The Montessori approach is often described as an “education for life”.  When we try to define what children take away from their years in Montessori, we need to expand our vision to include more than just the basic academic skills.

Normally, Americans think of a school where one generation passes down basic skills and culture to the next.  From this perspective, a school only exists to cover a curriculum, not to develop character and self esteem.  But in all too many traditional and highly competitive schools, students memorize facts and concepts with little understanding, only to quickly forget them when exams are over. 

Recent studies show that many bright students are passive learners.  They coast through school, earning high grades, but rarely pushing themselves to read material that hasn’t been assigned. , ask probing questions, challenge the teacher’s cherished opinion or think for them.  They typically want teachers to hand them the right answers. The problem isn’t with today’s children but with today’s school.  Children are as gifted, creative, curious as they ever were, when they are working on something that captures their interest and which they are voluntarily chosen to explore.

Montessori schools work to develop culturally literate students and nurture their fragile sparks of curiosity, creativity, and intelligence.  They have a very different set of priorities from traditional schools and a very low regard for mindless memorization and superficial learning.  Montessori students may not memorize as many facts, but they do tend to become self confident, independent thinkers who learn because they are interested in the world and enthusiastic about life, not simply to get a good grade.

Montessori believed that there was ore to life than simply the pursuit of wealth and power.  To her, finding one’s place in the world, work that is meaningful and fulfilling, and developing the inner peace and depth of soul that allows us to love are the most important goals in life.

Helen keller, inspired by Dr Montessori wrote:” I believe that every child has hidden away somewhere in his being noble capacities which may be quickened and developed if we go about it  in the right way.but we shall never properly develop the higher nature of our little ones while we continue to fill their minds with the so called basics.

Mathematics will never make them loving, nor will accurate knowledge of the size and shape of the world help them to appreciate its beauties. Let us lead tem in the first year to find their greatest pleasure in nature.  Let them run in the fields, learn about animals, and observe real things.  Children will educate themselves under the right conditions.  They require guidance and sympathy far more than independence.

Montessori schools give children the sense of belonging to a family and help them learn how to live with other human beings.  By creating a bond with parents, teachers, and children, Montessori sought to create a community where individuals could learn to be empowered, where children could learn to be a part of families, where they could learn to care for younger children, learn from older people, trust one another, and find ways to be properly assertive rather than aggressive.

To reduce these principles to the most simplistic form, Dr Montessori proposed that we could ensure world peace by healing the wounds of the human hearts and by producing a child who is independent, at peace with herself, and secure.  Dr Montessori envisioned her movement as essentially leading to a construction of society.

Montessori schools are different but it isn’t just because of the materials that are used in the classroom.  Look beyond the pink tower and the golden beads and you will discover that the classroom is a place where children really want to be- because it feels a lot like home.