Maria Montessori Negativism

Maria Montessori is a strong believer in and an advocate for freedom in the classroom. She found it of utmost importance to maintain and nourish each child’s unique aptitude towards learning. Her theory is that the teacher must study the child individually noting his or her talents and weaknesses before acting as a guide to their specific endeavors. She strongly denounced a dictatorship-style classroom. One point she makes that I find intriguing is that “prizes and punishments are . . . the instrument of slavery for the spirit.” I agree with Montessori about the negativity that the prize and punishment system ensues because it transforms the primitive motive from innocent intrigue to a competition of establishing and proving status which causes …show more content…
For example, I used to play a game when I was in fourth grade that served as a study guide to a test that worked like this: Two students would stand in front of the classroom, listen for the teacher to ask a question, and try to write the answer faster than the other person on the whiteboard. Each time you beat your classmate in speed or knowledge counted as a point. The person with the most points was allowed to leave to recess early while the students who showed signs of struggle during this game were made to stay in from recess and review the material. The underlying message this game projected was that dominating your peer will prove profitable while losing to your peer will prove disadvantageous. This game caused me to view my classmates as possible encumbrances to attaining the prize while simultaneously shifting my motivation from honest interest in the subject material to a desire to win. How then does this promote the true importance of community and education? The tainted ideas of community and education carry on from elementary school to highschool. I have attended both a public high school as well as a Montessori-style high school which allows me to speak from experience about the juxtaposition of the two. Noticeable negative effects resulted from the prize and punishment system at the public high school while …show more content…
The only instruction given to the students was the prompt. We were then left to strategically form groups based on combinations of each person’s unique strongholds and then decide who will take on what role. The project was then graded according to the end result, not according to each person’s contribution which disallowed any single person to be rewarded or glorified individually, instead, the whole group was. One positive outcome of this was that the students understood the importance of teamwork while defusing the human desire to exceed others in order to establish a higher status. Another positive outcome was that students shared their abilities with each other and were able to lend their knowledge. As Montessori believed, my peers expressed their natural desire to teach each other. Each person felt that they were helping the other which established a sense of purpose in each academic endeavour. Working together creates community and disallows inequality which in turn establishes positive