Beyond Montessori: A Look at the Roots of Child-Centered Approaches to ECE

Written By Emily Snowden

by Dr. Emily A. Snowden

Dr. Maria Montessori made incredible contributions to the field of early care and education that we increasingly see the power of today. She was and continues to be a gift to both caregivers of young children and children themselves.

However, today we have a tendency to get confused about when and how to use her name in relation to our youngest children and their care. A quick search for toddler toys returns a large number of “Montessori-inspired” items, leaving us to believe that her approach was defined by wood construction and a colorless palette.

In this article we will ask: what do we really mean when invoke the name of Montessori?

About Dr. Maria Montessori

Maria Montessori works with a child on a literacy task.

Maria Montessori works with an orphaned child on a literacy task. Retrieved from: Association Montessori Internationale (AMI): https://montessori-ami.org/resource-library/photos/maria-montessori-children

Maria Montessori was born in Italy in 1870. Despite the strenuous study and prejudice about her gender, she would go on to become one of the first women to practice medicine in her home country. In addition to studying Medicine and Biology, Dr. Montessori also studied Anthropology and Psychiatry. As a physician, she went on to work with children with special needs who were wrongfully dismissed at the time as “unteachable” and impossible to integrate into society.

With this experience and knowledge of children’s developmental stages, she conceptualized a considerate yet methodological approach to caring for young children. This approach was initially designed to support children who were affected by the sociocultural and economic inequities in Italy at the time.

The “Montessori Method” was first put into practice in 1907 when she established Casa dei Bambini in Rome.

The outside of the building in Rome that housed the first Montessori program, Casa dei Bambini. Retrieved from AMI: https://archives.montessori-ami.org/news/day-6-january-1942

Historical Context

At this same time, many “Infant” or “Nursery Schools” were being established. As people were increasingly living and working in cities, concepts like Froebel’s Kindergarten were becoming more necessary and thus more accepted. These safe places where children could dance, play, exercise, socialize, and receive custodial care were said to allow “parents [to be] relieved from the anxiety occasioned by caring for children who were younger than school age…also, such an arrangement would lessen parents’ absence from [work]” (Lascarides & Hinitz, 2000, p. 74).

Despite the seemingly universal support from both progressives and capitalists (who then and now struggle to agree!), this burgeoning industry of childcare was met with significant resistance as well. Based on a “family-centered” fear that these institutions were “a conspiracy to rob mothers of their little ones,” early care approaches like the Montessori Method and Froebel’s Kindergarten suffered temporary bans (Lascarides & Hinitz, 2000, p. 247). In fact, the Montessori Method would suffer additional bans in both Germany and Italy during World War II when Dr. Montessori refused Mussollini’s demand to incorporate her schools into the facist youth movement.

Understanding the Uniqueness of the Montessori Method

While Casa dei Bambini was one of many childcare institutions being established at this time in “Western” history, there were a few hallmarks of Montessori’s approach that set her apart from some of the others. These include:

  • Because of Dr. Montessori’s training and experiences as a physician, she understood stages of development and how they can look when expressed by individual children. Her definitions of learning, or what we like to call “knowledge building,” were based on these observations of real children.

    What does this mean? That she noticed children are naturally curious and itching to explore the world. She noted how they like to do little “cause and effect” experiments on their environment, then use that information to make individual sense of the world. Knowing that children couldn’t help but lean into these exploratory learning behaviors, Montessori utilized these methods of “natural learning” in the classroom and encouraged families to do so at home.

  • Since her approach was based on her medical training and experience as a physician, it was a departure from traditional education. This is why Dr. Montessori specifically employed and trained individuals without a background in education. These “teacher-nurses” were to act as “a guide or facilitator whose task it is to support the young child in his or her process of self-development. They are foremost an observer, unobtrusively yet carefully monitoring each child's development, [recognizing], and interpreting each child's needs.”

    Today, Montessori teachers around the globe typically do receive traditional education training in addition to obtaining specialized training and credentials from an accredited Montessori organization.

  • With the emphasis on “natural” learning that was supported (not overtaken or directed by) a “teacher-nurse,” Dr. Montessori brought learning to the individual—not the other way around.

    Simply put, this means that the child is self-motivated to explore a concept and make individual sense of it. Learning then happens through the personal completion of “tasks” rather than the “whole group” approach we often see in schooling then and now.

