Frequently Asked Questions

Over a hundred years ago, Maria Montessori developed a philosophy and method of education that seeks to guide children through the various planes of development in order to maximize their unique human potential. A teacher/educator/guide’s role is to help children cultivate their individual minds, spirits and bodies in positive and productive ways. In order to fulfill their capacities as joyful learners and dynamic peacemakers within their communities, a Montessori education builds a solid foundation of intellectual inquiry and social responsibility from the earliest years. Children experience mixed-age classrooms that run a complete cycle for each plane of development, supporting the sensitive periods for learning that are unique to that period. In this way, children are easily able to work at their own pace through these stages. Lessons are revisited on deeper and more complex levels with every year of a three year cycle, each revolution building on the last. Children are able to see both where they are going as well as where they have been and gradually move to abstract ideas based on a mastery of concrete concepts. Thus, the students are the models for their own development. The curriculum adapts to each child, allowing him or her to find personal ways of becoming creative, contented, accountable, and productive as individuals who hold a place within the larger communities of their classrooms, their towns, their countries and the world.

Montessori could be a public, private, charter or magnet school and each will look somewhat different. If the Montessori school is an authentic program you will find at minimum; Montessori trained educators from a MACTE-accredited school for the level that they are teaching, a full array of Montessori materials and a mixed age community of children (18 month-3 years, 3-6, 6-9 or 6-12 and so forth).

At first glance you will see mixed ages (3–6, 6–9 etc), specially designed, curated and well-organized Montessori materials in an open, light filled classroom with plenty of space to move around in. You will notice low shelves whereby children select material and receive lessons with. Children will be moving around and talking with one another, and educators with specialized Montessori training, in respectful tones. As you look deeper you will feel the busy calm in the classrooms that draws you in and has you feeling that you wished you could go to school there.

When Maria Montessori worked with developmentally different children she utilized manipulatives and found through the scientific process that they could do so well that they scored as well as the developmental average children of that time. When she received the chance to work with the children in the slums of Italy in 1907 she began with an untrained teacher to see if her experiment would work by offering these children properly sized furniture and materials to “auto-educate” themselves. The children, aged 2-7, directed their education by showing that choice, movement and independence were to be the cornerstones of what they needed. For a quick peek into her life and work https://youtu.be/3ZFajh6uVWM. For a longer documentary style look into her life and work: https://youtu.be/TXqeTYHn0p4

Yes, and you’re likely already doing many things at home that would be called “Montessori”. Caring for spaces by sharing meaningful house work with your children, modeling personal responsibility by picking up toys, fostering independence by setting up a low work or eating table for children, having children help with setting the table or helping with meal preparation: you can find these and many other similar approaches and activities in Montessori classrooms.

Youtube is full of ‘Montessori at home’ type, videos like this: https://bit.ly/2OdMvA1

In a nutshell, yes they tend to do really well. The Montessori method develops the whole child and the results reflect that intention. For a research based answer the following articles are helpful: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2006/sep/29/schools.uk

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5670361/

Or if you want a deeper dive into this body of work we recommend the youtube series and book: The Science Behind the Genius

Series: https://youtu.be/ttZHbJcI64w

Book: https://amzn.to/3ugLB5g

The name Montessori can be used by anyone and while many Montessori programs are authentic, many are more “Montessori-ish”. So you need to be savvy and look for the following aspects:

1. Montessori trained teachers which trained with an MATCE- accredited program, Montessori Accreditation Council for Teacher Education, which sets international standard setting and accrediting body for Montessori teacher education. And the teacher/directress/educator or guide (all common lingo for “Montessori teacher”) needs to be trained at the level at which their class serves.

1. Mixed-aged classrooms serving infants and toddlers (0-3, with the “nido” or infant community serving up to 18 months and the toddlers program serving 18 months-3 years), the early child/preschool/primary level serving 3-6 year olds. Often communities which start with this level and not the toddler level, accept children who are “ ready” if they are as young as 2 years and 9 months. Lower elementary is for 6-9 year olds students and 9-12 is known as upper elementary yet 6-12 year olds are in one “plane of development” and will sometimes be in one classroom community together. The final plane of development is for 12-18 year olds and is the least well-known and served Montessori population. Maria Montessori coined this age as the Erdkinder, or Earth school.

1. Montessori materials might be as popular as her very name in the public domain. Her inspiration for creating hands-on manipulatives have spread throughout the work as one of her great contributions to education. Therefore you would want to see shelves of beautiful, often wooden, Montessori materials in the classroom. And they would be displayed in sequence and at the level that the child could access and return.

