...Assignment Two The aim of this essay is to explain how the role of the teacher changes in process of the child’s growing ‘normalisation’. In establishment of the aim, one will first define the term normalisation in linkage with the concept of deviation, followed by an outline of environmental aspects, which support normalisation. Thirdly one will describe the initial approach to new children and how the teacher’s role changes as the child starts to concentrate and focus on activities. At last, one will explain the impact of this change in the teacher’s role on the child’s growing normalisation and why the child might regress. The term ‘normalisation’ is first mentioned by Montessori in ‘The Absorbent Mind’. She describes ‘normalisation’ as a transition process from one stage to another (Montessori, 1949). The process of normalisation is closely linked to Montessori’s concept of deviation, whereby deviations disappear and normalisation occurs. She believed that a child is born ‘good’ and over the first three years- the period when the child is in the adult environment, where the child is not given enough independence and toys of the wrong type - the child develops ‘defects’ in character called deviations. Montessori states in The Secrete of Childhood, Chapter 21:’…Thus at the origin of life, in the small baby, errors are constantly being made, deforming the natural psychological type of man, and leading to an infinity of deviations…’. These deviations cause the child to...
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...development (2007a), the absorbent mind (2007a), and the sensitive periods (1966). This paper will give an account on how these elements come together in a child’s life, and how, with the understanding of this concepts, the adults – parents, carers and educators alike – can prepare a favourable environment most suitable for the optimal formation of man. It will also provide examples of the unfolding of this process of growth and development. Montessori (2012) identified three planes of development which are grouped into six-year cycles: birth to age six, age six to 12, and age 12 to 18 (Montessori, 2012). The second plane, childhood, is peaceful and stable, while the first and third planes, the absorbent mind and adolescence, respectively, are periods of dramatic changes and creative transformations. Montessori believed that the first stage of growth is the most important one because “(a)t no other age has the child greater need of an intelligent help, and any obstacles that impedes his creative work will lessen the chance he has of achieving perfection” (2007a, p26). According to Montessori (2012), a child’s mind possesses unique powers, present only in this stage, which indiscriminately absorbs all the impressions from the environment with which s/he effortlessly creates his/her psychic personality. She called it the Absorbent Mind. This mind, which is different from the adult’s reasoning one, has two sub-phases: the unconscious absorbent mind (Montessori, 2007a),...
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...early childhood education in the 20th century discovered a world within the child. Her observations of the child, at Casa dei Bambini - the first Montessori Classroom - led her to discover the secrets of childhood. And the framework of Montessori Philosophy is based on three important discoveries; Tendencies, Absorbent Mind and Sensitive Periods. As Dr. Montessori said, the child has his own potential for life to develop. It is important for the adult to understand and allow the child build himself by his own experiences without the adult trying to fill their knowledge onto the child. Every child posses a pre-determined pattern of psychic unfold, which is not visible at birth but it is revealed when the child is exposed to the environment with freedom. When these two factors are provided, child’s psychic life will reach its potential and build his personality for his survival in the society. From birth and throughout the childhood, a child’s Absorbent Mind allows him to absorb impressions from his surrounding environment and directly store it into his psychic life. As an infant these impressions are absorbed unconsciously but gradually when the child has a conscious mind, he absorb impressions consciously and make language connections. There are blocks of time in early years of child’s life which he absorbs certain characteristics of his environment to the exclusion of all others. This is called Sensitive Periods. A child possess sensitive periods for order, to experience...
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...support to facilitate child's normal development are discussed in detail. According to Montessori, there are three stages of growth, Phase one – birth to six years (Absorbent Mind), Phase two - six to twelve years(Childhood) , Phase three - twelve to eighteen years (Adolescence). Each plane describes a unique developmental stage and highlights the particular characteristics of the child at that stage and explains the conditions which Montessori thought were most conducive to the child's development at each stage. Phase one - birth to six years (Absorbent Mind) is subdivided into two sub-stages, the spiritual (Montessori, 1966 and 2007a) and social embryonic (Montessori, 2007a) stage. from birth to three years child learns unconsciously from his/her environment of which immediate family, primary and secondary are an essential component. The unconscious absorbent mind enables children to acquire information and develop essential skills such as walking and talking. In the early stages of this sub-phase the infant is seen to be a spiritual embryo. ’"we are not dealing with something that develops, but with a fact of formation; something non- existent has to be produced, starting from nothing " (Montessori, 2007a, p.21). The child in the next sub-phase is referred to as conscious absorbent mind, the three to six year old begins to be able to exist independently of the prime carer. Montessori refers to the child at this stage of his/her development as the social...
