Maria Montessori's discoveries

What are the discoveries made by Dr. Maria Montessori by observing the child?

Maria Montessori made a lot of discoveries by observing the children. She is a founder of Montessori education. She conducted a lot of experiments and observed children by spending a lot of time with them. She discovered several aspects of children. She has specified some of the discoveries she had made during her work.

According to Maria Montessori children work until they reach to their goal. They are very enthusiastic about the work which makes them select and concentrate on different activities which lead them to make them perfect in their inner development.

The teacher or an adult should follow the child rather them to motivate him to do work.  When a child works in different areas of human activity at specific time that lead them to develop the awareness and usage of doing. The teacher should not ignore their inner urge of doing activities.

When a child does activities again and again or when there is a spontaneous repetition of an activity is done with great interest the result is concentration .The child concentrates more when they found right conditions. And condition is just a beginning not an end.

Maria discovered that children really need an order in their life. She found out when she saw her children putting their things back to their places; same in the case of values, functions and other human activities. The child wants to learn by practice that is the truth, the need to see it being practiced. Montessori students in this age, built up their personalities, they needed consistency in all aspects of environment.

Normality refers to human power working in unison or in collaboration. Dr. Maria says that during the early childhood it is possible to rectify any developmental error and bring the child back to normality. The child should work individually and with freedom. All activities are very important to bring child back to normality.

A child needs those activities which help him to develop sensorial concepts, language, arithmetic art, and culture. These are very important for building of child’s personality. Montessori found that these activities can bring intelligence in the children as they love to perform these activities.

A child could assimilate that the knowledge which people think that this kind of knowledge is too complex for the children but according to Maria Montessori if that knowledge present in rightful manner or condition, that would be easy for them to digest.

Montessori figure out that discipline should not be imposed on children. If a child is satisfied, he would start respect others. He may learn discipline unintentionally. Real discipline comes along with freedom.

If a child is satisfied he or she starts respect elders because real obedience is based on love, respect and faith.

She was confident that the child’s behavior rely on the environment. If a child couldn't get the environment for development, when his or her inner needs do not fulfill, he becomes stubborn, disobedient and destructive. So we should provide him or her suitable environment and condition for development and Montessori is the right place for that.

She discovered that children love to do their household work.They believe in a statement that “Help me Do it myself” but parents don’t pay any heed towards this. So, she says we should trust the child.

Maria had a view that we should provide a very good environment to the student in order to attain good result. For this purpose, she used child size table and chair rather than heavy desk. She discovered the child wants everything according to its size. Tables were so small and light in weight so two children could easily move it.

Another very important point which she had discovered is traffic pattern. She figure out that a room where children had to stay, it should not be congested and overloaded.  The children love to sit on the floor so that’s why she put a lot of rugs and mats for children where they sit and do activities.

Maria observed that the building and outside environment should be according to the size of a child. For instance toilet, low sink, windows, shelves, garden tools etc. designed in child sized.