My Philosophy

Favorite Methods and Theorists

My sisters and I all attended a Montessori school growing up. My mother strongly believed in her method. My mother was a free spirit herself and did not believe in children sitting on a chair learning. She believed they learn so much more by physically touching objects and exploring out of will instead of the teacher choosing the subject of the day for them.

I love Montessori’s teaching style and I believe the knowledge I know today is because I went to a Montessori school. I also know that most children learn with joy at a young age and Montessori’s method sets up a great foundation for wanting to learn in the future. Montessori has five different section in the classroom: Practical Life, Sensorial Learning, Language, Mathematics, and Cultural Learning (Montessori, 1964) with a sequence taught in order.

Montessori practice I have in my classroom is placing studying materials on lowered shelves which are being arranged in a specific sequence, beginning with the simplest activities and increasing in complexity (Estes, & Krogh, 2012). I know having the project low enough encourages them to grab what they want to learn at the moment. Teachers keep exchanging those materials as the year passes by for harder projects for the children to learn. Especially if a child in more advanced, there are project designed for that particular child and only that child can do it. When a younger one wants to try, I will encourage them a different one that is the level before to work up to that level.

Approach to Teaching

I specialize in the Montessori method but also decided to add the Gardner theory of multiple intelligences in my classroom. He believed in 8 different ways we learn! I plan to cover all of his intelligences in the classroom and I think it is important that children are able to have variety ways of learning in a classroom. One of my favorite part about teaching is to discover interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligence with the children. When a situation occurs, I ask him or her how he is feeling or how do you think that make the other person feel. It is a special moment to look at a child in the eyes when s/he are deeply thinking about how they feel and how the other is possibly feeling.

Montessori’s goal was to support children’s independence while offering them enough structure to investigate and learn without impeding the learning process of other pupils (Mooney, 2000). I do believe that children learn no matter what at a young age because they are so curious. I still learn best when I am curious about something and have to research to get the answer. Why won’t we give that chance to the children? Let them learn what they are curious about and in the way they want to discover. Not the way teachers telling them all the answers all the time.