The Montessori Education System and the Desire to Learn

In Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Paulo Freire talks about what he calls the banking system of schooling. Within the banking system the coed is seen as an object by which the trainer should place data. The coed has no accountability for cognition of any type; the coed should merely memorize or internalize what the trainer tells her or him. Paulo Freire was very a lot against the banking system. He argued that the banking system is a system of management and never a system meant to efficiently educate. Within the banking system the trainer is supposed to mould and alter the habits of the scholars, generally in a means that just about resembles a combat. The trainer tries to power data down the coed’s throat that the coed could not imagine or care about.

This course of finally leads most college students to dislike faculty. It additionally leads them to develop a resistance and a adverse perspective in direction of studying basically, to the purpose the place most individuals will not search data except it’s required for a grade in a category. Freire thought that the one technique to have an actual schooling, by which the scholars interact in cognition, was to vary from the banking system into what he outlined as problem-posing schooling. Freire described how a problem-posing instructional system might work in Pedagogy of the Oppressed by saying, “College students, as they’re more and more posed with issues referring to themselves on the earth and with the world, will really feel more and more challenged and obliged to answer that problem. As a result of they apprehend the problem as interrelated to different issues inside a complete context not as a theoretical query, the ensuing comprehension tends to be more and more crucial and thus continuously much less alienated”(81). The tutorial system developed by the Italian doctor and educator Maria Montessori presents a examined and efficient type of problem-posing schooling that leads its college students to extend their want to be taught versus inhibiting it.

Freire presents two main issues with the banking idea. The primary one is that within the banking idea a pupil is just not required to be cognitively lively. The coed is supposed to easily memorize and repeat data, to not perceive it. This inhibits the scholars’ creativity, destroys their curiosity within the topic, and transforms them into passive learners who do not perceive or imagine what they’re being taught however settle for and repeat it as a result of they haven’t any different choice. The second and extra dramatic consequence of the banking idea is that it offers an infinite energy to those that select what’s being taught to oppress those that are obliged to be taught it and settle for it. Freire explains that the issues lies in that the trainer holds all of the keys, has all of the solutions and does all of the considering. The Montessori strategy to schooling does the precise reverse. It makes college students do all of the considering and drawback fixing in order that they arrive at their very own conclusions. The lecturers merely assist information the coed, however they don’t inform the coed what’s true or false or how an issue might be solved.

Within the Montessori system, even when a pupil finds a technique to clear up an issue that’s slower or much less efficient than an ordinary mechanical means of fixing the issue, the trainer is not going to intervene with the coed’s course of as a result of this manner the coed learns to seek out options by himself or herself and to consider inventive methods to work on completely different issues.

The tutorial system in the USA, particularly from grade faculty to the top of highschool, is nearly equivalent to the banking strategy to schooling that Freire described. Throughout highschool most of what college students do is sit in a category and take notes. They’re then graded on how nicely they full homework and initiatives and at last they’re examined to point out that they will reproduce or use the data which was taught. More often than not the scholars are solely receptors of knowledge they usually take no half within the creation of information. One other means by which the U.S. schooling system is virtually equivalent to the banking system of schooling is the grading system. The grades of scholars largely mirror how a lot they adjust to the trainer’s concepts and the way a lot they’re keen to observe instructions. Grades mirror submission to authority and the willingness to do what’s informed greater than they mirror one’s intelligence, curiosity within the class, or understanding of the fabric that’s being taught. For example, in a authorities class in the USA a pupil who doesn’t agree {that a} consultant democracy is superior to every other type of authorities will do worse than a pupil who merely accepts {that a} consultant democracy is healthier than a direct democracy, socialism, communism, or one other type of social system. The U.S. schooling system rewards those that agree with what’s being taught and punishes those that don’t.

Moreover, it discourages college students from questioning and doing any considering of their very own. Due to the repetitive and insipid nature of our schooling system, most college students dislike highschool, and in the event that they do nicely on their work, it’s merely for the aim of acquiring a grade versus studying or exploring a brand new thought.

The Montessori Methodology advocates little one primarily based instructing, letting the scholars take management of their very own schooling. In E.M Standing’s The Montessori Revolution in Training, Standing says that the Montessori Methodology “is a technique primarily based on the precept of freedom in a ready setting”(5). Research achieved on two teams of scholars of the ages of 6 and 12 evaluating those that be taught in a Montessori to those that be taught in an ordinary faculty setting present that regardless of the Montessori system having no grading system and no compulsory work load, it does in addition to the usual system in each English and social sciences; however Montessori college students do significantly better in arithmetic, sciences, and drawback fixing. The Montessori system permits for college kids to have the ability to discover their pursuits and curiosity freely. Due to this the Montessori system pushes college students towards the lively pursuit of information for pleasure, which means that college students will wish to be taught and can discover out about issues that curiosity them just because it’s enjoyable to take action.

