Individual Ownership of Learning
We are pulling from our archives today to see what Individual Ownership of Learning really means.
When parents are choosing Montessori education for their child, they are trusting their child to take his learning into this own hands. The environment is designed to allow students to discover and learn on their own. The materials are self-correcting and are used until the child says, “I did it.”
This type of learning is very different from traditional learning. In a traditional learning environment, information is housed with the teacher. The teacher instructs the child in what is important to learn and through rote effort, the child memorizes information. To confirm that the student learned the information necessary, the student takes a written test. Weeks later, though, students have often forgotten or have a diminished memory of what they were taught.
In the Montessori environment children discover themselves so information and learning is housed within them. They may then draw connections between the newly learned information and other topics and events in their lives.
On the site mariamontessori.com, and article highlights one family’s experience with individual ownership of learning. In seeing their son, Wyatt’s, newly developed writing skills, his parents questions, “Who taught Wyatt how to write?” Wyatt’s response, “I did.”
Third Plane of Development
Today we pull from our archives to continue in our series on the Montessori Planes of Development with a look at the third plane, spanning from age twelve to age fifteen – the middle school years.
As Gretchen Hall, Director of Training at the Montessori Training Center of New England, notes in her 2011 article How Science Fits Into the Whole Montessori Curriculum (The NAMTA Journal, Vol. 36, No. 1, Winter 2011), the third plane child (ages 12-15 years) is focused on society, as the adolescent is searching to find a place in the world. Hall explains that adolescents need to experience the world through work, through purposeful movements, and by using their hands.
Maria Montessori believed the concentration at this plane of development should be centered on economic pursuits so children are equipped to become productive members of society. Hall notes that this economic activity allows adolescents to gradually come to understand the role of work in the greater society. Work becomes an agent for the adolescent’s self-esteem; the objective is to contribute to the world in some meaningful way. By contributing to the community, they are fulfilling a need for themselves and for others.
Hall reports that Montessori saw the third plane as a time of rebirth and referred to adolescents as “social newborns,” and asserts that the questions of the adolescent go beyond the “what” of the very young child and the “why” of the elementary child: The adolescent asks, how I can apply what I know? How does this work relate to my life, my world? How can I save the world with my knowledge of the natural laws and the formulas I studied?
Providing experiences such as internships allows opportunities to answer these reflective questions. Education focus during the third plane includes three categories: the opening up of ways of expression, fulfillment of fundamental needs, and the study of the earth and of living things.
Second Plane of Development
Today we pull from our archives to continue our series on Montessori Planes of Development with a look at the second plane, spanning from age six to twelve – the elementary years.
As a child moves into the second plane of development (ages 6-12 years) the focus is on “why” and “how”. The child seeks intellectual independence. Gretchen Hall, Director of Training at the Montessori Training Center of New England, notes in her 2011 article How Science Fits Into the Whole Montessori Curriculum (The NAMTA Journal, Vol. 36, No. 1, Winter 2011), that the attitude of the child from birth to age six – “let me do it myself” – is replaced in the second plane of development with “let me find out for myself.”
In her book, To Educate the Human Potential, Maria Montessori refers to the child’s mind as a fertile field, ready to receive what will germinate into culture. Reason and imagination are the keys to unlock learning during this phase. Logic and reasoning take hold, and a child is able to perceive complex concepts.
In addition, during this second plane of development, children have a fascination with the extraordinary. Due to this fascination, the subject of the universe appeals to the elementary child since it is vast, mysterious, and irresistible. For this reason, “cosmic education” along with the “great stories” becomes the main staple at the elementary level.
As Hall describes, the goal is to fan the flame of imagination and to inspire the child into new paths of exploration. Cosmic education can best be defined as stressing the interrelatedness of everything. Examples of cosmic tasks include: coral removing calcium from the ocean, plants absorbing poisonous carbon dioxide and using it to produce oxygen, and bees pollenating plats.
As Hall points out, Montessori believed that humans, as a part of the universe, also must have cosmic tasks. The elementary child discovers and understands these cosmic tasks through research.