Living Montessori

By Vanesa Mulero Gonzalez

The teaching of mathematics in Montessori pedagogy is radically different from what most of us receive in the traditional teaching system. We can imagine that the main difference is the use of specific materials, which is certainly an important difference. However, these “manipulatable”, as they are known, have been sporadically incorporated into the traditional system, often inconsistently, with mixed results; its use introduced and controlled by the figure of the teacher. 

However, in Montessori education, the materials are integrated very early, based on the human tendencies described by Mario Montessori, the son of Maria. Mario explains to us that one of the tendencies of human beings is to observe and abstract, using their imagination in a creative way to see what is not yet there. He explains to us that human beings use our hands to manifest an idea. This connection between the hand and the mind, which we could consider a sensory-based education, is emphasized by Maria Montessori when she tells us that "the mind remembers what the hand does." 

Mario Montessori also tells us about the trend towards accuracy, necessary to achieve efficiency, and the error control integrated in the materials, which allows the boy and the girl to self-educate and self-improve. The manipulation and activity that children carry out with the materials provides them with the necessary experience to expand their intelligence and acquire greater knowledge. The possibility of repetition through the work with the materials until achieving self-perfection is what provides the student with a sense of satisfaction that encourages them to continue exploring and learning.

In her book Psychoarithmetic, Maria Montessori explains her proposal and vision of the arithmetic and mathematics curriculum at the elementary level. Maria proposes that the purpose of teaching mathematics is the development of attention, concentration and comprehension, since the teaching evolves in the mind of the boy and the girl, while it is developed.

Montessori views the child as a rational being, and sees arithmetic as a form of reasoning, whose purpose is the process and not the result. It suggests that using "scientifically determined material" to present to the children in a clear and unequivocal way the foundations that awaken rational thought, not only facilitates the learning of arithmetic, but also the development of a logic whose depth had been thought impossible to achieve in them. The materials of arithmetic can be compared to "an arena of mental gymnastics".

Many of the mathematical concepts that will be developed later in elementary school were presented as sensory materials from the Children's House, such as the pink tower, the brown ladder and the binomial cube. The same materials are used by children at different ages, because they have different levels of awareness at different ages.

The material is the true teacher and error is a normal step in the learning process. The materials must incorporate self-correction, and allow the student to perceive the error with sympathy and, therefore, with acceptance. 

Maria Montessori emphasizes to us:

"This teacher (referring to the material) teaches by providing the greatest satisfaction to the child's intelligence, urging him to try again and again, repeat more than once, precisely because of his clarity and precision. He is a teacher who is always ready, always patient , always in a good mood, ready to repeat the lesson.” 

The study of mathematics should never be a list of procedures to memorize, but something to discover and perceive with the hand before being understood by the mind. The main engines of learning are interest and discovery. We must let children experience the beauty of mathematics.