Dialogue > Article > Sustaining School Identity

In 1907, Dr. Maria Montessori opened the first Montessori classroom in a tenement just outside Rome, Italy. Here began her experiment of applying scientific observation to the education of children. Since then, Montessori has become the world’s most practised pedagogy, with more than 8,000 Montessori schools on six continents educating youth from infancy through to college. Still growing in popularity, the Montessori education system and its schools have sustained themselves for more than 100 years. What lessons from this success would assist Montessori and other independent schools in sustaining themselves through our current economic conditions?

Schools are always making choices, but it creates instability if we change for the sake of change, in response to parental or societal pressure, rather than from a considered rationale. In a Montessori school, many aspects run counter to common beliefs about best educational practices—larger rather than smaller class sizes, fewer rather than more adults, emphasis on focused engagement first and curriculum and skill development second. Delineating and providing the rationale for these aspects for parents goes a long way toward identifying what is unique about us.

Dr. Montessori created and refined environments and practices in response to her observations of the characteristics and sensitivities of young people at each stage of development. Her ideas were significantly different from anything known in her time. In a Montessori classroom, students choose from an extensive array of displayed activities and can repeat or change activities independently. The teacher guides each student by observing the student working, and then introducing the next exercises in the sequence prescribed by the Montessori curriculum. In Montessori classrooms, students learn through what they do, rather than through what they have seen or been told. The hallmark of a Montessori classroom is a group of mixed-age students, each working in a focused and engaged manner on a chosen activity.

Through observation, Dr. Montessori defined the materials and lessons that create the hands-on curriculum for the youngest classes and a broader curriculum for older students. Mixed-age classes, more rather than fewer students (to create viable social communities), a small number of adults and long, uninterrupted work periods became defining characteristics.

While Montessori schools were recognized by their unique materials and classroom organization, it was the successful outcomes that brought attention and the demand for more schools. Montessori students as young as four years old began writing and reading, seemingly spontaneously, while happily engaged in caring for themselves and their classmates, in calm, peaceful classrooms. News of Montessori’s first classes spread quickly, and parents and media visited Montessori classrooms to verify the results. A model Montessori classroom was even part of the 1915 San Francisco World’s Fair. Wherever Montessori schools were set up, whether for the poor or the wealthy, the same results occurred and Dr. Montessori began a life of world travel, lecturing, writing and establishing schools and teacher-training centres.

While Dr. Montessori continued to refine and extend her method of education, she maintained careful control so that changes and developments remained true to the underlying principles she had determined through scientific observation. This ensured that Montessori pedagogy could be applied with consistent results across many cultures.

While the academic progress of Montessori students was remarkable, of even greater importance to Dr. Montessori was the way Montessori students grew to become compassionate and reflective about their relationship with the world and its development. As she extended her method to older students, she became convinced that an education that truly respected the full development of each individual was the key to world peace. This became the focus of her later work and led to her being nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize several times toward the end of her life.

Today Montessori education continues to grow, although Montessori schools face the same challenges as any independent school in today’s socio-economic times. Many of the same factors that played a role in the rise and spread of Montessori education in Dr. Montessori’s lifetime remain valid and can be applied by any school, Montessori or not.

All schools benefit from having everything about the school aligned with its mission and values. A reputation is built slowly, and easily lost. The more a reputation is grounded in all aspects of the school (classrooms, staff room, playing fields or administration offices), the greater strength and endurance that reputation will have and the more clarity parents will have in choosing a particular school. At Ottawa Montessori School, we begin each year with an off-campus retreat. Everyone—faculty, assistants, specialists, administrative staff, board members and Parent Community Association executives—spend a day in activities and conversations that reaffirm who we are as a school. This creates the same type of community in the school that we are nurturing in the classrooms, and helps maintain our identity and integrity.

When a school is aligned around a common culture, its identity is clear to parents and students. Balancing what has worked historically with new developments and suggested changes is a challenge. Parents want their children to have the advantage of the newest and best, but the newest and “best” is not always proven, and may or may not add value to a school.

Computers did not exist in Dr. Montessori’s time and so she left no specific guidelines for their use. Montessori schools have had to evaluate technology against the basic tenets of her philosophy. Dr. Montessori was very clear in her belief that young children are creating themselves through their sensorial experiences, and that movement and the work of the hand are paramount for the young child. As a result, you will not find computers used by students at Ottawa Montessori School until about the age of nine, when they become a classroom tool. Interestingly, our older students do not lag behind non-Montessori peers in their understanding or use of technology.

Clear, powerful explanations that speak to both the intellect and the heart about why something fits with a particular pedagogy or not are one solution. We can educate potential and current parents with the latest science and research that supports our pedagogy. We can support research by collaborating with other schools that share our pedagogy. We can also showcase what we want parents to experience by telling stories from the daily lives of our schools. But the most powerful experiences are first-hand. When parents can spend enough time in a school while the students are engaged in their usual routines, what you are offering their child cannot be disputed.

Dr. Montessori created her legacy by using scientific observation to create a unique pedagogy, which she then made known to the public through observation, lecture and storytelling. While she was always extending her method, she did so judiciously, through the lens of her underlying philosophy. She also looked beyond the immediate results—children who could learn to read, write and compute precociously—to what her pedagogy could offer the future. Grounded in daily reality, she ignited a vision of world peace through the education of the child. Here are keys to assist us in maintaining our schools and extending them into the future.

Guiding principles of a montessori education
A Montessori education is based on the characteristics and needs of young people at each stage of their development. Students’ natural curiosity and desire to master the world is encouraged through carefully prepared learning environments, internationally recognized Montessori materials, and the individual attention and guidance of specially trained, nurturing teachers.

Founder Dr. Maria Montessori believed in these tenets:

Focused engagement was the optimal state for learning.
Students should be respected as individuals and responded to as individuals.
Students have a natural curiosity and inclination to learn.
Students learn best through activity in an area of interest within a community of fellow learners.

Montessori classrooms therefore have the following:

Communities of multi-age students (three-year range).
More rather than fewer students to create viable peer groups and intrinsic group energy.
Fewer adults rather than more (high rather than small student-teacher ratios).
A comprehensive sequence of activities and exercises that are available to students independently.
A teacher who guides a student’s journey through the curriculum by the presentations given to a student.
Daily observation of activities to document progress.
A curriculum that is
- responsive to students’ stages of development.
- gives frameworks of information that serve as a scaffolds for new information.