Maria Montessori began to develop what’s now generally known as the Montessori Methodology of schooling within the early twentieth century.

The Montessori Methodology focuses on the relations between the kid, the grownup, and the setting. The kid is seen as a person in growth. The Montessori system has an implied notion of letting the kid be what the kid would naturally be. Montessori believed the usual schooling system causes kids to lose many infantile traits, a few of that are thought of to be virtues. In Loeffler’s Montessori in Modern American Tradition, Loeffler states that “among the many traits that disappear will not be solely untidiness, disobedience, sloth, greed, egoism, quarrelsomeness, and instability, but in addition the so-called ‘inventive creativeness’, enjoyment of tales, attachment to people, play, submissiveness and so forth”. Due to this perceived lack of the kid, the Montessori system works to allow a toddler to naturally develop self-confidence in addition to the flexibility and willingness to actively search data and discover distinctive options to issues by considering creatively. One other essential distinction in how kids be taught within the Montessori system is that within the Montessori system a toddler has no outlined time slot by which to carry out a activity. As a substitute the kid is allowed to carry out a activity for so long as he desires. This leads kids to have a greater capability to pay attention and give attention to a single activity for an prolonged time period than kids have in the usual schooling system.

The position which the grownup or trainer has within the Montessori system marks one other elementary distinction between the Montessori s Methodology and the usual schooling system. With the Montessori Methodology the grownup is just not meant to continuously train and order the coed. The grownup’s job is to information the kid in order that the kid will proceed to pursue his curiosities and develop his or her personal notions of what’s actual, proper, and true. Montessori describes the kid as a person in intense, fixed change. From statement Montessori concluded that if allowed to develop by himself, a toddler would at all times discover equilibrium along with his setting, which means he would be taught to not mistreat others, for instance, and to work together positively along with his friends. That is essential as a result of it results in one of many Montessori Methodology’s most deep-seated concepts, which is that adults mustn’t let their presence be felt by the kids. Because of this though an grownup is within the setting with the scholars, the grownup doesn’t essentially work together with the scholars except the scholars ask the grownup a query or request assist. Moreover, the grownup should make it in order that the scholars don’t really feel like they’re being noticed or judged in any means. The grownup could make solutions to the kids, however by no means orders them or tells them what to do or methods to do it. The grownup should not be felt as an authority determine, however fairly nearly as one other peer of the kids.

The consequence of this, not surprisingly, is that rather a lot much less ‘work’ will get achieved by the scholars. Nonetheless, the scholars’ growth is dramatically higher within the Montessori system than in an ordinary schooling system. However how can college students who haven’t any obligation to do any work probably compete with college students who’re taught in the usual system and do far more work in school and at residence? I imagine the reply lies in that whereas college students taught in the usual means are continuously being pushed in direction of disliking faculty and doing issues mechanically with out actually fascinated by it, Montessori college students are led to actively discover their pursuits and revel in doing so. Moreover, Montessori college students are continuously engaged in cognition. They’re constantly studying to suppose in several methods and creating options to issues from scratch, versus college students in the usual methodology of schooling who solely clear up issues with the instruments or data that the trainer offers them to make use of.

The ultimate essential facet of the Montessori Methodology is the setting by which the coed learns and explores. As talked about earlier than, it’s of utmost significance that the kids really feel like they’re secure and free to do what they need for so long as they need. Additionally it is essential for the kids to have quite a lot of didactic materials to play and be taught with. These might be so simple as playing cards with completely different letters which the scholars use to make completely different phrases with. On this means the coed can get the concept of the letter being a bodily object which might be moved and manipulated to formulate phrases versus merely an summary idea which he should write repeatedly on a chunk of paper. Montessori describes a copious quantity of didactic supplies that she used. She additionally describes how efficient they have been at serving to the kids grasp ideas such because the formation of sentences, sq. roots, and division. The didactic supplies don’t simply assist the scholars grasp the idea of various abstractions from actuality, additionally they make studying a recreation and this makes college students develop a pure pleasure for studying and fascinated by summary ideas. In The Montessori Revolution in Training, Standing talks a couple of younger lady who was studying to learn and performed a recreation by which she tried to learn phrases from playing cards containing completely different phrases marked with completely different ranges of issue. Standing states concerning the lady, “She was pretty speeding at this mental meals. However even in Set 2 many of the phrases appeared past her. Finally she had made out one, M – A – N, MAN. How delighted she was! With what pleasure did she place the cardboard triumphantly below the image of the person!”(173). This facet of the Montessori methodology, by which kids are left to play completely different studying video games at their will, creates a starvation and pleasure for studying.

