Introduction
At the present time, there is a change in the ideas about the nature and goals of education in the world education. This necessitates the search for other approaches to the organization of the educational process, to determine how to ensure the possibility of self-development and self-realization of the individual. At the same time, it is necessary to take into account that dramatic changes have occurred recently due to the process of globalization. This leads to the inclusion of national education systems in a process of continuous reform, the main goal of which is to improve the quality of education in a process of dialogue between different national education systems. Modern society increasingly feels the need to educate an active, creative, internally free person who is aware of his inner value and uniqueness and is able to live in freedom, but at the same time oriented to universal values, to relations with the world and the achievements of civilization. In this regard, along with the use of the achievements of national pedagogy, foreign experience that contains constructive ideas of humanistic pedagogy is relevant to modern Russian education.
In the light of the aforementioned points, it is quite legitimate to refer to specific humanist-oriented foreign pedagogical systems that have been developed and implemented over the century and have proved to be productive in the process of interaction with different national pedagogical systems. For the national pedagogy of its history and modernity, the most important was the theoretical understanding and practice of using a number of foreign pedagogical systems. First and foremost, these are the pedagogical systems of D. Dewey (1859-1952), J. Korczak (1878-1942), M. Montessori (1870-1952), S. Freinet (1896-1966), and R. Steiner (1861-1925). This choice is due to a number of circumstances. Firstly, they are pedagogical systems, a number of aspects of which have been convincingly proven to be productive. Secondly, they have a long tradition of practical use around the world. And finally, thirdly, crucial to this study, they have, albeit to varying degrees, experience of theoretical understanding and practical use in national pedagogy. A special place in this innovative movement is occupied by the system of the Italian teacher Maria Montessori (1870-1952). Relevance of his pedagogical system for modern education is based on a number of humanistic conceptual positions: the basic principles of free and independent activity of the child; consideration of sensitive periods of his development; a variety of thematic activities and practical work and didactic materials; optimal combination of indirect and direct influence of the teacher on child development, etc. The value and importance of the Montessori method was accepted by her contemporaries, which determined the interest in it as a famous foreign (George A. , Fisher DC, McClure SS, Tozier J., Ward FE, etc.), as well as domestic researchers (T.L. Sukhotina, V.V. Taubman, E.I. Tikheeva, Yu. Fousek, etc.), and also the recognition of the educational community and the appearance of an international teaching organization to study and spread the authors’ concept.
The goal of the study is to identify the characteristic features of the pedagogical system of M. Montesori, trace the process of adaptation of this system to the educational space of Russia, show its importance for modern pedagogy.
In order to achieve the goal of the study, the following tasks were set:
– to study and analyze literary and other sources of information on this issue;
– analyze the main features of the Montessori school;
– to examine the importance of the Montessori school for modern pedagogy;
– To determine the potential of using the Russian experience of adaptation of “Montessori pedagogy” to enrich the modern domestic education.
The pedagogical system of M. Montessori is the object of research.
Subject of the research is the Montessori school as an integrative phenomenon of the world pedagogical culture.
Biography of Maria Montessori (1870-1952)
On August 31, 1870 in a small Italian town in the province of Ancona, Maria Montessori was born to a family of a financial worker. Her mother was the niece of the famous theologian and priest Antonio Stoppani. When Mary was 12 years old, her parents moved with her to Rome to give their daughter a good education. At the age of 14, Mary developed an interest in mathematics, and she did not lose that interest for the rest of her life. Her parents wanted her to become a teacher. It was practically the only profession open to women. However, Maria rejected this path and decided to become an engineer. From 1886 to 1890 she studied at a technical school with a technical bias. In Italy at the end of the last century, young people were mostly educated in such schools. Two girls were the only female students, one of whom was Maria Montessori.
