Abstract/Notes: This paper recommends amendments to the Montessori teaching system, which can in turn be adapted by individual educators or administrative school boards. The proposed tools mentioned in this paper follow the tenets of Constructivist teaching, which Montessori uses as some of its core teaching values (“Who and What is Montessori?”). Constructivist teaching argues that students learn best when they are able to apply their knowledge base to new learning experiences. The word comes from the idea that students are “constructing” their knowledge base one piece at a time, a process that starts from the ground, or base layer, and builds up from that. This construction involves physical representations of concepts, or guided experiences. Contrary to traditional, “top down” teaching, students learning through constructivist teaching get to experiment with learning concepts before a teacher explains the proper theory. These teachings try to generate excitement for the subject matter as extensions of students’ prior learning. Simulation and data visualization are powerful tools that allow students to discover the patterns present in natural processes by giving them the power to affect the environment and see the results. Implementation of the learning strategies of data visualizations and simulations should improve student performance and excitement in Earth and Space Science (ESS), while also being compliant with the Montessori teaching method.

Language: English

Published: Tempe, Arizona, 2022

Abstract/Notes: Recent efforts to define qualities of effective teaching practice have done little to capture the role of play, imagination, and creativity in classroom teaching. Drawing on theories of play and data from a two-year case study that included classroom observations, interviews, artifact collection, and surveys, the author examines the ways in which elements of play were present across the practice of eight novice middle grades teachers. Building on examples of play in these classrooms, the author proposes adding the dimension of play to frameworks of middle grades teaching—a dimension that encompasses young adolescents' engagement in classroom work that involves choice and self-direction, imaginative creations, and a nonstressed state of interest and joy.

Language: English

DOI: 10.3102/0002831214549451

ISSN: 0002-8312, 1935-1011

Language: English

Published: Wichita Falls, Texas: Western Christian Foundation, 1982

Abstract/Notes: In order to build and apply knowledge and abilities, children in a Montessori classroom study and use a variety of distinctive construction and application methods. In the Montessori Method, children are seen as active participants in their own development, powerfully influenced by internal, natural, dynamic, self-correcting forces that pave the path for growth and learning. The children view their instructors as protectors and leaders. As for teaching aid, they rely on carefully planned, aesthetically pleasant, colourful, bright and attractive surroundings and objects. Montessori places a strong emphasis on individual learning, allowing children to develop into responsible global citizens and lifelong learners. Children in a Montessori classroom are placed in multipage classrooms that last three years, encouraging tight peer ties and continuity between adults and children. The present paper is an attempt to look into Montessori Method, its principles and learning environment. We have also tried to look into the dual role of the teacher and assessment pattern as given in the Montessori approach.

Language: English

DOI: 10.25215/1103.054

ISSN: 2348-5396

Language: English

Abstract/Notes: While many BIPOC Montessori educators engage in anti-racist and culturally responsive teaching, Montessori education remains predominantly race-evasive. As a philosophy, it is rooted in colorblind perspectives in its focus on "all children" and lack of explicit centering of BIPOC students’ experiences. Teaching must account for race and racial lived realities in order to better support BIPOC students’ ways of knowing in culturally relevant and sustaining ways. This study seeks to center the voices of BIPOC Montessori educators and disrupt the pattern of Montessori research conducted without a critical racial lens. Framed by Critical Race Theory, this study focuses on the strengths, assets, and anti-racist teaching practices that one BIPOC educator brings to her classroom. I use critical ethnographic methods to better understand how a BIPOC Montessori teacher at a public charter Montessori school interprets and enacts the Montessori method to support BIPOC students. I consider how her racial identity informs her practices, and the structural barriers she faces at her school when enacting anti-racist and strength-based approaches. The guiding research questions of this study are: How does a Black Montessori teacher interpret the Montessori philosophy to more relevantly support her BIPOC students? How does she practice the Montessori method through culturally relevant and sustaining practices? What are the structural barriers that continue to challenge her as a Black educator doing her work? My analysis suggests that the teacher maintains her classroom space as a tangible and intangible cultural space that reflects and maintains her students' identities; that her own identity as a Black woman deeply contribute to the school's work around anti-racism and culturally responsive pedagogy; and that there are external barriers that both the teacher and the school face, that prevent them both from fully achieving culturally responsive teaching practices. At the core of the study, I seek to understand the possibilities and challenges of Montessori education from the perspective of BIPOC Montessori educators, and how we could learn from them to better support BIPOC students. I hope to begin a path toward more counter-stories in the Montessori community to specifically support BIPOC Montessori educators and understand the structural barriers they face to anti-racist teaching in Montessori programs in the United States.

