How Children Learn and Montessori By Beverley Blount

As we come to the beginning of the second century of the Montessori system of education, Montessorians are in agreement that following the principles and guidelines set out by Maria Montessori a century ago empowers them to present to children an environment that truly “works.” Generations of children have lived the Montessori experience and placed their children and grandchildren in Montessori schools. But who among us really has contemplated the answer to why Montessori works? We read one educational study after another that supports the use of hands-on, progressive, self-correcting graphic materials; the freedom of choice in the prepared environment; the trusting of the children's inner will to always be learning; the importance of bringing the outside into the classroom and taking the children outside; and the understanding that children thrive under the proper challenges. Much has been written during this past century about Montessori without clarifying why her observations of children and her documenting of and experimenting with their natural tendencies produced such a successful method of education. To truly understand the reasons that the Montessori system honors the child's inner learning processes, one must go back in time: not to the studies of the periods of mankind's written history, but even farther back, to the beginnings of advanced primates and to the thousands of years of prehistoric humanity. One must look at how children learned then, before modern times and so-called “modern education.” Looking back at thousands of years of human history, one must realize that during much of this time, children did not learn by being sent to school; large groups of children engaged in rote learning is a development of the last few hundred years. “It has been widely shown, by recent research, that tiny children are gifted with a psychic nature peculiar to them.” (Montessori, 1995) I feel that parts of these psychic patterns continue, possibly throughout life and can only be nourished by giving the child the most natural environment possible as indicated by Doctor Montessori.

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