In 1890 she entered the Department of Mathematics and Natural Sciences at the University of Rome, but her interests soon shifted to biology and medicine. In 1892 she graduated from medical preparatory courses. Women were not allowed to study medicine. Nevertheless, she received a reception from the head of the Board of Education, the famous surgeon Dr. Bacchelli. And despite the fact that Bacchelli did not support her aspirations, Maria is still determined to become a doctor. She becomes a medical student. She also received scholarships, gave private lessons, and essentially paid for her education. From 1885 she worked as an assistant in a hospital, and in 1896 she defended her Ph.D. in psychiatry and became the first woman in Italy to be a doctor of medicine. She then obtained an assistant position at the San Giovanni Clinic and went into private medical practice. In the same year, as a member of the Italian delegation, she attends the International Women’s Congress in Berlin and proposes equal pay for women and men for the same work. The proposal was received with enthusiasm. Mary becomes the central figure of the congress. On her return from the congress, Montessori turns to the literature on the rehabilitation of children with developmental disabilities. The work of the French National Institute for the Deaf and Dumb J.B.G. impresses her greatly. Itara (1774-1 838) and the psychiatrist and teacher E. Seguin (1812-1808). She concludes that such children can be helped not only by medical means, but mainly by pedagogical influence.
During the period 1897-1898. Montessori attended lectures on pedagogy and studied all the major works on the theory of education and upbringing. She continues to work in a psychiatric clinic in Rome with her life partner Dr. Giuseppe Montessano, father of her son, whom she never married, however. In 1898, her son Mario Montessori was born, who later played a significant role in spreading his mother’s ideas throughout the world. As for the events of Maria Montessori’s life between 1896 and 1900, there are some discrepancies in different sources. So, one of them indicates that after being introduced to the works of Itar and Seguin, she worked with mentally retarded children. She presented the students with examinations along with the children of the municipal council elementary school in Rome, and they passed the examinations better than normal children. After reporting these results, the government established the Orthophrenic Teacher Training Institute for the Education of Mentally Retarded Children. In 1898 she was head of this institute and headed it until 1900. In 1903-1908. Montessori gave lectures on the history of anthropology and its application in pedagogy at the Pedagogical Institute of the University of Rome. These lectures served as the basis for her book Pedagogical Anthropology (1910). She used the results of her experimental research as evidence against the methods of raising and teaching children that existed at the time. 1907 was the birth year of the first (“Children’s House”) for healthy children in Rome, in a district for the poor. From that time until the end of her life, i.e. for 45 years, Montessori dealt with the problems of upbringing and teaching healthy children. Further development of a set of teaching aids, now called Montessori, continued in the orphanage, and gradually in the course of experimental work his method evolved.
In 1909 Maria Montessori conducts the first international training course, which was attended by about 100 teachers, and publishes her first important book “The Method of Scientific Pedagogy”, aimed at the education of young children in an orphanage. The book quickly gained worldwide fame and was translated into many languages, including Russian. From 1910 she continued to develop her own method for the education and upbringing of children between the ages of 6 and 9. From 1910 to 1952 Maria Montessori regularly held international training courses for teachers in different countries – in England and Germany. In 1910 the first Montessori societies were founded in Rome, Naples and Milan, and in the following decades similar societies appeared in the United States (1913), Holland (1917), Argentina (1927), Switzerland (1932), England (1933, the English branch of AMI), India (1940) and Pakistan (1949). Guests from all over the world came to the orphanage in Rome. So in 1910 T. Sukhotina-Tolstoy visited it, the daughter of Leo Tolstoy, who saw his father’s ideas embodied in the Mont-Thessy school.
