Montessori education

Have you heard of Montessori education ? It is a peculiar education system established by Italian educator Maria Montessori in 1907. It is well known that The United Kingdom Princes William and Henry took this education when they were young. There are many schools which have introduced the Montessori education system in New Zealand from Auckland in the north to Dunedin in the south. Today I am going to explain what Montessori education is like.

First of all, the main feature is that students will be able to improve their spirit of "independence".
Students are supposed to choose subjects they want to study and also can study them at their own pace using peculiar materials but not all classmates take the same subjects at the same time. It enables students to develop their ability to be independent and decision-making by themselves.
For instance, when students study math, they are supposed to choose a material they want to use from several options. Teachers don't teach all processes to solve math problems but how to use the material they chose or which material they should use to improve their strengths and weaknesses. The main task of teachers is to manage and maintain the environment to study while observing students. Teachers may not tell students the answers of math problems. So students have to find a path to solve them by themselves.


In summary, the features of  Montessori education are the following.

1. A class of mixed ages
 There are different ages in a class. This is one of the biggest features in Montessori education.
While younger students can follow older students as a role model, older students can learn how to teach by helping younger students.

2. Elective system
 As I mentioned at the beginning, students can choose subjects they want to study. This means it allows students to pursue subjects they like as much as they want. They don't need to adjust their pace for other classmates. Whereas, the subjects they are poor at can be developed slowly. They can study them at their pace until they can understand them thoroughly.

3. Flexible time allocation
 Class time isn't allocated. Students also can arrange their time schedule by themselves.