Whole child, whole world

Creativity and the Montessori Method

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Accelerated change, unimaginable opportunities, unforeseeable challenges: The future our students face will demand creativity of the highest order. How can today's schools help students meet what tomorrow brings? 

Educators must shift from an over-emphasis on academic ability to a balanced whole personality approach that includes and respects individual talents and nurtures creativity. For too long, we have disregarded the gentle spirit of the child, reaping negative consequences that are all too apparent, not only in our local neighbourhoods but around the world. A school system must develop each child's unique capabilities, allowing all young people to build purposeful, fulfilling lives. 

For 100 years, the Montessori method has worked to meet the needs of the whole child. It has much for educators to ponder and discuss but has often fallen short in influence. The latest psychological and neurological research about creativity and the nature of learning and human development support Dr. Maria Montessori's insights. However, misconception, misunderstanding and confusion exist inside and outside of  the Montessori community about the method, leading to concerns and uncertainties about its relevance today. 

What are we to make of the Montessori approach for the 21st century? 

The Creative Personality: A Montessori Perspective 

Dr. Montessori, the first female doctor in Italy, began to rethink schooling in 1907, in a poor neighbourhood in Rome. She abandoned traditional practices motivated by theories for a method based on direct observation. Her approach was both scientific and empirical, with children as her guide. She was practical, led by her desire to help children, not theorize about them; a century later the Montessori experiment continues, gaining relevancy and scientific support with each passing year. 

The Montessori method is a way to observe the child to discover his or her unique creative personality, needs and talents. To meet these individual needs, a prepared learning environment respects the child's choices, curiosity and interests and welcomes a diversity of learning styles. The aim is concentration and contemplation working together to reveal the personality in its natural statejoyous, peaceful, kind, purposeful, compassionate and creative. 

For the Montessori educator, working to reveal the personality in its natural state is equivalent to unlocking the creative potential of the individual. In practice, it challenges one to identify and recognize those obstacles that impede self-construction and to work to mitigate them. Creativity doesn't need to be taught, simply supported. When conditions support the personality, the imagination is ignited and creativity flourishes spontaneously. 

The Prepared Environment 

Key to the method's success is immersing the child in a Montessori prepared environment that is student-centred (especially in preschool). In Education for a New World, Dr. Montessori writes: "Scientific observation has established that education is not what the teacher gives; education is a natural process spontaneously carried out by the human individual, and is not acquired by listening to words but by experiences upon the environment." Research over time continues to support her findings, but many schools still lag in putting her approach into significant practice. 

Authentic Montessori classrooms look and feel like a cross between an art studio and a science lab. They are inspiring work environments for the creative process: rich, dynamic arenas filled with hands-on activity where students feel comfortable and in control. 

The Montessori method is not just for gifted children. The best Montessori classrooms are inclusive, with all children seen as gifted, with thinkers, doers, dancers, artists, scientists and writers learning side by side. High academic and creative achievement that often accompany Montessori education are natural outcomes of a student-centred approach that celebrates the infinite ways one can learn and express oneself. When we view each other not as we are but as what we can become, the classroom gains a positive and infectious energy that banishes boredom. 

Cosmic Education: Creativity and Our Common Future 

The Dalai Lama, Nobel Peace Prize recipient and supporter of the Montessori philosophy, wrote: 

One of the most important and unique features of human beings that distinguishes us from animals is our ability to think creatively as a result of our human intelligence. In order to fully explore the human potential for creativity, it is important to comprehend the reality of any given situation. If we understand the reality of any given situation, we will know what we must give up and what we have to adopt. Mistakes are committed when we act without fully understanding what is true. 

Dr. Montessori would wholeheartedly agree. After the Second World War, her concern for peace intensified as she witnessed first-hand the undesirable and destructive side of creativity in the name of science and progress. Twice nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, she spent much of her later years travelling around the world to deliver a simple message: In meeting the needs of the child, the needs of the world would also be met. 

For children aged 6 to 12, she advocated the study of "Cosmic Education," which can be best described as a gradual discovery of the interrelatedness of all things in the present, in the past and in the future. With vast and penetrating insight, she foresaw the challenges and opportunities of the 21st century. Cosmic education supports the type of learning needed to know what to give up and what to adopt. 

Ultimately Dr. Montessori's aim was to help humanity find its highest potential and, like a true visionary, her message was not of despair but one of hope: Times have changed, and science has made great progress, and so has our work; but our principles have only been confirmed, and along with them our conviction that mankind can hope for a solution to its problems, among which the most urgent are those of peace and unity, only by turning its attention and energies to the discovery of the child and to the development of the great potentialities of the human personality in the course of its formation. 

As the centenary year wraps up and Montessori supporters around the world pack up the party and reflect on how far the Montessori movement has come, many are rolling up their sleeves in anticipation of the work and optimism needed for the next 100 years. 

The Montessori community can confidently move forward knowing that the Montessori method is in line with what current research shows about children's development and how they learn, as well as creativity and the conditions under which it thrives. A Montessori education is not only valid in today's modern context but it is gaining relevancy and meaning in light of the challenges and opportunities of the future. 

Dr. Montessori's aim was to help humanity find its highest potential and, like a true visionary, her message was not of despair but one of hope: 

Times have changed, and science has made great progress, and so has our work; but our principles have only been confirmed, and along with them our conviction that mankind can hope for a solution to its problems, among which the most urgent are those of peace and unity, only by turning its attention and energies to the discovery of the child and to the development of the great potentialities of the human personality in the course of its formation. 

As the centenary year wraps up and Montessori supporters around the world pack up the party and reflect on how far the Montessori movement has come, many are rolling up their sleeves in anticipation of the work and optimism needed for the next 100 years. 

I believe we can move forward confidently knowing that the Montessori method is in line with what current research shows about children's development and how they learn, as well as creativity and the conditions under which it thrives. A Montessori education is not only valid in today's modern context, but it is gaining relevancy and meaning in light of the challenges and opportunities of the future.