1. While the prepared environment that you can see is important, the mood or atmosphere in the prepared environment is equally as important. The peace, calm, cooperation and concentration is most remarkable to onlookers. There is also a hive of activity which to some looks unfamiliar because children are not required to sit in rowed desks nor only speak or move around with the permission of their teacher.

1. The daily work cycle which lasts for 2-3 hours, without children coming or going for special classes such as Spanish Language or music, is something else you will want to look for. The long stretches of time develop concentration, independence, order and coordination which allow for the Montessori magic to happen. Snack is fit in when a child is hungry and outdoor play, special classes and lunch happen in addition to the work cycle.

1. Individualized curriculum is offered to each child by way of the adults observing the child in the prepared environment. Children go through “windows of opportunity” or as Maria Montessori called them, “sensitive periods” and when a child shows an eagerness and some readiness for a material/skill, they are offered a “lesson”. Children can then work with a material directly after the lesson, or revisit when they wish and work for it as long as they like and for, alone, with a friend/small group. If the teacher sees that a child needs further help then that is offered. There is also peer teaching and many lessons are absorbed by watching someone else get a lesson.

1. “The child should live in an environment of beauty” said Maria Montessori. What a child absorbs from their environment forms them. The scents, lighting, music, temperature and the materials they interact with, all play subtle roles in the child’s experience. We may be used to seeing bright posters and cookie-cutter art projects on the walls of preschools or institutional settings for older children's classrooms, but it certainly doesn’t have to be that way. You will find natural light, open shelving, light colored furniture to highlight their work, plants, tasteful art and objects of contemplation in a beautiful Montessori prepared environment.

There are 5000–6000 Montessori Schools in North America with varying levels of certification, affiliation and authenticity. These programs could be private, public, charter or magnet.

Mixed aged or multi-aged classroom communities are important in Montessori because older students have the chance to become mentors and leaders to their younger classmates, and younger children receive the benefit of looking ahead at what comes next in all areas of development. It also creates a community feel which children thrive in.

Maria Montessori created her first “casa dei bambini” or children’s house to be much more like a home environment with furniture that can be moved around by the children instead of rows of desks and a teacher up on a stage. Since the children do not need to face the teacher they can move around the classroom and set up where they please. Movement, choice and independence allow the children to configure themselves in various ways.

Most are at least as academically rigorous but with many practical skills alongside so as to develop the whole child.

Historically Montessori classes have been larger than their counterparts with as many as 30-40 children in a class. In the very early days there were more! The classrooms themselves are also far bigger than what you would find in a non-Montessori class.

In a well-run classroom with all the authentic elements in place and an established class a larger group fosters more: problem solving, independence, peer teaching, patience and peer collaboration.

For many toddler and early childhood programs there are regulations and children-teacher ratios that dictate classroom size which becomes a factor in what you will find. Often these communities have 18–24 children.

“The child looks for his independence first, not because he does not desire to be dependent on the adult. But because he has in himself some fire, some urge, to do certain things and not other things.” Maria Montessori

Freedom within limits is an empowering Montessori mantra. This tenet embraces the notion that the child is inherently capable of learning and doing for themselves. The prepared environment allows for the children this freedom within limits which then leads to independence. Sometimes freedom of choice in Montessori is misperceived to mean that children are left to their own devices. Instead “freedom of choice” refers to the unique individual child’s choosing work in the prepared environment, not having work chosen for them by adults.

“To let the child do as he likes when he has not yet developed any powers of control, is to betray the idea of freedom ... . Real freedom, instead, is a consequence of development; it is the development of latent guides, aided by education.” Maria Montessori

Independence results from freedom within limits and freedom of choice. “If teaching is to be effective with young children, it must assist them to advance on the way to independence. It must initiate them into those kinds of activities which they can perform themselves and which keep them from being a burden to others because of their inabilities. We must help them to learn how to walk without assistance, to run, to go up and down stairs, to pick up fallen objects, to dress and undress, to wash themselves, to express their needs in a way that is clearly understood, and to attempt to satisfy their desires through their own efforts. All this is part of an education for independence.” Maria Montessori

Freedom within limits is the term we use to begin to describe how we all show up in the Montessori communities. Freedom in this way leads to independence and in that balancing act the children do explore self-pacing. Children can certainly go at their own pace because we don’t move through the day as a whole. We do start and stop together but within the work cycles there is plenty of time and flexibility for children to self-pace.

