The life and works of Doctor Maria Montessori will continually be an inspiration to teachers and the world at large. There is so much to learn from her educational philosophy and pedagogy, which in the slightest form cannot be completely captured in this article. She is a profound educator and physician who has astounded other educators with her career achievements and her contributions to the method of teaching and learning worldwide. There are five key concepts that this article will cover, as regards the educational contribution of Maria Montessori.

1. JERC

2. The life and works of Doctor Maria Montessori will
continually be an inspiration to teachers and the
world at large. There is so much to learn from her
educational philosophy and pedagogy, which in the
slightest form cannot be completely captured in this
article. She is a profound educator and physician who
has astounded other educators with her career
achievements and her contributions to the method of
teaching and learning worldwide. Live on, great one.
Jones Oluwatosin

3. Gender equality
Doctor Maria Montessori became the first female
doctor in Italy in 1896 at a time when the study of
medicine was reserved for men. She pursued her
dream and refused to be deterred by her father’s
disapproval or the disdain she faced from other
doctors at the time. Gladly, the fifth goal of the UN’s
Sustainable Development Goals is to achieve gender
equality and empower all women and girls. As we
strive to create equal opportunities for every
student under our care in school by removing
discrimination, we should also be motivated by the
efforts of Maria.

4. Etiquette
We are at a time when students are occupied with
logical reasoning, languages, scientific knowledge
and other learning contents while little of the
curriculum emphasizes the forms required by a
good upbringing. In the Casa dei Bambini,
cleanliness and orderliness were core skills that
students were taught and children were inspected
between 1pm and 2pm daily. Students are also
taught to march in line, salute properly, placing
object gracefully, and normal positions of the body.
Montessori was awarded certificates for good
behaviour in the first grade and for “Lavori
donneschi”, or “women’s work”, the following year.

5. Teacher observation
Maria Montessori was an advocate for attentiveness
and consistent observation of students in the class
by the teacher. She believed the role of a teacher is
to be an observer and director of children's innate
psychological development. She spent most of her
time observing the learners and their teachers as
they interact, in order to create instructional
materials and activities for learning. Sometimes,
teachers get really busy or overwhelmed with tasks
and they do not pay attention to details or to the
hidden messages that their students share
deliberately or unintentionally. If only we could be
more aware and observant, maybe the solutions to
our headaches in class are right before our eyes.

6. Children independence
Maria Montessori said, “The greatest sign of success
for a teacher…….. Is to be able to say, ‘The children
are now working as if I did not exist’. She made
certain that children in the Casa dei Bambini had
every resources to perform unconstrained and learn
at his or her pace. This shows that education is
meant to first liberate the mind from ignorance,
then assist learners to be independent. She made
children sized tables, chairs, materials and
accessible shelves to enable children play an active
role in their learning. Maria felt by working
independently children could reach new levels of
autonomy and become self-motivated to reach new
levels of understanding.

7. Student centered learning
If there is anything that Maria stands for particularly,
it is that the learners are the focus of any education.
The Montessori Method reveals that the major role
of a teacher is to ensure that there are no barriers
to a child’s development. This means providing the
children the liberty to choose and carry out their
own activities while learning at their own individual
paces, and satisfying their interests. Nowadays, we
have too many interesting ways to classify children,
you might prefer slow or fast learners, high or low
flyers, even special students and the likes. Well, all
that matters is teaching students according to their
abilities and ensuring that they all flourish in their
own tendencies.

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