Montessori Education – 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 through which the trainer should place info. The scholar has no duty 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 mildew and alter the habits of the scholars, generally in a means that nearly resembles a struggle. The trainer tries to drive info down the coed‘s throat that the coed could not consider or care about.
This course of ultimately leads most college students to dislike college. It additionally leads them to develop a resistance and a unfavourable perspective in direction of studying generally, to the purpose the place most individuals will not search information until it’s required for a grade in a category. Freire thought that the one solution to have an actual schooling, through which the scholars have interaction in cognition, was to alter from the banking system into what he outlined as problem-posing schooling. Freire described how a problem-posing academic system might work in Pedagogy of the Oppressed by saying, “College students, as they’re more and more posed with issues regarding themselves on the earth and with the world, will really feel more and more challenged and obliged to reply to 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 important and thus continually 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 study versus inhibiting it.
Freire presents two main issues with the banking idea. The primary one is that within the banking idea a scholar shouldn’t be required to be cognitively lively. The scholar is supposed to easily memorize and repeat info, 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 consider 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 unlimited energy to those that select what’s being taught to oppress those that are obliged to study 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 pondering. The Montessori method to schooling does the precise reverse. It makes college students do all of the pondering and downside 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 could be solved.
Within the Montessori system, even when a scholar finds a solution to resolve an issue that’s slower or much less efficient than a typical mechanical means of fixing the issue, the trainer won’t intervene with the coed‘s course of as a result of this fashion the coed learns to seek out options by himself or herself and to think about inventive methods to work on completely different issues.
The tutorial system in the US, particularly from grade college to the top of highschool, is sort of similar to the banking method 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 effectively they full homework and initiatives and eventually they’re examined to point out that they’ll reproduce or use the information 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 through which the U.S. schooling system is virtually similar to the banking system of schooling is the grading system. The grades of scholars principally replicate how a lot they adjust to the trainer‘s concepts and the way a lot they’re prepared to comply with instructions. Grades replicate submission to authority and the willingness to do what’s informed greater than they replicate one’s intelligence, curiosity within the class, or understanding of the fabric that’s being taught. As an illustration, in a authorities class in the US a scholar who doesn’t agree {that a} consultant democracy is superior to some other type of authorities will do worse than a scholar who merely accepts {that a} consultant democracy is best 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 pondering 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 effectively 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 youngster based mostly educating, letting the scholars take management of their very own schooling. In E.M Standing’s The Montessori Revolution in Schooling, Standing says that the Montessori Methodology “is a technique based mostly on the precept of freedom in a ready setting“(5). Research completed on two teams of scholars of the ages of 6 and 12 evaluating those that study in a Montessori to those that study in a typical college 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 a lot better in arithmetic, sciences, and downside 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 need to study 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 referred to 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 should not solely untidiness, disobedience, sloth, greed, egoism, quarrelsomeness, and instability, but additionally 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 baby to naturally develop self-confidence in addition to the flexibility and willingness to actively search information and discover distinctive options to issues by pondering creatively. One other essential distinction in how kids study within the Montessori system is that within the Montessori system a baby has no outlined time slot through which to carry out a job. As a substitute the kid is allowed to carry out a job for so long as he needs. This leads kids to have a greater capability to pay attention and concentrate on a single job for an prolonged time frame than kids have in the usual schooling system.
The function which the grownup or trainer has within the Montessori system marks one other basic distinction between the Montessori s Methodology and the usual schooling system. With the Montessori Methodology the grownup shouldn’t be meant to continually 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 remark Montessori concluded that if allowed to develop by himself, a baby would all the time discover equilibrium together with his setting, which means he would study to not mistreat others, for instance, and to work together positively together 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. Which means that though an grownup is within the setting with the scholars, the grownup doesn’t essentially work together with the scholars until 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 options to the kids, however by no means orders them or tells them what to do or find out how to do it. The grownup should not be felt as an authority determine, however quite nearly as one other peer of the kids.
The consequence of this, not surprisingly, is that lots much less ‘work’ will get completed by the scholars. Nonetheless, the scholars‘ growth is dramatically higher within the Montessori system than in a typical 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 rather more work in school and at house? I consider the reply lies in that whereas college students taught in the usual means are continually being pushed in direction of disliking college and doing issues mechanically with out actually interested by it, Montessori college students are led to actively discover their pursuits and luxuriate in doing so. Moreover, Montessori college students are continually 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 resolve issues with the instruments or info that the trainer offers them to make use of.
The ultimate essential facet of the Montessori Methodology is the setting through 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 study with. These could 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 could 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, in addition they make studying a sport and this makes college students develop a pure pleasure for studying and interested by summary ideas. In The Montessori Revolution in Schooling, Standing talks a couple of younger woman who was studying to learn and performed a sport through which she tried to learn phrases from playing cards containing completely different phrases marked with completely different ranges of issue. Standing states in regards to the woman, “She was pretty speeding at this mental meals. However even in Set 2 a lot 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 underneath the image of the person!”(173). This facet of the Montessori methodology, through 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 pleasurable for youngsters to study with didactic supplies as an alternative of merely sitting in a classroom and taking notes when the kids are wishing they have been elsewhere or doing one thing else your entire 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 need to, the Montessori system offers the scholars the liberty to study what they need to once they need 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 ‘study‘ 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 info 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 vastly. Along with seeing it as inefficient and outdated, Montessori, like Freire, believed that it was oppressive to the scholars. In her e book The Montessori Methodology, Montessori writes, “The precept of slavery nonetheless pervades pedagogy, and subsequently, the identical precept pervades the varsity“(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 doable, drive the kids to look ahead in direction of the trainer, and make them as seen as doable to the trainer so the kids all the time really feel like they’re being watched and should behave correctly.
Montessori views the usual methodology of schooling as an antagonistic mannequin through which the trainer is mainly preventing the coed, continually attempting to regulate him and repress his infantile habits whereas trying to drive feed him information 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 regardless that greater than 100 years have handed because it was launched to the US, little or no has modified in the best way 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 study, however quite its effectiveness at indoctrinating kids into believing one thing that the individuals who management the colleges need them to consider. This results in an essential query. What’s extra essential for the US: 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 robust emphasis on nationalism and lots of concepts are taught as inherently inferior to others. For instance, it isn’t solely taught in colleges that capitalism is best and extra humane than, as an illustration, socialism and communism, however quite college students are additionally taught to worry these ideas and to worry the very thought of questioning or interested by social constructions apart from capitalism and financial fashions apart from the free market. Moreover, lecturers usually promote the false portrayal of the US because the hero and police of your entire world. The U.S. schooling system shouldn’t be meant to liberate college students and encourage them to hunt information, however quite it’s meant to maintain them in line and is used as a device to form a type of one who 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 effectively to take action and can be utilized to sway folks‘s opinion and repress concepts which may go in opposition to the institution.
Our present schooling system is nearer to the banking system than to one thing just like the Montessori Methodology through which the event of the kid is put first and kids are offered with a type of problem-posing schooling. It’s probably tough to alter to a means of educating that permits college students to study for themselves and be impressed to actively search information. An excellent place to start out could be to make use of didactic supplies to the extent that’s doable 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 all the time be inspired and dissenting concepts ought to be welcome and debated completely. By making the transition to an schooling system that’s problem-posing, college students could be inspired to suppose critically and create completely different, distinctive and ingenious methods to resolve issues. This variation would result in monumental development in innovation and scientific growth, in addition to giving college students a extra humane and interactive means of studying.