Montessori Approach to Child Development - Essay Example

CHILDHOOD DEVELOPMENT by + Introduction There are some things that an individual needs to learn to fit in the current social order of the world, among other economic, political, ideological and demographic aspects of the society. There are some things and other perspectives living in each human being and others can get said to be inborn, and there are others too which need to get developed. When a child is born, he or she has some innate ideas, on how to undertake some things during his or her early days from birth. These may include ideas on how to cry, how to suck, and maybe how to breathe. Before an individual reaches maturity, there are some ideas that he or she learns and develop with along his or her life. In this essay paper, I am going to consider Montessori and Steiner approaches of the development of the child as an individual, and come out with analysis concerning these two approaches. Both the two approaches; Montessori Approach to Child Development and Steiner Approach of Child Development focus on how the children get acquire new knowledge on their surroundings, especially in the classroom setting. They all consider the aspects of individuality, environment and nature, readiness to learn, age groups as well as resources, as analyzed in each of them below. Montessori Approach to Child Development Montessori Educational Approach is a school of thought towards understanding the child development, developed by an Italian scholar by the name Dr. Maria Montessori. The approach emphasizes on providing a child with a room for personal independence, the freedom that gets monitored to some extent and appreciation and recognition towards a natural child psychology (Montessori, 1964). It also emphasizes on the appreciation and recognition of a child’s development both in the physical and the sociological perspectives as well as aspects. Montessori approach to child development is a child-centered educational perspective and has the basis of making numerous scientific observations towards a children life, starting from his or her birth to adulthood. The approach views a kid as naturally eager to have the knowledge and get capability towards initiate learning in an environment free from other obstacles that may inhibit the process of knowledge intake by the young ones. It, therefore, support and encourage the creation of an environment that is supportive, thoughtful prepared and comfortable such that the child is free from possible disturbances that may distract his attention. Montessori perspective values the human spirit as well as the growth and development of physical, social, emotional and cognitive aspects of the child, as he or she approaches his/her adulthood. This approach considers some elements that are essential towards individual development a child. The first component is having mixed age classrooms, with children of ages ranging from 2 years to six years old. The second part gets concerned with the children’s choice of activities, and these activities get chosen from a range of options provided by the educator. The third part is the idea of uninterrupted blocks of time given for the children to have a continuous learning process, and this is ideally three hours. The third part is whereby the children are left and given time to come up with a constructivist mode. In this particular case, the children are provided with materials to work with, and in the process they learn some concepts, other than getting directions from the instructor. The fifth element is whereby the educators come up with specialized educational materials, purposefully meant for the children to use in their processes of learning. Also Montessori came up with the element of giving the children freedom of movement within the study room, as they feel and interact with the others. The final component is employing a trained Montessori teacher to educate and instruct the children in the early stages of learning. The approach has the view that children get in a position to learn more by undertaking some activities themselves since they develop first-hand experiences from them, which stick in their mind (Montessori, 1973). The approach further believes that joyful self-motivated learners come up with the desired reflection of themselves as brave, confident successful individuals. The theory base its analysis on the fact that children early years and stages from birth to the age of six years are the times when they high affinity to know some things. The approach emphasizes the creation of a conducive learning environment by the triangle formed as a result of the presence of the teacher, child, and the classroom. This is made possible by the teacher taking early preparation in the classroom situation, to boost independence, predetermined levels of freedom, and the presence of order. The children, therefore, have the individual choice of what to do by taking advantage of what the environment has offered, and consulting with the teacher whenever they need guidance. This approach is therefore very holistic and has the primary objective of developing the whole child (McCartney and Phillips, 2006). Steiner Approach of Child Development This approach of child development, by Rudolf Steiner, focuses on the three phases of childhood, as well as considering the shift and evolution of the child’s needs at the different stages. Therefore, this perspective grows and evolves with these demands as they grow and undergo some dynamism. The approach emphasizes on a pedagogical approach towards the provision of educational opportunity that exhibits unparalleled characteristics (Nicol and Taplin, 2012). Steiner method to child development has the objective of improving a lifelong desire for learning and firm capacities towards the desired moral and ethical standards. This primarily aims at building resilience within the child. The Steiner instructors firmly believe that resistance gets connected with the experiences children go through during their early childhood periods. Due to this matter, they have to get provided with reliable, caring and relationship with high stability levels, having examples of where to learn shape and going through the desired school experiences. Steiner approach concentrates on the experimental mode of learning. This is whereby the children are given individual opportunities to make things, come up with their actions, and develop creations and production, with having knowledge of the most relevant things. Whatever they come up with needs to get appropriate to their