    These tasks were designed to engage the senses, as they encouraged children to learn through self-direction and self-correction. While they could focus on different learning objectives or domains, they were always driven by the individual learner.

  • Children were not the only ones who received education at Casa dei Bambini—parents and families were also tasked with educating themselves for the betterment of their children and society in general. This typically involved training on the Montessori Method, child development, and custodial care of children.

Young children who had been found in the ruins of the devestating 1908 Messina earthquake prepare an outdoor lunch at their “Via Giusti” Montessori classroom. Retrieved from AMI: https://archives.montessori-ami.org/do/b867964e-d2a2-42e4-8d45-111ffbdc9004

Montessori’s approach became a methodical way to encourage each individual’s natural capacities to self-direct and self-correct their learning. These “self-regulatory” skills would not only benefit the individual, but society as a whole. Her method proved enormously successful, particularly for children who had trauma to overcome.

However, in her words, “I did not invent a method of education, I simply gave some little children a chance to live.”

Some of the “Montessori Method” established important practices in ECE that we think of today as essential. For example, child-sized furniture.

However, her approach to ECE is not and has not ever been something open to our outside interpretation. Montessorian tasks, curricula, and teacher training are very specific and must be supported by a Montessori-accredited organization.

So, when we see floor beds, wooden toys, and “toddler towers,” they might be child-centered or encourage self-directed learning. However, that does not automatically make them part of the Montessori approach.

Other Pioneers of the Child-Centered Approach

Most of the time, when we say “Montessori” we actually mean child-centered, or an approach to ECE that acknowledges children as individuals, considers their unique perspectives, and focuses on supporting their individual needs and sense making. Lucky for us, Maria Montessori is one of the many important and wonderful ECE theorists who dreamed the child-centered approach into being in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

Here are some other individuals and approaches you may want to learn about if you are interested in the founders of child-centered approaches to ECE that encourage hands-on learning.

  • The Reggio Emilia approach to ECE was developed by Loris Malaguzzi in northern Italy after World War II as a response to the heartbreaking impact the war had on children. This approach, like Montessori’s, emphasizes self-directed learning that the child is genuinely motivated to participate in. However, Malaguzzi’s philosophy puts emphasis on the importance of forming relationships and expression through art.

    In an atelier (Reggio Emilia classroom), children are supported in collaborating and creating by an atelierista (Reggio Emilia teacher) who focuses on facilitating exploratory learning experiences that promote curiosity. In this learning, art is the child’s most crucial form of expression.

  • The Waldorf approach was developed by founding anthroposophist Rudolf Steiner in 1919 in Germany. This approach was first put into practice for the children of employees at the Waldorf-Astoria company, earning the approach the name of “Waldorf.”

    Once established, Steiner wanted to depart from the “simplicity” of the teaching of the “three Rs” and instead implement an approach that embraced the “whole child.” His approach was based on three stages of development, the first in which children under 7 would learn through imitation, empathy, and experience. In addition to wanting to embrace human individuality in schooling, Steiner also insisted students engage in “real life” activities like baking and gardening.

    Steiner’s Waldorf schools picked up across Europe and in the US. However, due to his unwillingness to work with the Nazi Regime during World War II, Waldorf schools in Germany would close at that time.

    Today, Waldorf schools still operate on these principles, encouraging individuality and exploration as means of promoting a “higher consciousness.”

  • While humans have technically been learning outdoors forever, the Forest School approach, or entirely outdoor preschools, were first introduced by Ella Flatau in Denmark in 1952 when she established her “Walking Kindergarten.” Inspired by the Waldorf method, the first Nature School was born from a group of children’s organic habit of meeting up to play together outdoors while their parents worked. In “Forest” or “Nature Schools,” children engage in schooling outdoors—no matter the weather happening outside. In fact, they have at times been nick-named “Rain-or-Shine” schools!

    This holistic approach to ECE is not only defined by the outdoor environment, but also by the materials used as children explore and play with objects that are found in nature. In some areas, they additionally learn skills like how to use knives, build fires, and climb trees. Again, the emphasis here is on child-directed learning that is meaningful to the individual in their “real life,” as they build a relationship with the natural world.

  • Finally (my personal favorite) the Developmental-Interaction, or “Bank Street,” approach.

    When childcare institutions started popping up in the United States, one of the first was started in 1914 in New York by the founder of the “Play School Movement,” Caroline Pratt. This “Play School,” later renamed “The City and Country School,” was a departure from other approaches at the time. This is because Pratt, a student of John Dewey, thought of children as little “scientists” who discovered the world and its laws through play (fun fact—Pratt is actually the creator of our modern “blocks” for children!).

