What Montessori Meant by New Education
1. Describe what Montessori meant by ‘’New Education’’?
Maria Montessori believed that despite economic and technological development there are conflicts and sufferings instead of peace and harmony in our modern world. She believed that the prevailing social problems were unfulfilled and can only be fulfilled by educating the youth for the generation of balanced adults who would contribute towards world peace. By ‘’New Education’’ she meant that we could set up a new education system that could replace the existing system, as the existing system is unable to find many problems faced by man, and that the new system could focus on the energies of children, to understand them, and channalise them to solve problems faced by the world rather than going to war.
Dr Montessori felt that adults should improve their egocentric and authoritative attitude and approach children with humility and recognize their role as secondary. An adult must realize his job as secondary and should endeavour all that he can do to understand, support, and help him in the development stages. This she meant was the basic role of a mother as well as a teacher to help develop the child’s personality.
She felt that the ‘’Child is not an empty vessel waiting to be filled’’(Montessori Principle and Philosophy, Topic 1 , Page 11). Where she clearly means that one had to understand the hidden potential of the child .And to understand what prevents an adult from the seeing the child as he is. She believed that we as adults fail to see the hidden /unknown potential of the child as we are habitual of seeing everything from our standpoint. We as adults underestimate the childs potential and without being a step by step guide , we start acting as the creator , considering good and evil in the child’s action from our standpoint. And that by accepting this attitude an adult invariably cancels the child’ personality unconsciously and in the bargain gets a conviction of zeal , love and sacrifice.
Maria Montessori believed that despite economic and technological development there are conflicts and sufferings instead of peace and harmony in our modern world. She believed that the prevailing social problems were unfulfilled and can only be fulfilled by educating the youth for the generation of balanced adults who would contribute towards world peace. By ‘’New Education’’ she meant that we could set up a new education system that could replace the existing system, as the existing system is unable to find many problems faced by man, and that the new system could focus on the energies of children, to understand them, and channalise them to solve problems faced by the world rather than going to war.
Dr Montessori felt that adults should improve their egocentric and authoritative attitude and approach children with humility and recognize their role as secondary. An adult must realize his job as secondary and should endeavour all that he can do to understand, support, and help him in the development stages. This she meant was the basic role of a mother as well as a teacher to help develop the child’s personality.
She felt that the ‘’Child is not an empty vessel waiting to be filled’’(Montessori Principle and Philosophy, Topic 1 , Page 11). Where she clearly means that one had to understand the hidden potential of the child .And to understand what prevents an adult from the seeing the child as he is. She believed that we as adults fail to see the hidden /unknown potential of the child as we are habitual of seeing everything from our standpoint. We as adults underestimate the childs potential and without being a step by step guide , we start acting as the creator , considering good and evil in the child’s action from our standpoint. And that by accepting this attitude an adult invariably cancels the child’ personality unconsciously and in the bargain gets a conviction of zeal , love and sacrifice.