Maria Montessori
Many of Maria Montessori’s (18701952) ideas are embedded in virtually every early childhood program, and her influence on our thinking about curriculum has been profound (Goffin, 2001; Morrison, 2011). Montessori was the first woman in Italy to earn a medical degree, and she was a tireless child advocate. She insisted that through proper early education, underprivileged and cognitively impaired children could be successful. She worked first with children who were described at that time as “mentally retarded” (a term we would not use today) and subsequently with poor children in the tenements of Rome, establishing preschools, each of which was called a Casa dei Bambini (Children’s House). In essence, Dr. Montessori proposed the idea of children at risk and the notion that society had a moral responsibility to devote resources to early intervention.
Dr. Montessori embraced and expanded Froebel’s kindergarten concept. She felt that children were natural learners and should drive much of their own learning. She asserted that children should be grouped in multiage (2½ to 5 years) classes to allow flexibility and opportunities for peer mentoring. Montessori developed an extensive set of “didactic” materials and lessons designed to be attractive to children and used by teachers to teach specific concepts and skills. She adapted furniture to child size as a gesture of respect for the unique needs of early learners (Montessori, 2008).
Montessori believed that the environment in which children learn should be meticulously prepared and organized to offer materials and activities in a carefully orchestrated sequence. She trained teachers to observe children carefully and recognize sensitive periods, the most appropriate moments at which to introduce new lessons. Montessori’s ideas about early education promoted the development of independence, responsibility, curiosity, and aesthetic sensitivity (Montessori, 2011). We will discuss her method in more detail in Chapter 2.
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John Dewey
At about the same time Montessori was conceptualizing early education in Italy, John Dewey’s (18591952) work completely redirected the course of American education with a movement known as progressivism. Dewey, known first as a philosopher, believed in pragmatism, or faith in the value of experience (practice) to inform ideas (theory). He promoted a practical approach to education, the idea that “education, therefore, is a process of living and not a preparation for future living” (Dewey, 1897).
Like Montessori, Dewey believed that the curriculum should be child-centered and school should be a place where children practice life through active, hands-on activities. Dewey also believed, like Froebel, that children learn through teacher-facilitated play. He viewed classrooms and schools as incubators for democracywhere we should learn social responsibility and citizenship (Dewey, 1916). To promote later success in society, progressive schools emphasized collaborative learning and problem solving.
Dewey also thought deeply about the role of the teacher, and his concept of the teacher as a facilitator represented a big departure from the commonly accepted notion of the teacher at the front of the room delivering information to children. He stated that “the teacher is not in the school to impose certain ideas or to form certain habits in the child, but is there as a member of the community to select the influences which shall affect the child and to assist him in properly responding to these influences” (Dewey, 1897).
Dewey’s idea that schools should be places where “education is life” gave rise to thinking about curriculum in a new way. Thomas Heard Kilpatrick, one of Dewey’s students, published The Project Method in 1918, describing a scientific approach using long-term project work as a means of integrating learning across all areas of the curriculum and engaging children in topics of their own choosing. Dewey’s ideas about education as a process, teachers as collaborative partners, and curriculum as a practical and meaningful activity had an enormous impact on educators of his timean impact that is still felt today (Pinar, Reynolds, Slattery, & Taubman, 2008).