In 1914 the Russian Ministry of Education entrusted a group of pre-schoolers to the orphanage, including E. Tikheeva and Yu. E. Tikheeva later subjected Montessori’s method to harsh criticism. Y. Fausek became its staunch supporter, a pioneer of the Montessori movement in Russia. She devoted almost 30 years of her life to spreading this method, practical work with children, development of new materials, particularly materials for the study of the native language and grammar. In 1911-1915 Montessori ideas spread to the USA and caused ardent interest. In 1912 H. Bell, the inventor of the telephone, establishes a Montessori class in his home. In the same year, a book was published in the United States (“The Montessori Method”). The circulation of 5,000 copies sold out in four days. A year later, Maria Montessori traveled to the United States, with a 600-meter film of her Roman school in her luggage. She meets John Dewey, Thomas Edison, Helen Keller. A year later the book was published in New York (“Dr. Montessori’s Own Guide”). In 1916, another famous Montessori book was published (“Self-Study in the Elementary School”). In 1917 she traveled to Holland for the first time. A meeting with the biologist Hugo de Vries was a notable event in the history of her method: Montessori adopted the term “sensitive periods” from de Vries. In 1920 she speaks at the University of Amsterdam. In the 1920s, she expanded her method of teaching children in the middle grades. In 1922, after Mussolini came to power, the famous Montessori House for Children was established. In 1924 Mussolini met Montessori, and in 1926 he became honorary chairman of the 12th international training course she conducted in Milan and president, a public organization supporting Montessori’s ideas. As the Fascist regime intensified, however, it increasingly interfered with Montessori schools, trying to subject them to its influence. First, music teachers are forced to play Fascist tunes, then in 1934 Mussolini insists on the introduction of Fascist salutes and uniforms in schools. Maria Montessori refuses to become a “children’s ambassador” for the Italian regime; she separates herself from the regime and her schools are closed. In 1933, her books were burned in Berlin. During these years, Maria Montessori’s relationship with scholars, educators and social activists in Switzerland grows stronger. In March 1923, she visited the Montessori school in Vienna, where her book The Child in the Family was published. Anna Freud later belonged to the Vienna Montessori Circle. In 1932, Maria Montessori travels to Switzerland via the cities of Geneva, Lausanne, Bern and Zurich. In Geneva comes (“Peace and Education”). The foundation of the Swiss Montessori Society, of which J. Piaget became president, also dates back to 1932. However, in 1938, after the Nazi troops entered Vienna, Montessori schools were closed. In 1929, the Montessori Association International (AMI) was founded. Maria Montessori becomes president, her son becomes secretary. Until 1935, AMI’s main office was in Berlin. AMI is supported by Sigmund Freud, Rabindranath Tagore, Jean Piaget. The 1st Montessori International Congress is held in Denmark in conjunction with the organization’s 5th World Conference. Together with Ellen Parkerst, she gives the keynote address on “The New Psychology and the Curriculum. The report presents, among others, the methods of Decroli, Montessori, Daltonplan. Rabindranath Tagore reports on his Montessori schools. Elisa Brown-Barnett also reports on Montessori experiments in India. Since 1936 AMI has had its headquarters in Amsterdam.
In 1939, Maria Montessori travels to India for the purpose of conducting an International Training Course there, which was held at the country residence of the Theosophical Society in Adyar. There she learns of the outbreak of war. The years of World War II, Maria Montessori and her son Mario spent in exile in India, where together they taught more than 1,000 Indian teachers. In 1946, Montessori returned to Holland. She devotes the last years of her life to active social and scientific pedagogical work and the struggle for peace. In the same 1946 she became an honorary member of the Scottish Institute of Education in Edinburgh. In 1947, in the UNESCO Report on Education and Peace. In 1949 she was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. The Rector of the Sorbonne awards her the Legion of Honor on behalf of the French Republic. Her book is published in Madras (“Absorbing Thinking”). In 1950 she became an honorary professor at the University of Perugia, an honorary doctor of the University of Amsterdam, and honorary citizens of Ancona and Milan. From 1946 to 1952, Maria Montessori conducted a number of international training courses in India, Pakistan and Austria. An international congress on “Education as an aid to the natural development of the child’s psyche from birth to university” held in London in 1951 attracted 150 delegates from 17 countries. Her plans to travel to Ghana did not materialize. In Holland she died on May 6, 1952.