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...believed discipline to be an internal process, something which grows within the individual. She states that “..Inner discipline is something to come and not something already present. Our task is to show the way to discipline” (Montessori, The Absorbent Mind, 1988, p 240). In the Montessori environment therefore, discipline is not something which is inflicted on the child, nor is the child controlled through rewards and punishments. It is something which is self-taught. The focus is on fostering the child's inner self-control so they are able to behave in a way that is right for them and their community. Montessori discovered that it was through liberty, which was such an integral part of her classrooms, that the children were the means to reveal their inner or self-discipline. Respect for authority was deepened not diminished by this independence. One of the things that interested her most was that order and discipline seemed to be so closely intertwined that they resulted in freedom. “Discipline is therefore attained indirectly, that is, by developing activity in spontaneous work.” (Montessori, The Discovery of the Child, 1988, P305). Obedience is described by Montessori as a “normal human characteristic” (Montessori, The Absorbent Mind, 1988, p234) and that this natural desire for obedience is a prerequisite for social life. Montessori's idea of obedience is not to be...
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...Language lies at the root of that transformation of the environment that we call ‘civilization’. How is language encouraged in the Montessori prepared environment? Language is something that I can’t explain. It is absurd for me. What I know is I am able to speak to communicate what is on my mind to other people, but the process how did it happen I barely remember it. Before I learn about Montessori, I used to think that language is something that comes naturally. I thought it was something ridiculous if children learn how to write and how to read in early age because I was thought that eventually children could done it easily. Well, I guess I was wrong all this time and sure I am taking for granted that I was underestimate how we can speak, read, and writing. Human needs practice to be fluently in speaking, to be understood in reading, and to be able to writing a simple note. In fact, human being learns language from he or she was an infant. An infant is first exposed to language through sounds generated by the environment and languages spoken by the adults surrounding him. As I observe my 9 months old son, he starts babble when he was 6 months old now he is more talkative event tough he can only say baba papa mama or dada. But I always replying what he says in order to make him feel respected, to teach him Bahasa and I don’t want to lose his sensitive period. Language is goes a long way in establishing a people’s identity, somehow showing people’s artistic, economic...
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...human has a mathematical mind from a French philosopher Pascal and developed a revolutionary math learning material for children as young as 3 years old. Her mathematical materials allow the children to begin their mathematical journey from a concrete concept to abstract idea”. With reference to the above statement please discuss how these children utilize their mathematical mind as part of their natural progression, to reason, to calculate and estimate with these Montessori mathematical materials in conjunction with their aims and presentations? The child doesn’t learn mathematics only through Montessori, but he learns it from the day he was born or even before that. It is a known fact that an embryo can hear its mother. When a mother says ‘the baby kicked me 4 times’, the baby can understand this in her womb. After the baby is born people often tell him what day he was born or how many siblings he has, etc. The child’s day-to-day life and environment is connected with math. The child is born into a mathematic world where he has to adapt to it. The child needs math to sort and group objects within their environment. When the child enters the Montessori environment, he can already count without knowing the real meaning of the numbers (rote-counting). He counts with understanding of numbers and gradually learns arithmetic’s, geometry and algebra in the Montessori classroom. ‘The Mathematical Mind’ refers to the unique tendencies of the human mind. The French philosopher...
