|
MLK's General Curriculum
Martin Luther King Montessori School bases its curriculum on the teaching philosophy of Dr. Maria Montessori. Dr. Montessori believed that no human being is educated by another person. He must do it himself or it will never be done. A truly educated individual continues learning long after the hours and years he spends in the classroom because he is motivated from within by a natural curiosity and love for knowledge. Dr. Montessori felt, therefore, that the goal of early childhood education should not be to fill the child with facts from a pre-selected course of studies, but rather to cultivate his own natural desire to learn.
In the Montessori classroom this objective is approached in two ways:
- By allowing each child to experience the excitement of learning by his own choice rather than by being forced;
- By helping him to perfect all his natural tools for learning, so that his ability will be at a maximum in future learning situations. The Montessori materials have this dual long-range purpose in addition to their immediate purpose of giving specific information to the child.
A Montessori classroom consists of the five core areas: Practical Life/Everyday Living, Sensorial, Language, Math, and Geography/Science. It is in these five areas that children, regardless of age, economic background, color of skin or religious affirmation, learn all skills to assist them in and out of the classroom.
In The Absorbent Mind, Dr. Montessori wrote, "The most important period of life is not the age of university studies, but the first one, the period from birth to the age of six. For that is the time when man's intelligence itself, his greatest implement is being formed. But not only his intelligence; the full totality of his psychic powers... At no other age has the child a greater need of an intelligent help, and any obstacle that impedes his creative work will lessen the chance he has of achieving perfection." |
