If you have ever tried to learn a new language as an adult, you will
quickly experience what neurological research has borne out: “The ability to learn a second language is highest between
birth and the age of six, then undergoes a steady and inexorable decline. Many
adults still manage to learn new languages, but usually only after great
struggle.”[i]
The child, on the other hand, moves through this “acquisition” of new
things (language only being one of them) rather seamlessly and joyously. Today’s brain research corroborates what Dr.
Montessori intuited from her own observational research more than 100 years
ago:
“…in the first few years
of childhood there are a number of critical or sensitive periods, or
"windows", when the brain demands certain types of input in
order to create or stabilize certain long-lasting structures.
Montessori advocated for the importance of taking
full advantage of the “absorbent mind” during the period in the child’s
development when the mind is most receptive—during what she called “sensitive
periods”. This time from birth to 6 years old represents a period
of rapid growth in man’s intelligence.
It’s a time when the child is particularly sensitive
to stimuli that promote the development of a certain skill. In a Montessori
classroom, stimuli comes in a variety of forms, where the materials and the
whole educational methodology are designed to provide a very rich, multi-sensory,
hands-on approach to learning.
The melodious, quiet “hum” of a perfectly active Montessori
classroom speaks volumes of the power of letting children “do”, “absorb”,
“create”, and “develop”. They do this through the focus that comes from the
activity, repetition and the freedom to persevere. And from within the child,
this “explosion of learning”—the sudden outward manifestation of a long process
of internal growth—as Montessori called it, does ensue.
i:FERTILE MINDS By
J. MADELEINE NASH Sunday, June 24, 2001
ii: IBID
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