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I have a confession to make. When I first became a Montessori teacher, I didn’t know the first thing about observing children. I thought observations were only about marking down on record-keeping sheets which presentations were given, when the child had practiced the activity, and when they mastered it... and then I read a quote from Dr. Montessori that started me questioning my observational practices. Often inexperienced teachers place great importance on teaching and believe they have done everything necessary when they have demonstrated the use of the materials in a meaningful way. In reality, they are far from the truth because the job of the teacher is rather more important than that. To her falls the task of guiding the development of the child’s spirit, and therefore her observations of the child are not to be limited solely to understanding him. All her observations must emerge at the end — and this is their only justification — in her ability to help the child. —Maria Montes...

Since the teacher’s task was to free each child to learn, and since each child, responding to the inner laws of his own organism, had different needs and a different developmental timetable, the teacher could not function effectively without an awareness of the infinity of variations in child behavior. Under the Montessori rubric, the teacher incapable of observation could not teach. —Rambusch, 1965 When I first read this, I was struck by the frankness of the message. Rather than putting observation on the back burner and attending to it when we found time, was Rambusch actually suggesting that we observe first? The simple answer is “yes.” Observation in the Montessori Environment: How do we follow the child, if we don’t observe him first? A NAMC student recently asked me for advice on how to encourage a child to work on math activities. She was having trouble helping him, as he refused to even go into the math area. I asked her tell me what she knew about the child’s interests and the...

The essential thing is to arouse such an interest that it engages the child's whole personality. —Maria Montessori The Absorbent Mind, p. 206. We hear a lot about how Montessori focuses on educating the whole child. But what does that mean? How is whole child education different from that of mainstream contemporary education? Whole Child Education and the Montessori Environment A child’s mind must be educated before he is instructed that the true purpose of education is the cultivation of the intellect rather than an accumulation of facts. —John Locke, Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693) Dr. Maria Montessori was a woman ahead of her time. During the industrial age, the role of the school was to create workers who would work for the betterment of the state. In fascist Italy, children were taught to be citizens of the state, with each gender having very specific roles to fulfill. Obedience to authority was demanded without opposition. Dr. Montessori refused to allow the governm...

Illustrated as it must be by fascinating charts and diagrams, the creation of earth as we now know it unfolds before the child’s imagination... —Maria Montessori To Educate the Human Potential, p. 2. The Montessori timelines in the NAMC History manual are beautiful presentations that naturally continue the excitement and awe the children experience during the presentation of the Five Great Lessons. These timelines can be made using directions from the NAMC manuals, printed from the Curriculum Support Material or purchased through Montessori suppliers. History Timelines in the Montessori Lower Elementary Classroom Before beginning the First Great Lesson and introducing the timelines, I like to present activities related to the concept of time as well as lessons about making and reading simple timelines. Both of these topics are presented in the NAMC Lower Elementary History manual. Many of the students also worked with simplified timelines in the Montessori early childhood environment. ...

They [misbehaviors] are merely his reactions to an environment that has become inadequate...But we do not notice that. And since it is understood that the child must do what adults tell him, even though his environment no longer suits his needs, if he does not comply we say that he is ‘naughty’ and correct him. Most of the time we are unaware of the cause of his ‘naughtiness.’ Yet the child, by his conduct, proves what we have just said. The closed environment is felt as a constraint … —Maria Montessori From Childhood to Adolescence Helping young children through challenging behavior can be a challenge itself. Training, knowledge, and experience all help the early childhood teacher prepare for those inevitable times when a child requires some extra support. Recently, however, there seems to be a distressing trend to expel young children who exhibit challenging behavior. The rising expulsion rates in early childhood settings are staggering. Over 8,000 public preschool children were su...