For younger children this isn't generally an issue. Ideally a child begins in the early childhood community at 3 and has three years to explore a rich and diverse curriculum.The curriculum is not linear, rather it is spiral and lessons/materials/concepts are revisited. For students at the elementary levels, they are facilitated in the process of how to manage their time, schedule themselves to complete work and are overseen in their classroom work. If a child is coming from a Montessori early childhood community self-management is built-in to the way children are at school. Children joining Montessori later in their schooling career can also learn these valuable skills in time.

Work in this way is the child’s play. Their play is their work. Describing what the children do as work is popular in Montessori circles and the term is used as a verb and as a noun. You will hear children say, “I am done with my work” which refers to finishing up a lesson, or cleaning up the materials or I am done with my swing. Children will also say, “ I want a lesson with that work” because we offer lessons to children before they can select material/work. Montessorians also pride ourselves in using the term “work” in a positive and exciting way. Often children come to school environments having heard that work is something you have to do rather than you get to do.

And regarding play in the sense of children being playful, imaginative, fanciful and active, you will see that “playing out” in all the same ways you would see in any quality educational offering. And while the play or work will look somewhat different to many other programs because of the materials themselves and the way the children utilize those materials, they are still constructing themselves out of their play/work.

There can be chaotic times, especially at the beginning of the year as the community is still working on gelling, and certainly in times of transition things can get hairy. However in an authentic Montessori classroom community there is a hive of activity that has a lot of moving pieces, yet also has a calm to it generally speaking. The busy-calm comes about because children are in a specially prepared environment to meet their physical, emotional, cognitive and spiritual needs and they thrive as a result.

Children in a Montessori classroom are taught through the cause and effect of natural consequences. As much as possible students are given the space to manage conflicts themselves as this is an important and empowering part of their social development. However physical altercations are immediately intervened by an adult. A student who can not engage safely with his or her friends would then lose the privilege of interacting with those friends until that behavior was under their control. A student who consistently uses work period to play would then have to use their play time to complete work.

Students who consistently need significant intervention with their social interactions or managing their work, may not be suited to an environment as unstructured as Montessori. Children all develop these skills at a different pace, but the goal for each child is that they are working toward further independence and responsibility. If a student is not progressing toward this independence, then it may be appropriate to find a learning environment with more structure that will allow them to be successful.

Montessori can work well for most children, but each family will have to determine that for themselves.

Montessori is not just a method of teaching, it is a lifestyle that does not end at the school door. For a child to truly be successful and maximize a Montessori education, parents who are enthusiastic participants continuing the lessons at home will reap the benefits. This does not mean you need to have Montessori materials in your home! But it does mean that the philosophy of compassion and community, of responsibility and independence should be consistently cultivated in all areas of the child’s life, not just the classroom. This helps bring the child to a truly meaningful understanding of ideas that are not just superficially taught but absorbed into the person they are and will become in the future.

Montessori has a good amount of structure but that is a fairly subjective view. For some people seeing the order of the classroom and the way the children move around their space does not look familiar. We may be used to seeing groups of children moving about in ways that seem wild and loud and seeing them move differently in the Montessori classroom can look odd. For others, the lack of traditional adult directed education, coupled with the freedom to move and talk for the children in the classroom and the fact that such young children are given so much freedom, respect and trust feels unsettling and looks too unstructured. Doing an “observation” in an authentic Montessori classroom is imperative to see for yourself.

Montessori views creativity within the context of total development – intellectual, artistic, emotional, physical and spiritual. Her plotting of child development follows the most significant of creative endeavours – the making of the personality, the construction of the child's self. So in a broad sense the beauty of the classroom community or the prepared environment fosters and nourishes this development. Beauty along with order and purposeful real work, Montessori adds that the child needs certain freedoms to develop creativity, which include: freedom to choose their work, stay with a material/work without interruption, space and time to problem solve, and sharing their discoveries.

For the young child developing imagination; artistic and musical experiences in concrete and sensorially based experiences roots them in the world. The languages of art, movement and music are universal and children tend to be the most open conduites to giving and receiving such experiences. Acceptance and non-judgement when a child expresses themselves creates inroads to further creative and imaginative development.

Get ready for another leap of faith because Montessori doesn’t use rewards, punishments, external motivators such as sticker charts and doesn’t use grades. This one can take some time for us adults to reorient ourselves to this way of being with children. It can also take the children some time to develop self-confidence, independence and leadership skills. We encourage introspection when even the youngest child shows us something they can be proud of instead of offering a “good job”, we may notice something about what they did or ask what they like about their work. We work with the children to develop intrinsic motivation rather than searching for external praise.