Chapter 1: Maria Montessori’s Pedagogical System
1.1 The birth of Maria Montessori’s pedagogical system
All parents know that it takes a lot of effort to raise and educate a child. Moreover, these efforts do not always bring the expected results. In the end, more often than not, children’s development and learning takes place in a non-professional way. Loving parents love their child too much, or vice versa – they try to shield the child from the world, not suspecting that the child may be interested in something. This is often due to lack of time for parents, their ignorance of the basics of children’s education. In kindergartens, this approach is also far from being an individual approach, because groups consist of 15-20 people with an average of only 2 teachers.
The most effective approach to educating a child is the individual approach.
Today there is a new opportunity for individual education of children in Montessori centers. There are schools and kindergartens in Montessori centers. The main principle of the teachers of these institutions is a very personal approach to the education and development of each child in the group. In 1896, M. Montessori graduated from the University and became the first woman in Italy – Doctor of Medicine. She could choose different ways, but she stops at the most ungrateful: she creates a special school and then a medical-pedagogical institute for mentally retarded children from poor families and orphans, where she develops and uses various didactic materials, which went down in history as the “golden material” Montessori. Thanks to it, underprivileged children could learn as successfully as ordinary schoolchildren.
In 1900, in an elementary school competition class in Rome, Montessori students outperformed children from ordinary schools in writing, counting and reading. The results were repeatedly checked and double-checked, but they could not be refuted. The British envoy described the event as a “true miracle” in a report to the British Foreign Office. This event was even more confusing for M. Montessori. She leaves her work with abnormal children and devotes herself to ordinary children who were in schools much worse than her disabled pupils. Montessori wanted to build her technique by observing the child in a natural setting and understanding him as he was, rather than with what a formative personality should look like in the eyes of adults. To this end, M. Montessori visits many elementary schools, scrutinizes teaching methods, and becomes increasingly bitter and frustrated. How can you observe a child if he, like an automaton, does only what the teacher prescribes! Children have no opportunity to express themselves, and therefore it is absolutely impossible to know the true nature of their successful learning. So, gradually, M. Montessori formed her first pedagogical credo: humane pedagogy is possible only when the child is given freedom of action and restrained only in special cases. From this she draws a logical conclusion: if a person cannot learn a student, bound hand and foot in school discipline, then how can he be educated! Instead of promoting the physical development of the child, the school holds him back and gives him almost no free initiative. According to M. Montessori, “deeply, like a tributary,” the methods she used so effectively to teach abnormal students can be used productively for the development of normal children.
In 1907, Eduard Talamo, an Italian millionaire and talented engineer, director of the Society of Cheap Flats, decided to conduct a social experiment. He proposed to M. Montessori to create in 58 buildings, transformed by this society, a new type of preschool – a day care center, a school for children, called “Casa dei Bambini” (House of the Child). On this unique “experimental site” the humanist educator developed a special environment surrounding the child, stimulating his natural development. The children in the “Children’s House” stayed from 9 am to 4 pm and combined free play with prayer and various cognitive activities – with singing. Everything here was adapted to accustom the child to independence and to promote his universal improvement.