respective age of growth and development in their childhood as they approach maturity age. The approach focuses on the early childhood phase, primary years or primary school phase and high school or secondary years phase. Early Childhood During these years, children tend to get very active by learning through imitation, as well as their experiences as a result of their individual creation (Roopnarine and Johnson, 2013). Their imagination levels get fostered by the use of stories, songs, having the opportunity to interact freely with nature as well as participating in the day to day human activity. It is due to this reason that the children get the opportunity of exploring the environment, getting knowledge of the most relevant sharing and cooperation ideas. These eventually facilitate their social well-being, creating a positive self-esteem and improving in gross as well as other motor skills. The approach views early childhood phase as the most appropriate for the foundation of pre-literacy and numerical knowledge since the two get the opportunity for their grounding to take place. This is made possible through the numerous oral and practical learning experiences which prepare the room for an improved formal education surrounding in the next stage, which is a primary school. Primary Years According to the theory, the main years of the child are the most optimal duration for nurturing imagination as well as understanding and recalling the new ideas. In these years, the process of undertaking curriculum content emerges as the most appropriate. This is because developing a child’s cognition, and building skills get approached by use of pictures as well as presentations conducted by imaginative ways that are more appropriate. Curriculum content, at this years, can also get developed through narrative stories, creativity in writing, visual arts, playing music, and conducting drama and other motion activities. The process of coming up with aspects of imagination gives the students opportunities to get involved in academic matters. They get equipped with the materials needed to undertake the possible future issues by creativity, finding solutions as well as innovation. The period as well as the duration of the curriculum, its content and area of scope and coverage get developed in a way that they much the child developmental and emotional needs. For Example, conducting lessons on arts develops the capacity to recognize beauty in our environment. The reasons for the underlying argumentation and facts raised by the theory are the observable characteristics of children forming active groups based on social networks with their classmates. This gets facilitated by the fact that they get instructed by a particular teacher throughout their primary years. This assists in the creation of long-lasting bond between the children and their educator hence resulting into strong academic communities. Secondary Years Steiner approach views secondary years of children as the phase where they discover experience some of their adolescence. At this stage, the adolescent indulge in some activities with the aim of finding that indeed the world gets found in truth (New and Cochran, 2007). This gives the underlying reason as to why most of adolescence tend to behave in unique ways, which didn’t observe in there during primary years. The approach view adolescence as the period characterized by some intellectual movements among the adolescence, as they move from childhood to adulthood. At this stage, students tend to get more judgmental as they have the ability to undertake the objective evaluation, resulting into judgments are more refined and high levels of sophistication. It issue to this reason school children participate in debates, questioning, conducting analysis as well as making inferences in their research findings. Failure of the Approaches As for the above discussion, the strengths of the two approaches as well as their similar argumentation and basis of facts, have gotten elaborated. There are some failures that the methods have gotten criticized on. The first criticism towards Montessori is that enough opportunity never avails itself through group activity for the purposes of social development and interaction. This is because traditional classrooms tend to have different structures as compared to the ones in Montessori schools. Therefore, this cannot get applicable in the traditional class setting. In the Montessori classes, there exist a lot of freedoms for the child to select from, yet the class has a lot of complexity in structure, for the child’s age. Therefore, the approach tends to contradict itself since it’s difficult to have a lot of freedom and complex structures at the same period. A major for the Steiner approach is its elaborative analysis on the various encounters that different students face during their secondary years. It illustrates both the negative and positive encounters and experiences gained. The theory has failed to give the measures that can get adopted by the educators and other instructors, towards mitigating or rather getting in control of the negative aspects learned. On the other hand, this approach has failed to provide the instructors with the basis of improving the captured positive aspects of life, by the student. Conclusion All these approaches focus on the developmental path of a child towards ; learning and capturing new ideas, right from the time of birth until their adulthood. The two theories, despite the limited weaknesses, leading to their failure and critique, have come out more elaborately in describing the different phases, the environment and resources permitting learning to take place. For the case of Steiner approach the early childhood, primary and secondary stage gives more analysis on how children acquire new knowledge. They all provide relevant analysis and understanding of the learning processes and stages by the young ones. Bibliography McCartney, K. and Phillips, D. (2006). Blackwell handbook of early childhood development. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub. Montessori, M. (1964). The advanced Montessori method. Cambridge, Mass.: R. Bentley. Montessori, M. (1973). The Montessori elementary material. New York: Schocken Books. New, R. and Cochran, M. (2007). Early childhood education. Westport, Conn.: Praeger Publishers. Nicol, J. and Taplin, J. (2012). Understanding the Steiner Waldorf approach. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. Roopnarine, J. and Johnson, J. (2013). Approaches to early childhood education. Boston: Pearson. Read More