Indiana Montessori Academy
What is Montessori

Indiana Montessori Academy • March 4, 2024

"The greatest sign of success for a teacher is to be able to say, "The children are working as if I do not exist."


DR. MARIA MONTESSORI

People often wonder, "What is Montessori education?".  It's not something easily described in one sentence.  Montessori is a way of education that encompasses the whole child and her/his very being.  Montessori environments foster life skills, emotional development, peer communication and logical thinking skills as well as academics.  Montessori classrooms instill and promote peacefulness and resolution.  There is a calm, concentrated state that is easily observed in Montessori children and the classroom as a whole. 


The environments are prepared for the children to be successful by their own doing, to learn from repetition,to absorb the world around them and to acquire a love of life and learning. Maria Montessori - well advanced for her time- insisted the child was much more likely to reach her full potential if the environment was designed specifically for her.  Children in Montessori classroom combine mixed ages of children who are thinking and learning within the same plane of development.  We all know a three year old thinks differently from an eight year old who also thinks differently from a twelve year old.  Why teach them all the same way if they all don't think and learn the same way? 


Coinciding with this purpose is the idea that no individual child is the same or learns on the same path. So why teach them as if they do?  Montessori classrooms allow for the child to move through the materials at her own pace.  She is, of course, guided in the right direction if needed but she is able to go where her desires and pace take her.  Her interests are fostered and piqued. 


The combination of these elements make for a beautiful working environment.  Montessori education is unlike any other.  Interested?  Come take a look for yourself!

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