1.2 The child in Maria Montessori’s pedagogical system
Maria Montessori paid great attention to the child’s development and needs. She always asserted that “the child is endowed with great possibilities. And if we truly seek to transform society, the goal of education must be the development of human capabilities. Recent research has shown conclusively that children have a special psyche. This discovery points to a new way of learning, a new form of learning that is addressed to human nature itself, which has not yet been accounted for. The study of the first two years of life has opened up new horizons for us. The child himself has given us this opportunity, has opened his own psychology, quite different from that of the adult, before us. It is not the teacher who applies the methods of psychology to the child, but the children themselves reveal their psychology to scientists. These arguments may seem rather vague, but everything immediately falls into place once we move on to examples. Even superficial observation proves that a child’s mind has the capacity to absorb knowledge and the ability to learn itself. “
There is a certain mental power that helps a child’s development. At the age of two, infants can distinguish between people and objects that surround them. The extent of their creativity is very great – because all of our knowledge is acquired by the child that each of us was in the first years of life. Children not only learn what surrounds them, but also understand and adapt to that environment. No less important is the fact that during that period, when no one can become a teacher for him, the child himself forms the basis of his intellect, creates a kind of prototype of his future religious feeling and the features of his national and social consciousness. At the age of three, children are already laying the foundations of their own human personality and begin to need special assistance in education. Comparing the abilities of children and adults, psychologists say that it would take us sixty years of hard work to achieve what a child reaches in just three years. By the age of three a child is formed as a human being, despite the fact that his ability to absorb the world around him is far from exhausted by this time. M. Montessori was convinced that almost any child is a normal person capable of active activity. This activity, aimed at mastering the world around, while entering the culture created by previous generations, at the same time led to the realization of the potential embodied in the forming personality, to full physical and spiritual development. The childhood period is creative. It cannot be said that when a child is born, the child has at least some degree of rationality, memory, will, but is ready to grow and develop further. Therefore, it is very important that the child has the opportunity to satisfy his own interests, to manifest his inner activity in his nature.
There are phases of child development. Montessori gives these phases of development in his works.
Phases of Child Development.
Child’s age Dominant development
From 0 to 3 years old “Absorbing consciousness”
From 3 to 6 years old “Self-builder
6 to 9 years old “World Explorer
9 to 12 years old “Scientist
12 to 18 years “Social worker” 1.
1. The first of these periods extended from birth to six years of age. Despite the diversity of its manifestations, the type of mental activity remains the same throughout this period. In the space from zero to six years, two sub-phases are clearly expressed. The first – from birth to three years – is characterized by a type of mentality that adults cannot approach. Therefore, it cannot be influenced directly. Indeed, there are no educational institutions for children of this age. At the second stage – from three to six years – the type remains the same, but the child can already be exposed to certain influences. This period is usually characterized by a deep transformation of the personality. To see this, it is enough to look at the difference between a newborn and a six-year-old child. We will not ask here how this transformation occurs. The fact is that it is generally agreed that at the age of six a person becomes so intelligent that he can be sent to school.
2. The next period, from six to two to nineteen years of age, is characterized by growth without qualitative changes. In terms of psychology, this period is calm and serene, a period of health, strength and stability.
3. the third period – from twelve to eighteen – with its tumultuous transformations reminds us of the very first. It can also be divided into two subphases: twelve to fifteen and fifteen to eighteen. It is also characterized by physical changes in the body that reach maturity. After eighteen years, a person can be considered fully developed.
The child from 0 to 3 years old (M. Montessori characterized it as a spiritual embryo) [4], figuratively speaking, is an oversensitive resonator of the parents’ emotions – mainly the mother.
At the age of 3-6 the child, according to M. Montessori’s exact picture, is its creator.
The child at the age of 6-9 years under conditions of free realization of cognitive impulses is a real explorer.
From 9 to 12 years old, which M. Montessori called the age of scientists. It is at this time that the child’s knowledge is primarily interested in ready knowledge, facts, etc. And he wants to attract them not so much from textbooks, where, in addition to facts, there are a lot of unnecessary words and information (and especially this may just not keep up with the development of modern science!), as from many reference books and encyclopedias.
Finally, the third stage of development, which spans the ages of 12 to 18, is characterized by the person’s global orientation toward society and the search for his or her place in it. Here the first three-year period (12-15 years old – according to Montessori, the age of organizers) is a kind of preparation for the next stage. According to the logic of the “cosmic plan”, a person naturally finds another opportunity to strengthen his or her cognitive abilities, involving the organization of people for this purpose.