Language: English

Published: College Park, Maryland, 2023

Abstract/Notes: Jonna Perrillo’s Educating the Enemy: Teaching Nazis and Mexicans in the Cold War Borderlands is a fascinating education history set in El Paso during the 1940s and 1950s. The arresting title juxtaposing “Nazis” with “Mexicans” goes to the heart of the study. Perrillo, a University of Texas at El Paso education historian, locates a small band of Nazi scientists taken into custody by the United States at the conclusion of World War II to work on scientific and military initiatives. Under “Operation Paperclip” these elite Nazi scientists and their families who came to the United States with a “sense of delusion and entitlement,” lived in El Paso for three years, contributing 144 children to the same schools that educated tens of thousands of Mexican American and Mexican immigrant children (p. 27). The central intellectual focus of Educating the Enemy explores the stark disparity in how these two groups of children were treated.

Language: English

DOI: 10.1093/whq/whad043

ISSN: 0043-3810

Abstract/Notes: In 1945, 179 scientists for the Nazi party were recruited to build a powerful weapon for the US Army in a program named Operation Paperclip. The scientists were relocated to Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas, with their families. From this outpost, their children were bussed daily by military police to four El Paso public schools. Though born into a fascist enemy nation, the German children were quickly integrated into the schools and, by proxy, American society through help in the form of school placements and specially arranged English classes. Their rapid assimilation served an important political purpose for the military and the state, improving the public image of Operation Paperclip, and offering evidence that American public schools played a vital role in ensuring the victory of democracy over fascism. In Educating the Enemy, Jonna Perrillo not only tells this fascinating story of Cold War educational policy, she draws an important comparison to another population of children in the El Paso public schools who received dramatically different treatment: Mexican Americans. Like everywhere else in the Southwest, Mexican children in El Paso were segregated into "Mexican" schools, as opposed to the"American" schools the German students attended. In these "Mexican" schools, children were penalized for speaking Spanish, which,because of residential segregation, was the only language all but a few spoke. They also prepared students for menial jobs that would keep them ensconced in Mexican American enclaves. From these disparate experiences, Educating the Enemy charts what two groups of children-one that might have been considered the enemy, the other that was treated as such-reveal about the ways political assimilation has been treated by schools as an easier, more viable project than racial or ethnic assimilation. It also shows how deeply schools and beliefs about schools were connected to seemingly distinct political developments, including Cold War foreign policy and diplomacy, federal power over immigration, and a growing military industry. Bridging these histories, as well as the histories of race and childhood, Perrillo uncovers the central role schools played in defining "foreignness" in a postwar international order, the Cold War dissonances between international tolerance and domestic segregation, and the influence of both military and diplomatic initiatives on American public schools. Includes a section on Ilse Axster who was a supporter of the Montessori movement (among other things) in Germany prior to coming to America with her scientist husband, Herbert Axster.

Language: English

Published: Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press, 2022

ISBN: 978-0-226-81596-1 978-0-226-81597-8

Abstract/Notes: The study investigated the effectiveness of the Montessori way of teaching preschoolers in Akwa Ibom and Abia states in Nigeria. A correlational survey design was employed, and 200 preschoolers were selected using stratified sampling. A structured questionnaire called the Montessori Way of Teaching Preschoolers and Effective Learning Questionnaire (MTPELQ) was used for data collection. Face and content validation of the instrument was carried out by an expert in test, measurement, and evaluation. The reliability coefficient obtained was 0.83. The researcher subjected the data generated for this study to appropriate statistical techniques such as descriptive statistics and simple regression analysis. The test for significance was done at 0.05 alpha levels. The results showed that the Montessori method, particularly the "Prepared environment," had the highest percentage value among the different teaching approaches. Furthermore, there was a high extent of learning observed as a result of the Montessori way of teaching. The study also revealed a strong to perfect relationship between Montessori teaching and effective learning. The calculated F-value indicated a significant effect of Montessori teaching on learning. The study concluded that the Montessori approach is beneficial for all children, fostering their natural curiosity and respect for knowledge. One of the recommendations was that the integration of Montessori principles and methodologies into the preschool curriculum in Akwa Ibom and Abia states to enhance active engagement and comprehension of subjects.

Language: English

ISSN: 2630–7290

Abstract/Notes: The study was designed to evaluate the effectiveness of role-play as a means of enhancing the social skills of preschool students in a Montessori setting. A total of 37 children between the ages of two and a half to six years who participated in a five week study. The interventions were conducted once a week for four weeks, during which children took turns participating in simulated scenarios that mirrored their everyday experiences. After the role-play presentation, assessments and group discussions were conducted to evaluate the children's comprehension. The research data was gathered before, during and after the interventions. The researcher used checklists and observation records to document the number and details of conflicts, as well as the children's behavior and conflict resolution skills. The study revealed a decrease in both the frequency of conflicts and the level of aggression, indicating the effectiveness of role-play in cultivating social skills in children. However, the study also indicated the need for further research and extended observation to support new and younger children in adapting to the environment and to keep track of how effectively children internalize and sustain the skills they have acquired.

Language: English

Published: St. Paul, Minnesota, 2023