This week we celebrate the 117th anniversary of Montessori Education during Montessori Education Week. Maria Montessori (1870–1952) was by any measure an extraordinary individual.
Dr. Montessori believed that each child is unique, learning at their own pace. This innovative thinking shaped a new type of learning environment designed to kindle the curiosity of each learner.
Fast forward to today. Dr. Montessori would be excited to learn that today’s brain research corroborates what she intuited from her own observational research more than 100 years ago, proving many of her findings to be true in the realms of education and child development:
“…in the first few years of childhood there are a number of critical or sensitive periods, or ‘windows’, when the brain demands certain types of input …Rich experiences, in other words, really do produce rich brains.” **
Montessori advocated for the importance of taking full advantage of the “absorbent mind” during the period in a child’s development when the mind is most receptive. These are what she called the “sensitive periods”. This time from birth to 6 years old represents a period of rapid growth in a human’s intelligence—a time when the child is particularly sensitive to stimuli that promote the development of a certain skill. Knowing what we now know about the brain, it is clear that the Montessori method of teaching and learning sets students up for success in every stage of their development and throughout their life.
**excerpt taken from Fertile Minds by J. Madeleine Nash