1. Name : Maharani K.
NIM : 208221411782
The Montessori Method for Early Childhood Education
From the many approaches teachers have today, there is the Montessori approach or
method. The name Montessori was taken from the name of the inventor, Maria Montessori. She
was the first female physician in Italy when she was graduated from medical school in 1896. She
then became interested in how children learn and gave much attention to it rather than medicine
that she decided to be an educator. She is as a controversial figure in education today as she was
a half century ago. She was criticized because she did not follow the traditional school at that
time. So what did she concern about in her method that differ her from the traditional school?
There are many aspect that we can see how she is ahead than other educators. However, what I
am going to present here are the three of them which are the most prominent: the classroom
design, her decision to group children together in such large multi-age classes, and her guides for
Montessori school teachers to meet the needs of many different children.
Dr. Montessori argued that a school must carefully design to meet the needs and interests
of children to have them work more effectively. Therefore, she developed her first school and
named it “Casa dei Bambini” or well-known as “Children’s House”. It was opened in 1907 and
made up of 60 inner-city children. Just like its name, the classroom specially designed for the
size of children from the chair, table and even she made the window easily reached by the height
of children. Nevertheless, you would not find rows of desks there. Students were found scattered
around the classroom. The idea is to free children to move and choose activities they like to do
with the materials available. The classrooms were normally bright, warm, and inviting, filled
with plants, animals, art, music, books and other intriguing learning materials like: mathematical
models, map, charts, fossils, historical artifacts, computers, scientific apparatus, and perhaps a
small natural-science museum. Her idea has been widely spread and adopted by many school in
the world. Today, there are perhaps 4,000 Montessori school in United States and Canada and
thousand more around the world.
Many pre-school are proud of their very small group sizes, and parents often wonder why
Montessori classes are so much larger. These schools reason that as the number of students
decreases, the time that teachers have to spend with each child increases. There, teachers are the
source of instruction. Montessori school works the other way around. Children are expected to be
independent as individuals and self-discipline. They can decide what skill they likely to develop
by activity chosen by themselves. Moreover, Montessori believed that the best teacher of three
year old is often another child who is just a little bit older and has mastered a skill. Since
Montessori allows children to progress through the curriculum at their own pace, there is no
academic reason to group children according to one grade level.

2. A typical Montessori class is made up of 25 to 35 children, more or less evenly divided
between boys and girls, covering a three year age span. Each child is different so they surely
have various needs. Now, how can the teachers meet all those different needs of that many
students in a class? First of all, what we must understand is teachers are rarely the center of
attention so they will not spend much time to work with the whole class at once. Second,
Montessori teachers teach children to think and discover for themselves rather than presents
them the right answer to be memorized, feedback and forget. Third, teachers must understand
each child as a full and complete individual in her/his own right and help them to learn the thing
by themselves. This way, Montessori sets a pattern for a lifetime of good work habits and a sense
of responsibility.
The Montessori Method had been criticized for not following the traditional school
method. Rather, it is different that we can see from the design of the classroom, the large and
multi-age classes, and the guides for teachers to meet the needs of many different children.
Nevertheless, Maria Montessori had proved that she was an individual ahead for her time with
the method she invented.