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Dr. Montessori believed that no human being is educated
by another person. The individual must do it themselves or they will
never be done. A truly educated individual continues learning long after
the hours and years she/he spends in the classroom because she/he is
motivated from with in by a natural curiosity and love for knowledge.
Thus, aim of the Montessori program is to “help the child help
themselves”. It is the child’s potential for auto education
and inner discipline that is responsible for the successful results of
this indirect and individual process of education.
It is a multi-sensory approach, offering strong sensory stimulants and
therefore, it is not confined to verbal teaching. The child is always
encouraged to discover their environment by touching. The materials the child
uses are concrete at the beginning and thus help the child to organize
and understand the multitude of impressions he or she had received and
continues to receive. The main focus of the philosophy is the education
of the child’s “whole personality”. Through his or her
involvement in real life activities, the child has the opportunity to
develop emotionally, physically, socially, intellectually, and
culturally.
A child usually enters a Montessori classroom class room between the
ages of two-and-half and three years of age, depending on when he or she
can be happy in a class room situation. The young child begins with the
simplest exercises based on activities young children enjoy. The
exercises a child uses at three will help develop the concentration and
coordination necessary for more advanced exercises the child will
experience at the age of five and six. The entire program is purposefully
structured to individual’s development needs, covering a period of
three years. Therefore, optimum results cannot be expected either for the
child who misses the early years of the cycle of learning or of the child
who is withdrawn before she/he finishes the basic materials.
Dr. Montessori referred to the classroom as the prepared environment,
as a place that is carefully set by the teachers to offer beauty, order,
and reality to children. It is our mission at Beaverbrook Montessori to
provide best possible environment for children’s life long learning
and growth.
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