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...The purpose of this essay is to define the term sensitive periods, and explain how the teacher’s knowledge and understanding of these periods determines his/her preparation and custodianship of prepared environment. Maria Montessori describes sensitive periods as transitory periods that “correspond to special sensibilities to be found in creatures in process of development and are confined to the acquisition of a determined characteristic.”(Montessori, Secrete of childhood, p.36). After the acquisition of a certain characteristic this special sensitivity or impulse disappears. One could describe sensitive periods analogous to a window that opens and closes. During a sensitive period, when the window is open, the child is drawn to determined activities and performs them repeatedly with pleasure until it has acquired certain skills and abilities. However if the characteristic has not been formed before the sensitive period ends, i.e. the window closes, which could occur because of disturbances during the process of learning or lack of stimulation in deprived environments, the child’s psychic life will be disturbed. This will be discussed in more detail later on. Montessori observed six main sensitive periods; a period for sensitivity to order; a period for the refinement of the senses; a period of sensitivity to language; sensitivity for walking and movement; sensitivity for small objects; sensitivity to the social aspects of life (Montessori, 1936). Sensitive periods can...
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...In this essay I intend to write about the relationship between discipline and obedience from the Montessori perspective and how both these virtues are related in the development of the will. The word discipline traditionally means the enforcement of rules and orders through force and punishment. “It is the practice of training people to obey rules and punishing them if they do not” (Wehmeier, 2005). It gives one the impression that discipline has to be enforced upon a person. Though it is a common saying ,”spare the rod and spoil the child “, does this really work? . Must children be caned and made to be silent and afraid of their teacher who moves at his/her pace expecting every child to work at the same level?. Is being afraid a sign of true discipline?. Montessori approached discipline from a different perspective. She saw each child as an individual and emphasized that we should ‘follow the child’. According to her, true discipline comes from within a child and cannot be imposed from the outside. It develops naturally and reveals itself after maturing in the right environment. This discipline is not limited to the nursery or the presence of the teacher, but extends out into the society and is present even if the teacher is not around. ”The discipline we are looking for is active. We do not believe that one is disciplined only when he is artificially made as silent as a mute and as motionless as a paralytic. Such one is not disciplined but annihilated. We claim that an individual...
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...How imagination being develops in Montessori Environment Maybe the most definite difference between traditional early childhood program and Montessori classroom is the absence of fantasy character in Montessori prepared environment. We have seen many facts that prove how fantasy dangerous for our kids mind. My brother had a terrified experience when he still 5 years old. He jumped in to a garbage pit that full of fires while wearing batman costumes. He saw at television as a batman, nothing can harm him. The most extreme things maybe what was happen in Britain, where Zach Avery (4 years old) and Coy Mathis (7 years old) that really ‘inspired’ with character of Dora the Explorer in television. Even they were born as male, but as toddler they choose items traditionally associated with Dora that grew his hair, wore lots of pink, like tutus and swimsuits featuring the cartoon character Dora the Explorer. Even though few doctor diagnosed them with Gender Identity Disorder, but it’s still in controversy As parents and teacher, we must aware of this. Because young children are naïve- they believe all that they are told. The world is a new and wonderful place for young children, and one marked by ability to absorbed seemingly endless amounts of information from the environment around him or her. Fantasy characters are not only unnecessary, they also quite damaging. Because children believe what they are told, and because they lack the experience to it information within accurate beliefs...
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...commercials when I was kid about the absorbency and strength of paper towels. They seemed to always focus on people trying to wipe up large amounts of water and most of being dumped onto the floor or wet paper towels being stretched out and weight being applied and falling through immediately. Ultimately it was the thickest and newest paper towel that wiped up all the water without spilling any and held the weight. Even as a child I felt this was completely staged and new that major parts of the research was not shown. As an adult, I just choose what I feel is a reasonable brand and wipe away at home without any thought about the value or absorbency of what I am using. With this thought in mind I decided to test four different brands of paper towels to see which one was the most absorbent. I would test the hypothesis that a thicker and coarser paper towel did in fact absorb more water. I first looked to some previous tests to see what steps they took in their testing. The first test I found dipped the paper towels into water and squeezed the towels into a glass (Penzo, nd). While this test seemed to be a good ideal, I felt for the purpose of my test I wanted to find how much water the towel held, not how much I could squeeze out of it. I also found a test that used weight as the measure of absorbency. Consumer Reports weighed each dry towel, wet them, strained them across a pan to remove excess water and then weighed them again. While this seemed like a fair way to...
