Introduction

Learning can and does take place almost everywhere whether it is intentional or not. Schools and nurseries are the traditional and conventional contexts for learning but there are many others in which learning takes place where we may not even realise. This blog focuses on four specific learning contexts some traditional and some not.

Maria Montessori was an educator at the turn of the twentieth century and her methods were revolutionary for the time. The firing line museum is a place whose main focus is to educate and has an excellent educational programme with great links to primary schools. Learning through play is an idea which is fairly new to UK schools but has been embraced and is having great success and Forest schools is a concept which sees woods and forests being used for safe exploratory and imaginative outdoor learning.

Montessori

Maria Montessori was born in Chiaravalle in Italy in 1870. She studied medicine at the University of Rome and it was while working in women and children’s hospitals and asylums that she realised that some of the negative behaviours demonstrated by the children weren’t the symptoms of a medical problem but the result of a poor education. In 1900 Montessori became the director of a pedagogical institute for children with special needs and in 1906 she set up the ‘Casa Dei Bambini’ a nursery in the slums of Rome which looked after young children while their parents went out to work. It was in this nursery that Montessori’s teaching methods which are still used today were first implemented (Isaacs, 2010).

Montessori outlined a theory of children’s development; she described three stages in which a child develops through and within these stages she explains that there are sensitive periods in which children learn specific skills. A child is in the absorbent mind stage from ages nought to six and in this stage Montessori said that children have an instinctive desire to learn and during the sensitive periods they develop creative, communication and orientation skills. Childhood is seen at ages six to twelve and Montessori describes this stage as calm with the child eager to learn and in the sensitive periods of this stage Montessori says that children develop moral and cultural skills. The stage of adolescence which runs from ages twelve to eighteen is described as volatile because it is in this stage that puberty occurs and in adolescence children aim to find a group of peers who they can best identify with (Isaacs, 2010).

Montessori classrooms are designed around three main principles: offering freedom to promote individual responsibility, to recognise each child as individual and nurture them to their full potential and to promote independence (Isaacs, 2012).

The characteristics of a typical Montessori classroom are:

-Vertical grouping: children of different ages are educated in the same classroom; they are grouped into three year age spans.

-There is always access to an outdoor learning environment

-The classroom is spacious and can be easily re-organised

- All resources are always available and within easy reach of the children

- Plants and other elements of nature can be seen within the classroom

- Where possible artefacts and objects are used to provide concrete experience for more abstract learning

- A Montessori classroom has a calm atmosphere but buzzes with activity (Isaacs, 2012).

Pupils of a Montessori school can often be seen cleaning up and putting away resources after they have finished playing with them without instruction from a teacher (Feez, 2010).  This is because the Montessori approach instils from the very start that the children have the responsibility to look after the resources for themselves and others.

The Montessori approach to education was one of the influences of the foundation phase in Wales and shares some of the same characteristics such as constant access to an outdoor learning environment and child sized furniture (Welsh Government, 2008). This holistsic approach is based on a childs natural curiosity and instinct to learn.

However an entirely Montessori approach can almost solely be seen in private education where children generally do not have the social and emotional behavioural problems that are associated with poverty and deprived areas. A purely Montessori education may not be as successful for children who come from poor social backgrounds and who have the additional needs that can accompany this.

 
References List

Feez, S., 2010. Montessori and Early Childhood: A Guide for Students. London: Sage.

Government, W. A., 2008. Framework for Childrens Learning for 3-7 Year Olds in Wales, Cardiff: Welsh Government.

Isaacs, B., 2010. Bringin the Montessori Approach to Your Early Years Practice. 2nd ed. Abingdon: Routledge.

Isaacs, B., 2012. Understanding the Montessori Approach: Early Years Education in Practice. Abingdon: Routledge.