Classroom Philosophies

In this essay I will discuss my personal philosophy of early childhood education because as a teacher, I want to become better and a way to do that is by starting off with a personal, well- articulated educational philosophy. Philosophy of learning is constantly changing, but one thing that will never change is the fact that everybody is different. Moreover people learn at different rates and in different ways. All teachers should have a well-formulated perspective on how children learn best; therefore, my philosophy would be helping each specific child as an individual rather than a group.

The developmental theories can not be more evident than during the out of class assignment at the daycare facility. During this independent assignment, I was able to observe and interact with pre-school children in an environment that is both encouraging and facilitating to a child’s developmental growth. So, just as Piaget in his developmental theory believed that children takes an active role in the learning process, acting much like little scientists as they perform experiments, make observations, and learn about the world; the pre-school teachers allowed them to do just that. Indeed, the teachers at the day care provided room for the child to learn and explore while at the same time adhering to a structure that set boundaries and limitations. Thus, the pre-school children, begrudgingly, learns to follow a meticulous schedule of activities and rest.

The Montessori approach is a holistic approach. It is geared toward producing meaningful interaction between children, their environment, and the teacher as intermediary. At the foundation of the program is the belief that the first six years of life are the most important years of growth. Children are recognized as being different from adults, and that difference is respected. Children are credited with possessing the sensitivity and intellectual ability to absorb meaning from their environment. Therefore, the classroom should give the support necessary to help them ultimately become self-directed learners, able to reach their full potential: socially, emotionally, physically, and cognitively. Learning should be a joyful

Each one of the early years educators has played an important role in setting the foundations that is the basis of the main curriculum's and foundation frameworks in schools today. Maria Montessori believed in independence in nurseries and that children should be taught to use their senses first rather than just educating their intellect with subjects such as maths and science. These of course came later in the children's education but the main focus within her nurseries was to develop observational skills through the environment and learning outdoors, and to provide the children with carefully organised preparatory activities rather than repetition as a means of developing competence in skills. Montessori believed children should be

Inspired by the work of Itard and Seguin, two almost forgotten French doctors, Maria Montessori took the idea of scientific approach to develop her theories, principles and beliefs in early childhood education, which through observation and experimentation. All the learning activities and teaching materials are purposeful and aimed to stimulate senses, mind, and provide self-esteem and achievement.

In this assignment I am required to evaluate two educational theorists, Maria Montessori and Frederick Froebel. Throughout this essay I will cover the topics of the philosophy of the theorists, their approach and implementations which contribute to their own beliefs towards the early childhood and education settings they have created. To conclude my essay I will state my personal reflections, and compare which elements of each theorists best fit in with my own attitudes, beliefs and values and also will conclude on what doesn’t reflect on my own beliefs.

Maria Montessori was a philosopher that influenced early childhood education. Her beliefs and ideas align with my personal beliefs on early childhood education. Maria Montessori was an Italian physician, educator, and inventor. She used new educational methods that brought a new aspect and perspective to early childhood learning. Her methods proved successful as she continued to developed these ideas and became a well-known and highly acclaimed philosopher. Maria Montessori believed that the environment influences how children learn. The “prepared environment” she created was colorful and implemented the five senses to facilitate learning. She believed each child should be motivated to learn new things. She encouraged these ideas through new materials, classrooms, and teaching procedures. The materials she created were didactic, meaning that they were self-teaching. Lastly, Maria Montessori believed that while teachers should be observers, they should also be demonstrators and work with every child. Each child was encouraged to let their natural instincts take the lead and explore, trying new things on their own rather than being forced. By observing the child's instincts and behaviors the teacher can tell what the child needs and how to provide them with the materials. I believe implementing the beliefs of Maria Montessori in my own future classroom will be the best way for each child to learn.

