The American Montessori Society (AMS ) offers the following comparisons between Montessori and traditional education …
- Emphasis on cognitive structures and social development
- Teacher’s role is unobtrusive; child actively participates in learning Environment and method encourage internal self-discipline
- Individual and group instruction adapts to each student’s learning style
- Mixed-age grouping
- Children encouraged to teach, collaborate, and help each other
- Child chooses own work from interests, abilities
- Child formulates concepts from self-teaching materials
- Child works as long as s/he wants on chosen project
- Child sets own learning pace to internalize information
- Child spots own errors through feedback from material
- Learning is reinforced internally through child’s own repetition of activity, internal feelings of success repetition
- Multi-sensory materials for physical exploration development
- Organized program for learning care of self and self-care environment (shoe polishing, sink washing, etc.)
- Child can work where s/he is comfortable, move and talk at will (yet doesn’t disturb others); group work is voluntary and negotiable
- Organized program for parents to understand the Montessori philosophy and participate in the learning process