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...There are various theories explaining the development of discipline and obedience in early childhood. Montessori perspective establishes a link between these two concepts and how their maturation is dependent on the maturation of the will of the child. This essay will attempt to explain the relationship between discipline and obedience in the developmental stages of a child. Attention will be paid to how the environment helps the child in his development through the stages according to Montessori. According to Oxford dictionary, ‘to discipline is to train to obey rules and code of conduct, using punishment to correct disobedience’. In the traditional sense of discipline much emphasis is placed on the use of external stimuli including rewards and punishment to ensure conformity with a certain required behavior. Discipline is thus exacted with a bait of reward or punishment. Usually discipline is achieved through among others threats, bribes, coercion and fear. In the perspective of Montessori however disciple is described to be active and comes from within the child as a result of his own internal motivation. A child’s discipline emerges as he works in a purposeful manner in a prepared environment (Montessori 2007a). According to Montessori (2007b, p51) ‘ the discipline we are looking for is active. We do not believe that one is disciplined only when he is artificially made as silent as a mute and as motionless as a paralytic. Such a one is not disciplined but annihilate’...
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...great change and the second being much calmer (Montessori, 2007a). These successive developmental stages or “series of rebirths” (Montessori, 2007a, p18) are infancy (from birth to six years), childhood (six to twelve years) and adolescence (twelve to eighteen years). The first plane of development has two sub phases; the spiritual embryo (from birth until three years) and the social embryo (three years to six years). During this first stage, the child’s mentality is unique from the following planes of development; the mind is open and highly absorbent of all and any information and environmental occurrence and nuance. According to Montessori, during the spiritual embryonic phases, the child’s mind cannot be influenced upon or subjected to direct adult influence. (Montessori, 2007a) During this time the child begins to learn how to talk, think and remember, move and walk. Montessori noted that while the body is fully formed, during this formative period the mind undergoes a kind of mental construction which sees the child greatly adapting to his/her environment, cultural norms and behaviour, and language. It is during this time the physical and...
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...eventually gave up her university chair and her medical practice just to follow her passion in working with children and this is when she founded the first Casa dei Bambini or “Children’s House.” Maria Montessori has characteristics that make her a great leader and sets her apart from others. (Pendleton, 2004) Maria had a strong moral foundation that provided her with the strength and persistence to continue so that she could find her purpose. (Kandi, 2009) Maria had five basic principles that she believed in. Maria first principle was respect for the children. This was held true because as a teacher the way to show respect to a child was to help them do things and learn for themselves. Maria’s second principle was to have an absorbent mind. To have an absorbent mind is to learn from the environment. Maria’s third principle was about sensitive periods. Sensitive periods are when a special sensibility that a creature acquires in its infantile state. The fourth principle is prepared environment. A prepared environment is a place in which children can do things for themselves. The last principle is auto education. Auto education is known as self-education because the children exercise freedom of choice that they educate themselves. These are the five principles of an effective learning that Maria used to lead those who would go on to establish more Montessori schools. (Morrison, 2010) Maria’s characteristics showed in her everyday life. She had...
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...Montessori described the sensorial material as the key to the universe discuss this statement and give examples to support your discussion. Dr,Maria Montessori was dedicating herself to understanding how and why children learn. Montessori discovered that the child learns different from an adult, the child seeks an internal aim but the adult seeks external aim. Maria believed that the first years of the child is the most important one; the child is forming his personality and absorbing every thing from the environment. She called this period from 0-3 the unconscious mind. And the second period is called the conscious mind is the age from 3 - 6 years the child now is building his will and his memory. "The tiny child's absorbent mind finds all its nutriment in its surrounding especially at the beginning of life .we must there- fore, make the environment as interesting and attractive as we can." ( The Absorbent mind ). The child also needs freedom in order to develop. A prepared environment is a place that is created for a special purpose. In this to assist the full and natural development of children between ages of 3-6. The prepared environment should contain everything that is necessary to enable the child 3-6 to develop fully. To achieve this it must also make it possible for the child to function independently, to explore and discover for himself. It should also be attractive so that invites the child and every thing should be accessible to reach. Dr Maria felt that...
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