Overview: Introduction to the Montessori Method

The Montessori National Curriculum brings together in one document the educational goals and curriculum content applied in Montessori schools throughout Australia to support the development of infants, children and young people from birth to adulthood.

This is an international curriculum shared by Montessori schools throughout the world. The curriculum is introduced with an overview of the pedagogical principles that guide practice in Montessori schools, principles that emerged from the pioneering research and insights of Dr Maria Montessori.

In 1907 Dr Maria Montessori established a classroom in Rome for children left unattended while their parents worked as day labourers. Within a very short time this classroom became famous around the world because these children, with apparently so few prospects, very quickly became socially and intellectually independent, not through adult coercion, but through their own activity, interest and effort. The learning environment designed by Dr Montessori to enable these children to achieve their potential in such a joyful way was the culmination of years of study and innovation in the fields of medicine, psychology and anthropology. Building on the success of that first classroom, over the last hundred years Montessori educators all over the world have continued to observe and study children and young people, and to design learning materials and environments carefully tailored to their developing interests and needs. The breadth and depth of accumulated knowledge shared by Montessori educators across time and space is perhaps unique in the field of education. Significantly, in recent years, research in the fields of psychology and neuroscience has confirmed many of Dr Montessori’s insights (Elliot 2006: 30; Lillard & Else-Quest 2006; OECD CERI 2007).

In the Montessori view, the drive to become independent propels human development. Montessori education aims to provide children and young people, from birth to maturity, with learning environments designed to support the development of social, intellectual and ethical independence. For this reason, Montessori education is often described as ‘education for life’. The foundation principle of the Montessori approach is that children learn best when they learn through their own freely chosen activity. Evidence gathered in Montessori schools throughout the world over the last century confirms that children who have the opportunity to learn in this way become self-confident, self-reliant and self-disciplined, with a life-long love of learning and the desire and capacity to contribute to the wellbeing of their social group. They also develop the ability to move with coordination and precision, and the ability to concentrate and to complete tasks independently with both perseverance and creativity.

Australian educators attended the first Montessori training course held in Rome in 1913 and returned to Australia to establish Montessori schools in several states. Since that time Montessori schools have continued to flourish in Australia and today are operating throughout the country (O’Donnell 1996; Peterson 1983). The continuation of Montessori education in Australia over the last hundred years and into the future provides Australian children and their families, and the wider community of Australian educators, with the opportunity to benefit from an internationally-recognised educational tradition that continues to contribute to the wellbeing of infants, children and young people everywhere.

While the Montessori curriculum is international, the curriculum presented in this document has been finetuned where necessary to adapt it to the Australian context and Australian Montessori schools. This curriculum provides infants and young children with everyday social skills and accomplishments, trains sensory perception and movement systematically, and provides a strong foundation in literacy and numeracy. It also engages older children and secondary school students in all areas of educational knowledge, including language, mathematics, science, history, geography, the study of the creative arts - literature, visual arts, music, drama, dance - and physical education.

In Montessori schools learning in the sciences is oriented to understanding the earth and its place in the universe, as well as respect for the natural environment and the web of life, which in today’s terms would be described as education for sustainability. The Montessori approach to the humanities is one that celebrates the diversity of human experience across historical time and geographical space, an approach that emerged from Dr Montessori’s proposals for educating children for peace.

The Montessori curriculum is shaped by three key concepts central to Montessori education. These include the tendencies shared by all humans, the planes of development and the prepared environment.