Dr Montessori through her method scientific of observation discovered that the education is a spontaneous process carried out by the human being from experiences from his environment. She was observing “what the children need”, thus she thought that if we want to educate for the life we need to start from birth. “We recognise the immense power, the unconscious forces existing in the child on the threshold of life. For many years we have been proclaiming that it is necessary to educate the child from the moment of birth. (Maria Montessori, The San Remo Lectures).

Maria’s key beliefs are independence, observation, following the child, correcting the child, prepared environment, respect for child, sensitive periods, auto education and an absorbent mind. Montessori education in the classrooms is to make the children independent and allows children to do things for themselves. Giving the children opportunities to move, dress themselves, and choose what they want to do. When you give children independence you are increasing

One of her responsibilities is what led her to her most loved occupation. She was to visit asylums for the insane. Here she came across feebleminded children, unable to function in schools or families and had no other public provisions. She saw that they were starving for experience and started to think about what she could do to help out. So in 1901 she returned to University with a desire to study the mind instead of the body (Maria Montessori: A Brief Biography). So in 1904 she was offered a job teaching as the professor of anthropology at the University of Rome. She accepted but in 1906 gave the job up to work with sixty young children of working families. This is were she developed all of her educational methods which became so successful that even learning disabled children began to pass examinations for normal children. Her methods will be discussed later in the paper. With these sixty children she started a "Children's House" in San Lorenzo Rome (Maria Montessori: A Brief Biography). This children's home was an environment that was offered to the child so he may be given an opportunity to develop his activities (Kramer, 1976). Of course it was very dependent on financial resources and opportunities in the environment. She began to notice how the children would absorb knowledge almost effortlessly from their surroundings. She felt the

Before evaluating early childhood Montessori schooling, one should know the history and development behind it. The Montessori Method was created by Maria Montessori who was born on August 31, 1870, in Chiaravalle, Italy. Her love of learning was evident from a young age. Around the age of thirteen, she chose to attend a technical school to study mathematics. After graduating high in her class, she transitioned to the study of medicine, eventually becoming Italy’s first female medical doctor. During her practice, Montessori visited asylums to find test subjects for different medical practices. She increasingly grew empathetic for the neglected, mentally disabled children she was selecting subjects from and decided she wanted to help them, rather than test on them. How she would help them would grow to be

Maria Montessori (1870-1952) was truly a radical in terms of her philosophy regarding children and the fact that she was putting it forward at a time when children were most often thought of as extensions of their parent, their parents ' beliefs and culture, and a creature to be shaped in ways that would create an "appropriate" and "successful" adult based on those beliefs. The collective consciousness regarding childrearing was that it was important to replicate and propagate one 's own beliefs which would essentially assure that their values would continue into the future. The fact that Montessori insisted that a child "is not an inert being" initiated a remarkable shift in thinking. As more people

Montessori Curriculum is an educational approach that had been around for over a century. Maria Montessori started her theory of education in 1907, with the opening of Casa dei Bambini (Children’s House). (Follari, 2007) She was presented with the task of creating a program for impoverished children in Italy. Although her methods didn’t become really popular until after her death, as time went on more and more schools have adopted the Montessori approach, now there are over 4,000 schools using this approach. (Follari, 2007)

Dr. Maria Montessori was a keen observer of children. She used her observational and experimental proclivities from her medical background to develop, what we might today call, a Constructivist understanding of the process of learning. She studied them scientifically. If she saw some unusual behavior in a child, she would say,”I won’t believe it now, I shall if it happens again”. She studied the conditions in which the children would perform those actions.

Maria Montessori was the founder of the Montessori approach to education, she was born in Italy in 1870. As a teenager she was an engineer, but later she studied her favor major of medicine. Graduated as Italy's first female medical practitioner she embarked on a career in mental health. Following on from this she was asked to head up a childcare project for a social housing initiative and her first 'Children's House' opened in 1907. Here too she introduced the equipment she had designed and observed the children very closely as they used it, tailoring what she provided in the environment to meet their developmental needs. There was