly toys. These included elegant dolls, a doll's house, doll's crockery and even a doll's kitchen. These toys Montessori placed in the room with the children, making them as easily accessible as the materials for work. (Standing, 1962 p.43)

Dr. Montessori discovered not only had the children refused the toys, but preferred the work materials to the toys. Dr. Montessori had designed her program around challenging the children through enjoyable exercises which taught and stimulated them, but she had not considered the children would prefer them over other toys. This led to refinements and ultimately the design of more activities. The implementation and evaluation phase of the Montessori ISD model.

Dr. Montessori also, as new Montessori schools were established, traveled to observe the classes. She was finding more and more unexpected situations, none of which were negative. Children were responding well to the schools and the results were evidenced by the children themselves. In her own words as quoted by E.M. Standing: "I set to work," she says, "like a peasant woman who, having set aside a good store of seed corn, has found a fertile field in which she may freely sow it. But I was wrong. I had hardly turned over the clods of my field, when I found gold instead of wheat: the clods concealed a precious treasure. I was not the peasant I had thought myself. Rather I was like foolish Aladdin, who without knowing it, had in his hand a key that would open hidden treasures." (Standing, 1962 p.39)

The treasures of which Dr. Montessori speaks, are the "normal characteristics of childhood", that she herself had discovered. Traits never before attributed to children yet continuously revealed and still cleverly hidden. Some of these traits she noted are: amazing mental concentration, love of repetition, love for order, freedom of choice, preference of work to play, no need for rewards and punishment, and the love of silence. (Standing, 1962) Dr. Montessori like most designers sought to achieve a measure of success by reaching her audience and teaching them. She also like most designers found they too had something to teach her. Dr. Montessori developed what today is the rising tide in pre-elementary education. For nearly a century, her methods concurrently are attacked for their liberal ideas and implemented for their successful history. Maria Montessori, whether a student of the ISD approach or any other formal model, was a revolutionary educator, a visionary and most singularly responsible for shaping the course of modern education.

In summation, through careful analysis, thorough design, detailed development, well though out implementation, and continuous evaluation, Dr. Montessori was able to complete her life's work. Despite the fact that it did not exist concurrently with Dr. Montessori, there is a distinct pattern to her development that is remarkably similar to those proposed by the ISD model.

References Works Cited

Gettman, D. (1987). Basic Montessori : learning activities for under-fives. New York: St. Martin's Press.

Montessori, M. (1964). Dr. Montessori's own handbook. Boston: Robert Bentley, Inc.

Pines, M. (1967). Revolution in learning: the years from birth to six. New York: Harper and Row Publishers.

Sinclair, U. (1960). The Jungle. New York: The New American Library of World Literature.

Standing, E.M. (1962). Maria Montessori: her life and work. New York: The New American Library of World Literature. Other Sources

Braun, S. J. (1974). Nursery education for disadvantages children: an historical review. In Montessori in perspective. (pp. 7-24). National Association for the Education of Young Children: New York.