Influence of didactic materials on child development.
There are several types of didactic material, each of which forms certain skills in a child.
EXERCISES IN PRACTICAL LIFE.
The earlier we start to educate children to achieve our goals, the sooner we will create strong and, therefore, independent and free people,” said M. Montessori. The teacher contributes to this by preparing the environment accordingly. The child must be given the opportunity to practice self-care, self-care. He learns to handle the bed, fork, knife, dropper, tongs, scissors, brush, napkin, towel, sponge. He pours water, pours grain, button and unbutton his clothes, combing, brushing his teeth, washing his hands, taking care of his clothes, shoes, washing, ironing.
Children learn to take care of their environment. They dust, sweep the floor, clean the carpet, wash dishes, wash windows, polish furniture and metal objects, clean the mirror, arrange and care for flowers, work in the garden, and feed animals. Of course, all these skills come to the child not with instructions and explanations, but as a result of constant exercises, independent activity in a specially organized, didactic environment. For each exercise there is a working material which is presented to the child individually, in a strictly defined way and in an appropriate sequence. The material contains an opportunity for self-monitoring of errors and their control. All exercise materials in practical life contribute to the development of the child’s fine motor skills.
As a result of living in an appropriately developing environment, the child acquires independence, independence from an adult. He puts on and undresses, prints and unfastens fasteners, twists and cleans shoes, brushes hair, washes hands, washes, dishes and punches alone and with minimal help. He carefully pours water from one vessel into another or from one vessel into several, pours grain from one vessel into another with a spoon, successfully works with tweezers, clothespins, scissors, strings of beads of different sizes, embroidery on cardboard certain holes, varieties of natural material (cones, nuts, beans, etc.)
EXERCISES FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF MOTOR ACTIVITY.
Attaching great importance to the period of development of movements in children aged 3-6 years, it is necessary to organize a special motor space where a child can train and learn to control his/her body. The most important type of movement for a child during this period is climbing. Hanging, jumping, spinning, rolling, skating, balance are equally important. In her works M. Montessori gave examples of physical shells such as a fence, a springboard, a swing, a rope, a round ladder, steps with a platform, stepping steps. The most important type of movement for a child during this period is climbing. Hanging, jumping, spinning, rolling, skating, balance are equally important. In her works, M. Montessori gave examples of such physical equipment as a fence, a springboard, a swing, a rope, a circular ladder, steps with a platform, stepping steps. If you provide your child with the proper conditions for movement development, he or she will learn to swing on a swing, hang and practice rings, pull-ups, and more between the ages of 3 and 6.
Geographic materials: a globe, various maps with inserts. All these didactic materials given by me, a small part of which was used by Montessori, offered for the development of the child. They are very effective because they meet all the developmental needs of the child. They are very simple and focused on the characteristics of the child’s development.
1.3 The Role of the Educator in the Montessori System
The significance of the method developed by Montessori was to stimulate the child to self-education, self-education and self-development. The teacher’s task, according to the Montessori method, is to help the child organize his or her activities, to choose and go his or her own unique way, to realize his or her nature. At the same time, the Montessori school teacher acts on the child not directly, but through didactic materials, various games and devices with which the child acts according to the program prepared by the teacher. Unlike the teacher in a traditional school, the teacher in the Montessori school is not the center of the classroom. When children are in the classroom, the teacher is barely visible, he or she does not sit at the table and spends time in individual activities.
The leader in a Montessori school must be an astute observer and have a clear understanding of each child’s individual developmental level. He decides what materials are best for the moment. Individual observations allow the teacher to help the child make optimum use of the materials; he or she then leaves the child with the material and returns to the observation. The teacher intervenes in the child’s activities only when necessary. He should be flexible and be able to find adequate ways to help the child. The child turns to the teacher as a benevolent helper who is always present when necessary, but mostly as a person who will help him or her do something on his or her own. As a result, children develop attention, hearing, memory and other important qualities along with gaining knowledge in surprisingly deep and solid ways.
