Maria Montessori's Science of Pedagogy

Maria Montessori’s Science of Pedagogy
L. K. Brendtro
Augustana College

Abstract
In this article, the author explains how Maria Montessori is best known for her radical contribution in the education for disadvantaged children. Montessori used her scientific skills as a medical physician to develop a new science of pedagogy that has helped in the transformation of education indelibly. By studying how children learn, Montessori was able to show educators that even students with disadvantages could be taught by mentally awaking their minds. Montessori changed education by the use of scientific experimental methods combined with her disciplines in psychology, anthropology, and philosophy. Today, The Montessori Method of Education is used worldwide.
Keywords: education, disadvantaged children, Montessori Method, pedagogy, psychology, science

Maria Montessori’s Science of Pedagogy
Maria Montessori (1870-1952) was moved to develop a science of pedagogy which contributed to the radical educational movement for disadvantaged children. This didn’t just include the mentally handicapped, it also included impoverished children. In the slums of Italy, she opened schools for children where she began to develop her experimental methods in pedagogy. She faced a great barrier in this time; she was a female in a predominated man’s world. Especially so, as she pursued a career in the field of medicine where women were not welcomed. It seems she had to develop an attitude of persistence and assertiveness to overcome this arduous challenge of sexism. Her application to medical school brought such controversy that the Pope Leo XX111 had to intervene to calm the frenzy of discontent among the male medical students.
What Montessori observed in the impoverished child was they famished for a new learning experience traditional schools were unable to provide. She saw changes occurring in other disciplines, while education was at a stagnant standpoint. It wasn’t just stagnant, she thought traditional education in lack the warmth necessary to nurture fragile minds and foster the love of learning. Traditional education in the late 1800’s was very rudimentary focusing on obedience based teachings. Brendtro (1999, p.2, para. 3) wrote that Montessori “admired a particularly German psychologist William Wundt (1832-1920), who had created the science of psychology, and she aspired to do the same for education.” Montessori based her new science of pedagogy on the experimental work of Itard’s teachings of a boy who’d been captured after living in isolation in the wilderness. The author doesn’t go into much detail of Itard, he does mention that his work with the child was of great inspiration in the field of study of cognitive processes and social development of human deprived contact. I would imagine Montessori would have studied Itard’s works at great lengths in order to have formulated her own scientific pedagogy.
Montessori’s scientific pedagogy radically changed the educational system as it was once known. Her educational method aspired to challenge the deprived minds of disadvantaged children. “Her focus was on slum children: She believed they had absorbent minds that would flourish, if given proper educational stimulation.” (Brendtro, 1999, p. 3, para. 2) The author mentions she neither promoted rewards or punishments in the usual traditional setting. Her methods included to nurture the deficient mind; like a seed with all its programmed dna, knows what it has to do but can only do it with the help of sunlight and water, the deficient mind instinctively is eager to learn in the right environment. “In every area of a curriculum, Montessori challenged children to attain mastery.” (Brendtro, 1999, p. 3, para. 6)
Montessori categorized children’s behaviors into two categories. Brendtro states that she was the first in identifying these two types of behaviors. He does not give any reference to support this. There were two types of behaviors in problem children Montessori concluded then as “normal human variations” (Bendtro, 1999, p 4, para. 4). They were the extroverted strong children who acted out and the introverted weak children, who avoided conflicts. Here, I notice Montessori’s discipline in psychology an influential factor in developing these two categories. Yet, Montessori avoided giving them psychiatric labels; she believed that most of these negative behaviors stemmed from an abusive childhood.
The classrooms in the Montessori schools were unlike traditional schools in every sense. Children for once, had a voice in what they wanted to learn. Children were broken up into groups and were made to work together. Montessori believed that students needed a lot of encouragement “to awaken in the child’s mind the remarkable gifts asleep there.” (Brendtro p.2, para. 5) Even committing a mistake was an opportunity to learn in the way of the Montessori Method. I would imagine those that attended her schools did not have an issue of self-esteem for very long. These children were finally given the opportunity to develop self-efficacy, a vital learning component most traditional schools failed to offer at the time. She went to great lengths to help deprived children develop a positive mental image by meeting their inner needs. Imagine the student’s surprise when they found themselves working at their own zone of proximal development, Montessori knowing the student was capable all along. What a wonderful sense of accomplishment she and her students simultaneously felt. Although Brendtro does not describe the physical classroom environment in great detail, he does mention that “children used real objects such as building blocks or measuring cups and employed mental concentration to complete real tasks to produce a real product.” (Brendtro, p. 5, para. 1)
With the turn of a new century, a new idea was born. Renowned scientist, Maria Montessori’s fascination for the compassionate soul of society’s displaced and disadvantaged bred the new science of pedagogy. Her unique approach in developing this new method demanded the combination of the empirical method in psychology with concepts from related fields of anthropology and philosophy for the purpose of understanding and awakening the potential lying in the dormant mind. Today, the research continues as scientists seek to better understand the mind and its cognitive function. Contemporary researchers must never forget the essence of the Montessori Method; the promotion of positive mental health, the nurturing and enrichment of learning, respect regardless of socio-economic status or mental status, continuous learning as an educator and lastly, understanding the profoundness of the mind and its individual readiness to receive new information. The Montessori Method’s invaluable approach to learning has positively changed education as a whole.

Bibliography

Brendtro, L. K. (1999). Maria Montessori: Teacher of Unteachable Children. Reclaiming Children and Youth, 7(4), 201-201