Particularly at a younger age, it’s a lot simpler and gratifying for kids to be taught with didactic supplies as a substitute of merely sitting in a classroom and taking notes when the kids are wishing they have been some other place or doing one thing else the complete time they’re meant to be studying. With using didactic supplies and by permitting college students to make use of them or not use them each time they wish to, the Montessori system offers the scholars the liberty to be taught what they wish to once they wish to. That is particularly essential after we take into consideration how the usual methodology of schooling, just like the banking system, forces college students to ‘be taught’ even when the scholars don’t desire the knowledge being shoved down their throats, and this results in a type of synthetic studying the place college students memorize data or to a mechanical course of the place college students don’t internalize the knowledge and overlook it as quickly as they aren’t being graded on it.

Montessori criticized the usual methodology of schooling tremendously. Along with seeing it as inefficient and outdated, Montessori, like Freire, believed that it was oppressive to the scholars. In her guide The Montessori Methodology, Montessori writes, “The precept of slavery nonetheless pervades pedagogy, and due to this fact, the identical precept pervades the college”(16). Montessori then goes on to explain a easy instance which illustrates her level. She talks about how chairs are particularly designed for lecture rooms. These classroom chairs, Montessori posits, are made to limit as a lot motion as potential, power the kids to look ahead in direction of the trainer, and make them as seen as potential to the trainer so the kids at all times really feel like they’re being watched and should behave correctly.

Montessori views the usual methodology of schooling as an antagonistic mannequin by which the trainer is mainly preventing the coed, continuously making an attempt to regulate him and repress his infantile habits whereas trying to power feed him data that the coed doesn’t need. Regardless of the numerous research which have proven that the Montessori Methodology is more practical and humane than the usual methodology, and although greater than 100 years have handed because it was launched to the USA, little or no has modified in the way in which kids are educated right here.

In Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Freire says that schooling is used as a device to control and management plenty. He proposes that the banking system of schooling exists and persists not due to its effectiveness at getting college students to be taught, however fairly its effectiveness at indoctrinating kids into believing one thing that the individuals who management the colleges need them to imagine. This results in an essential query. What’s extra essential for the USA: that kids develop up having the ability to suppose for themselves, or that they develop up believing what others deem appropriate? Right here, particularly in public excessive colleges, there’s a sturdy emphasis on nationalism and plenty of concepts are taught as inherently inferior to others. For instance, it isn’t solely taught in colleges that capitalism is healthier and extra humane than, as an example, socialism and communism, however fairly college students are additionally taught to concern these ideas and to concern the very thought of questioning or fascinated by social buildings apart from capitalism and financial fashions apart from the free market. Moreover, lecturers usually promote the false portrayal of the USA because the hero and police of the complete world. The U.S. schooling system is just not meant to liberate college students and encourage them to hunt data, however fairly it’s meant to maintain them in line and is used as a device to form a sort of one that thinks solely so far as is socially acceptable. How a lot our schooling system is manipulated by the pursuits of the individuals who management it’s questionable. Nonetheless, it’s clear that whether or not or not our schooling system is getting used to regulate the plenty, it lends itself nicely to take action and can be utilized to sway folks’s opinion and repress concepts which may go towards the institution.

Our present schooling system is nearer to the banking system than to one thing just like the Montessori Methodology by which the event of the kid is put first and youngsters are introduced with a type of problem-posing schooling. It’s seemingly troublesome to vary to a means of instructing that permits college students to be taught for themselves and be impressed to actively search data. A superb place to begin can be to make use of didactic supplies to the extent that’s potential and to current college students with differing sides of arguments in a judgment-free method. One other essential level is that inventive thought ought to at all times be inspired and dissenting concepts must be welcome and debated totally. By making the transition to an schooling system that’s problem-posing, college students can be inspired to suppose critically and create completely different, distinctive and ingenious methods to unravel issues. This variation would result in huge progress in innovation and scientific growth, in addition to giving college students a extra humane and interactive means of studying.