It is typical for a teacher in a Montessori school to step back, arouse interest, help, and never beat his or her hands. The teacher responds first and foremost to the student’s basic request, “help me do this on my own.
If teachers seek to liberate children and want to see the natural manifestations of their inclinations, this does not mean that they should sit in a corner of the classroom and just watch what happens. It is clear that no child’s liberation is going to happen. Any experiment requires preparation. Before allowing children to learn in the classroom, the Montessori teacher prepares a special environment in which to observe the children and special objects for their free activity. It should be noted that the teacher, according to Montessori, attaches great importance to the organization of a specially prepared environment, because true human freedom is connected with the development of cultural space, which is greatly expanded if the teacher thinks about it in advance. At the same time, if the child is surrounded with books, encyclopedias, laboratory instruments, it promotes the spontaneous responsibility of mastering all this wealth. Then he will concentrate on working with various motivating objects without interference from elders and special pedagogical methods.
As a physician, Maria Montessori understood that for the spiritual development of a child it was important to teach him how to feel. She showed her talent as a teacher primarily in teaching children motor activity and perception as well as in developing the skills of writing, reading and counting. The result of psychological and pedagogical work since the beginning of the twentieth century is the materials for the development of the senses, presented here at the same time as other developmental materials.
Note that Montessori materials are an integral part of the so-called pedagogical “preparatory environment”, which encourages the child to manifest the possibilities of his development through self-activity appropriate to his individuality. The Montessori materials in terms of clarity, structure and logical sequence correspond to the periods of the child’s most receptive development. These periods, which are favorable for learning certain activities, identifying talents, developing self-control, and shaping attitudes toward the world, can be optimally utilized with learning materials. The materials and their functions should be considered in conjunction with the vision of the child adopted by Maria Montessori, namely her anthropology. She saw in the developing child powerful inner creative forces that do the work of developing and building his or her individuality. In this case, the materials greatly assist the child in understanding the world around him. The main focus of the teacher is on the child, while taking into account his or her individual and social-emotional needs. Note that the materials play an auxiliary didactic role.
Montessori materials serve primarily to develop the child’s spiritual development through the development of his or her motor skills and perception. The child acts independently and autonomously, his inner powers are released, so that step by step he can become independent of adults. Social and individual development form a unity of opposites. Only this allows the autonomous and independent individual to realize complex behavior in society. For the child, Montessori materials are the key to the world, through which he organizes and learns to realize his chaotic and unprocessed impressions of the world. With their help, the child is immersed in culture and modern civilization. Through personal experience, he tries and learns to understand and navigate nature. In the “preparatory environment” created according to Montessori, the child can carry out all physical and spiritual functions, form his or her spiritual integrity, and develop fully. By improving the preparatory environment, he learns to incorporate his previous experiences into the system. Proper training does not seek to force the child to perceive isolated knowledge one by one, but tries to unify and link the acquired experience into a coherent whole. The true essence of the mind is organization and juxtaposition. A variety of motor and sensory experiences are transformed into “knowledge made flesh. Individual development according to this direction is based on the statement, “There is nothing in the mind that was not previously in the senses.
Materials satisfy the desire for movement in children. The young child recognizes his body, builds the scheme of his body, improves the coordination of the eyes, hands and feet, which contributes to the emergence of increasingly precise and harmonious movements. The world is understood in its true sense. Movements combined with feelings and impressions create the basis for spiritual development. The child, through independent handling of materials, acquires a variety of skills. At the same time he learns to set a goal and find appropriate ways to achieve it. Montessori materials respond to the child’s demands in a spontaneous and insatiable desire to move. Aimed at didactic goals, movement skills influence verbal, general, social and emotional development. Thanks to Montessori materials, the child becomes interested in various things, has a strong intrinsic motivation that helps him make sense of the world, seeks to make sense of himself, and needs only a little help from the teacher, who controls his development and indirectly guides him as needed.
