Introductory note: I'm writing here to organize my thoughts. I'm going to post this on two different Montessori groups. One is an administration group. The thoughts have existed for sometime, but are taking a new form in light of a job interview, rereading of Maria Montessori's writings and the conflict with AMI and AMS.
In educational theory there are some commonly used terms. "Theme" and "Integrated Thematic Unit." A theme is a unifying element. An "integrated thematic unit" is a learning theory that is designed to integrate lessons across curriculum areas through the use of one theme.
Maria Montessori when observing children designed her classroom materials to be an integrated form of learning. One material will lead to and support another. The materials themselves are interconnected. This is true at the primary and the elementary levels.
A monthly "theme" is very common in Montessori preschools at the primary level. "Themes" are very common in other educational preschools. Examples of themes include - Dinosaurs, transportation, Spring, Volcanoes, Life Cycle of the Butterfly. Although well intentioned, themes interfere with a Montessori based education. When adults choose what children should learn, then the freedom of the child to grow and learn is hindered. In order, for these themed topics to be taught in a way that is consistent with Montessori philosophy, the classroom materials have to be designed for the children to use them independently and in a manner that is self-correcting. This is possible, but often isn't done correctly and requires a great deal of extra effort on the part of the teachers. Worksheets from Enchanted Learning for the children to color aren't Montessori and don't truly build their learning- only their fine motor skills.
From an administrative point of view, many schools feel that they must show their "curriculum" in terms of themes so that parents understand what is being "taught." I'm still trying to understand why, because it shows that the school is willing to accept that parents know best and cater to their desires.
3 comments:
I would really love to see a Montessori high school that used Wikipedia as the curriculum and materials, at least for history and science subject matter (and, of course, Project Gutenberg for the curriculum and materials of the English/Language Studies subject matter). I can't really see how to teach math without some kind of structured system, but I suspect somehow that Maria Montessori had a bit more insight there than I do. But I guarantee that if you'd turned me loose on Wikipedia and Project Gutenberg instead of sending me to high school, I would have come out with a considerably better education. :-)
In the UK we have to follow the Early Years Foundation Stage. It is a legal requirement for any group/nursery/school that teaches 0-5 year olds. It works well in the montessori classroom because it requires us to follow each child's interests and fold the curriculum into including those interests. This means that in a class of 20 children you potentially have 20 different themes being followed. What it means in our experience is that friends tend to play together because they have similar interests.
For instance, we have group of boys who are fascinated by bubbles. We have incuded making bubble mixture (knowledge and understanding of the world, numeracy and literacy are all covered in that one activity) making the biggest bubble, do bubbles always coume out spherical even if the blower is square etc. They have written about them, searched the interent for information etc. Another group of children are fascinated by Doctors. We had a doctor come and visit, we have a shelf of work about the human body, we have role play area that is set up as a doctors etc. In this way we have a lot of themes, but they are generated by the children themsleves.
We plan weekly, by the way!
It seems that my own reflections that themes are generally not appropriate with Montessori is also consistent. Themes are appropriate to integrate cultural materials, continents or rotation of materials when space is limited.
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