The Montessori Method - Scientific Pedagogy as Applied to Child Education by Maria Montessori

Author:Maria Montessori [Montessori, Maria]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2016-07-22T00:00:00+00:00

The directress told me that having noticed that the child had great difficulty in retaining the nomenclature of the colours, she had up until that time left him to exercise himself freely with the games for the colour sense. At the same time he had developed rapidly a power over written language, which in my method as presented through a series of problems to be solved. These problems are presented as sense exercises. This child was, therefore, most intelligent. In him the discriminative sensory perceptions kept pace with great intellectual activities—attention and judgment. But his memory for names was inferior.

The directress had thought best not to interfere, as yet, in the teaching of the child. Certainly, the education of the child was a little disordered, and the directress had left the spontaneous explanation of his mental activities excessively free. However desirable it may be to furnish a sense education as a basis for intellectual ideas, it is nevertheless advisable at the same time to associate the language with these perceptions.

In this connection I have found excellent for use with normal children the three periods of which the lesson according to Séguin consists:

First Period. The association of the sensory perception with the name.

For example, we present to the child, two colours, red and blue. Presenting the red, we say simply, "This is red," and presenting the blue, "This is blue." Then, we lay the spools upon the table under the eyes of the child.

Second Period. Recognition of the object corresponding to the name. We Say to the child, "Give me the red," and then, "Give me the blue."

Third Period. The remembering of the name corresponding to the object. We ask the child, showing him the object, "What is this?" and he should respond, "Red."

Séguin insists strongly upon these three periods, and urges that the colours be left for several instants under the eyes of the child. He also advises us never to present the colour singly, but always two at a time, since the contrast helps the chromatic memory. Indeed, I have proved that there cannot be a better method for teaching colour to the deficients, who, with this method were able to learn the colours much more perfectly than normal children in the ordinary schools who have had a haphazard sense education. For normal children however there exists a period preceding the Three Periods of Séguin—a period which contains the real sense education. This is the acquisition of a fineness of differential perception, which can be obtained only through auto-education.

This, then, is an example of the great superiority of the normal child, and of the greater effect of education which such pedagogical methods may exercise upon the mental development of normal as compared with deficient children.

The association of the name with the stimulus is a source of great pleasure to the normal child. I remember, one day, I had taught a little girl, who was not yet three years old, and who was a little tardy in the development of language, the names of three colours.

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