The Montessori materials contribute to a “polarization of attention” aimed at revealing the deep, within the continuing connection of objects. This occurs through a process of repetitive exercises. In this way a deep understanding of the essence of voluntary activity is achieved. To promote the child’s independence from adults, Montessori materials give him or her the ability to control mistakes. The child must be able to find his mistakes and correct them. If an error occurs, he corrects it and the broken order is restored. He learns accuracy and efficiency. Montessori materials are a cross between textbooks and educational games made from natural materials. For almost a hundred years, the design of Montessori materials has not changed since its inception. Valuable types of wood are used to make the wooden materials, all materials are made of very high quality, some of them are quite difficult to make and, therefore, are expensive. Here is a small list of some of the materials and activities that are used in Montessori groups.
Sensory Development
Frames with clasps – teaching the skills needed in dressing. Children in the group are offered frames with buttons, buttons, buckles, zippers, lace, pins, hooks and bows.
Brown ladder – presents the differences between the two dimensions and introduces the concepts: thin, thinner, thinnest; thickest, thickest, thickest.
Pink tower – represents the differences in size in three dimensions and helps the child distinguish between the concepts of big, bigger and largest; small, smaller, smallest.
Red strips – represent differences in size in one dimension (length) and introduce the concepts: short, shorter and shortest; long, longer, longest and longest.
To develop the hand muscles necessary to write and develop the ability to distinguish colors, to develop auditory abilities use the so-called cylinder blocks. We will not dwell on a detailed description of these blocks.
Speech Development
Letters cut out of sand paper allow a child to recognize the outline of each letter by touch and associate the sound of the letter with its outline. The metal tabs are ten math tabs of different geometric shapes. The tabs have a small handle for holding and moving. Tracing the outline of the tabs helps prepare the hand and eye for writing.
Mathematical Development
Red and blue rods – A set of 10 rods are the same size as the red rods, but each rod is divided into red and blue pieces. These exercises teach the necessary fundamentals of counting and can be used for simple addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.
Spindle Box – Two boxes with sections from 0 to 9 are used to teach counting and the concept of quantity. The child places a specific number of spindles in the appropriate section.
Gold Beads – these materials provide an introduction to the concept of counting, quantity, and basic math functions.
Geometric Bodies – they teach visual and tactile discrimination of geometric shapes. The set consists of a cube, sphere, cylinder, quadrilateral pyramid, rectangular prism, ellipsoid, cone and triangular prism.
Conclusion
In conclusion, I would like to point out that while doing this work, I have studied Montessori’s views on the peculiarities of child development, taking into account the child’s needs. In addition, I have considered: the principles of Montessori pedagogy, the special role of the teacher in the pedagogical process. Based on the above, we can conclude that Maria Montessori believes that the main task of the teacher is to help child’s self-development through non-interference. The teacher is an unobtrusive observer in relation to the child. I would also like to point out that in my paper I have considered the role of the pedagogical environment in the process of raising a child and have shown the specifics of Montessori didactic materials. The pedagogical environment of Montessori gives the child an opportunity to choose independently what he/she is looking for and promotes free and effective development of all important skills and abilities in a child. Didactic materials are based on an understanding of the child’s Montessori development and needs and, thus, are very effective in developing the child. In the last chapter, I analyzed the use of Montessori pedagogy in our country and came to the conclusion that attitudes toward Montessori pedagogy in Russia are ambiguous. It is impossible not to note Montessori’s humanistic approach to the child. Having placed the child at the center of her pedagogical system, she subordinates all of her pedagogical principles to the needs of the child. The teacher acts as an assistant to the child and not as a regulator of his development. Montessori pedagogy is thus focused on the individual child and is recognized as uniquely humanistic and very productive by many educators around the world.
