Teaching, supported Maria Montessori, is a process of enhancing and enhancing child resources, and therefore the materials must have specific requirements
“If there is a hope of salvation and help for humanity, this help can only come from the child. Because in him the man is built, “said Maria Montessori.
Maria Montessori was an Italian scientist and pedagogist, famous all over the world for the educational method that bears her name. The Montessori method, used by nursery schools to high schools, had the opportunity to detect, through scientific observation, that children left free to organize their activities in an environment designed for their needs, are in the best condition to learn to carry out the skills necessary for the full development of their personality.
Maria Montessori did not like to define her didactic proposal “method”; rather preferred to resort to expressions such as “life help”, support for the development of the childas it considered them more adherent to the particular function you have attributed to teaching as a process of enhancing and enhancing child resources.
In the environment properly prepared by the teacher, the child will be surrounded by invitations to action and his activity will be encouraged rather than simply allowed. In this environment we find the Montessori materials, which have the purpose of facilitation of learning, such as the frames of the lacing, which promote autonomy in the dressing, or jars and other objects for the game of labor, which through the repetitiveness of the gesture helps the baby to consolidate what he learns.
The development material
The structured materials represent an important component of the Montessorian environment. They constitute a coherent system of tools which, starting from the classification of sensory qualities normally characterizing the physical environment (dimensions, shapes, colors, sounds, weight), reach the presentation of the foundations of knowledge (from writing to arithmetic calculation and geometry, to geography and biology, to music …):
- As a whole they cover a time span between 3 and 12 years old
- These are materials designed to be used by the child: therefore they are not didactic tools provided to the teacher for the exercise of his teaching activity
- They are offered to the free choice of the child, who must be able to use them all the time he wants
- Each material is present in the environment in a single specimen and must always be placed after use. This teaches the child to know waiting respecting his turn and the end of his partner’s work.
Requirements of Montessorian materials
- The isolation of “quality”: the Montessorian materials present only one formal feature at a time (color, size, shape …), in a specific function of the learning to which they are intended (discrimination of size, colors, sounds, and so on)
- The gradation of every “quality”: Each material presents a gradation of the same quality and, at the extreme, the maximum contrast. The material exerts a didactic function of facilitation of learning allowing the child who manipulates him to move from the discrimination of the most evident differences between stimuli (the simplest task) to that of minimum differences (the most complex task)
- Error control: The development materials are able to report the errors made to the child. This allows: 1) to the child to carry out an immediate verification of his response, providing him with direct control over his business and making possible the immediate correction of incorrect responses; 2) to stimulate the active participation of the child in the exercises with the material, because he can direct the activity himself, is placed in a position to control it and this promotes his motivation
- Compliance with learning rhythms: The use of the material does not require a predetermined duration and the child can dedicate all the time he wants. In this way, compliance with individual learning times is ensured.
As stated in Scientific pedagogy manual“Children, using material, not only develop intelligence, character, grace; But they acquire skills and attitudes that push him towards new and higher efforts “and” the aforementioned “material” is, as a whole, a systematic instrument of psychology, which can compare itself to a gymnastics of the spirit of the spirit; Where the child, exercising spontaneously, progresses in development therefore also in the purchase of culture ».
The Montessori 3D project
The project was born from the awareness that Maria Montessori has left a great wealth to all of us; wealth that we have the opportunity to be able to give to all children. The first step would be to start having a “new” image of child, a manufacturer of his knowledge. Maria Montessori said: «We will help the small child no longer because we consider it a small and weak being, but because he is endowed with great creative energies, which are of a fragile nature as to require – in order not to be impaired and wounds – a loving and intelligent defense. To these energies we want to bring help, not to the small child, nor to his weakness ». The second step would be to create a favorable environment around the child, free from physical and psychological barriers, made of invitations to action and not of prohibitions.
In this perspective, the development material created by Montessori becomes a fundamental component of the learning environment, as it responds to a fundamental need for experience starting from the senses: “The senses are bodies for the images of the world, necessary for intelligence, as the hand is the body of prejudice to the material things necessary for the body”.
The idea of the Montessori 3D project was born with the aim of making this method and more accessible and inclusive, in all educational contexts, inside and outside school, with teachers and with the whole family unit. The goal is, in fact, to reproduce Montessori materials through 3D printing and laser cutting, technologies that allow you to eliminate the barrier of insurmountable costs. One of the main mission of the project is to use Montessori thought as a starting point to create new materials of recreational and didactic use, which have the purpose of facilitating learning.
The project, on an experimental basis, was launched in November 2015 on the occasion of the “X-Off, conversations on the future” review in Lecce, was born within the incubator of Boboto ideas, and was born from the passion of Iliana Morelli who, six years ago, embarked on a specialization path in the educational coordination of kindergartens, with a focus on the Montessorian pedagogy. The project makes use of the collaboration and enthusiasm of professionals such as Luca Caccarese and Cristiano Maci of the Fablab of Lecce and is sponsored by the Montessori Italia Foundation.
In February 2016, the national material testing will begin. A school by region will be chosen to which a free material and a provisional catalog will be sent. Each school, through the collaboration of teachers and children, will become a platform to collect feedback on the use of materials and start a process of improvement. Experimentation and testing will continue until a network has been created on the entire national network.
More information on www.boboto.it
