Program | 1st Asian Nienhuis Montessori Retreat 2024 - Sri Lanka

The Prepared Environment from our environment to yours

Montessori education seeks to provide children with environments ideally suited to each stage of development; this allows them to respond to the inner call of specific ‘sensitivities’ and gives them the freedom to act in accordance with their innate human tendencies. Thus, if education is viewed as a method to fulfil the optimum potential of the human being in every facet of his emerging personality, this ‘prepared environment’ provides a secure and permanent foundation on which to base development. The prepared environment is different for each developmental plane but guided by the same principles. The prepared environment and the role of the guide in the prepared environment distinguish Montessori from other approaches to support the development of the human being. The special environments enable to perform various tasks which induce thinking about relationships. The logical, sequential nature of the environment provides orderly structures which guide discovery and activity: theorems are discovered, not presented; spelling rules are derived through recognition of patterns, not merely memorized. All activities help to build confidence and self-esteem. Every aspect of the environment involves creative invention and careful, thoughtful analysis. In viewing outcomes at each Montessori level, it must be emphasized that why and how humans arrive at what they know and what they are capable of is just as important as what they know. “The task of the guide becomes that of preparing a series of motives of cultural activity, spread over a specially prepared environment, and then refraining from obtrusive interference. ...guides can only help the great work that is being done, as servants help the master. ” Maria Montessori - Education for a New World, p. 3

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