    Though Pratt tried traditional Kindergarten teacher training, she quit due to the fact that she said she found Froebelian approaches to be “mythical fol-de-rol.” Instead, her approach to caring for young children was instead developed through manual training and humanist study. From these ventures, she developed a realistic understanding of developmental stages and natural methods of learning.

    The ever-progressive and pragmatic Pratt eventually linked up with Chicago heiress and educator Lucy Sprague Mitchell (first Dean of the “Women’s College” at Berkeley) and educator Harriet Johnson to create two important and uniquely American institutions: the Bank Street School and the Bureau of Educational Experiments (BEE). With Pratt’s theories driving the approach, and Mitchell’s heart and wallet subsidizing it, these women would solidify the American Nursery School as a unique approach to ECE.

    In addition to their care of children in the school, their training of teachers at the College of Education and BEE were some of the first American institutions dedicated to teacher training through the utilization of evidence-based practices.

    Thus, an important tenet of this approach was that the children’s caregivers were continually learning about and from children, and modifying the approaches as they reflected on each child’s needs.

    With a progressive emphasis on human potential and societal improvement, Pratt and Mitchell highlighted the fact that even when approached as “whole children,” their students were being prepared for an unknown future. This is why they insisted on acknowledging the interactions between all the layers of a child’s development (social, emotional, psychological, academic, physical), observing children in their natural learning, and reflecting on those moments with their teaching peers as together they developed personalized approaches to working with the individual children in their care. In the words of Mitchell, who insisted teaching was tedious work that not everyone was cut out for, “the teacher is ever a learner.”

    Mitchell once told a story about another institution that was developing a longitudinal study based on the physical measurements of children, but ran into issues because the preschool-aged children couldn’t stop “wiggling.” According to Mitchell, their solution was to immobilize children in full-body casts while they took their measurements. At Bank Street, however, Mitchell said they were more interested in why children couldn’t stop wiggling than their physical measurements. The BEE thus pivoted to instead develop a qualitative study of that phenomenon.

    After years of success (and despite the personal fallout that later occurred between Pratt and Mitchell), the Bank Street approach would go on to get a “rebrand.” Led by Barbara Biber, this included renaming the theory and approach to “developmental-interaction.” The Bank Street School for Children and College of Education are both still operating in New York City today.

Conclusion

Dr. Maria Montessori was a pioneer of ECE and her theory gave way to some of the most beautiful practices and ways of thinking about childhood that are now “essential” to the field. As one of our many important founders, her method stands the test of time along with others who were doing similar work like Caroline Pratt, Loris Malaguzzi, and Lucy Sprague Mitchell. While the child-centered approach of course has its limitations (something important to explore later), it can still today help give us tools and ways of thinking about how to embrace children as individuals and provide them with learning experiences that are active and meaningful.

Montessori’s work has not only been instrumental in highlighting children’s natural ways of building knowledge, but also (like Steiner) served as an important political statement when she refused to integrate it into fascism. This gave way to her insistence later in her life that this kind of child-centered education is necessary to a peaceful society.

What can caregivers take away from this?

The important thing to remember here is that a child-centered approach can be a guiding philosophy that can take many forms in our everyday care of and interactions with our children. As we’ve learned now, some child-centered approaches are more “strict” and dogmatic, like Montessori, while others are more open to borrow from, like Reggio Emilia and the developmental-interaction approach.

As parents, teachers, and/or caregivers we can take this information and ask: what works for you? What feels natural to your values and your child’s personality? Where is your child most self-motivated in their learning? What skills may be important for them to have in the future? Where can you encourage their natural curiosity?

While some of the “Montessori-inspired” items you see available for purchase may encourage child-directed learning, they are likely not actual Montessorian tasks.

Lucky for us, we don’t need fancy toys or facilities to get into child-centered learning–we only need a caregiver who is willing to see the world from a child’s perspective and help them make sense of what they see.

“Preventing conflicts is the work of politics; establishing peace is the work of education.”
— Dr. Maria Montessori

Dr. Montessori observes children as they complete tasks in the classroom. Retrieved from AMI: https://montessori-ami.org/resource-library/photos/maria-montessori-children

Additional Resources

Emily Snowden https://snowdenswimschool.com
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