Research Question

How did Montessori education emerge into Canada and how has the curriculum impacted modern education?

In this paper I am going to focus on the emergence of Montessori schooling into Canada from 1910-1915. I plan to look into Maria Montessori’s methods and philosophies and trace who influenced its progression and popularity around the world. I will focus specifically on Alexander Graham Bell and Margaret Potts, as they built the first schools in Canada. I also want to focus specifically on Canadian interest in this new method, and understand why they desired to implement Montessori methods. At the end I want to spend a brief amount of time tying Montessori’s method to modern education system and how today we are beginning to implement Montessori objectives in the public education system.

 

  1. Philosophy of Montessori Schooling

Maria Montessori’s biography which explains her past and her development which was based on what she observed children to do    “naturally,” by themselves, unassisted by adults. Children teach themselves. This simple but profound truth inspired Montessori’s lifelong pursuit of educational reform, methodology, psychology, teaching, and teacher training—all based on her dedication to furthering the self-creating process of the child.

The actual journal publication with Maria Montessori’s method translated into English.

  • Frierson, Patrick. “Making Room for Children’s Autonomy: Maria Montessori’s Case for Seeing Children’s Incapacity for Autonomy as an External Failing,” Journal of Philosophy of Education, 2016

“Montessori proposes a model wherein both children and adults have autonomy, power, and responsibility, but over different spheres. For her, children and adults have different sorts of ‘work’—the child capable of and responsible for working on herself, the adult capable of and responsible for working on nature to create a human environment.”

-Idea that they have distributed responsibilities…. Different from Christopher Clubine’s “Motherhood and Public Schooling in Victorian Toronto,” theory that mother is the determiner of the child’s education and responsible for their education; therefore different from public education system

 

  1. When did it come to Cad? Who brought it?

Gives a description of the first Montessori School in Canada: the Beinn Bhreah in Nova Scotia opened my Alexander Graham Bell and his wife Mabel. Also speaks about second Montessori school opened in Calgary by Margaret Potts.

  • Gutek, Gerald, L & Gutek, Patricia A. “Bringing Montessori to America: S.S McClure, Maria Montessori and the Campaign to Publicize Montessori Education, University of Alabama Press, (2016).

Speaks of the magazine which published Montessori’s methods and how they had a relationship which benefitted one another. Montessori’s methods exploded only when she was published in America.

Also tells of why McClure was compelled him to publish her work, as he was very specific of what he published because his magazine was very prestigious.

  1. What compelled Bell and Pott’s to accept this form of education? What was the public thinking?

“Alexander Graham Bell never had any patience with traditional teaching.. the system of giving out a certain amount of work which must be carried through in a given space of time, and putting the children into orderly rows of desks and compelling them to absorb just as much intellectual nourishment, whether they are ready for it or not, reminds me of the way they prepare pate de foie gras in the living geese…”

Newspaper editorial from local woman about the wrongs of disciplining and how mother’s should begin to follow Montessori methods within the household

Historical newspaper articles from the Canadian prairies

 

  1. Montessori’s influence on public education

BC’s changing public education curriculum today that mirrors Montessori

 

Statement of Process

 

  1. My topic came to me because my boyfriend and his sisters attended a Montessori elementary school. I didn’t know anything about Montessori schooling or it’s history so I saw this paper as an opportunity to learn about something unknown to me. I think this is an important method for me to understand because I want to be an elementary school teacher, so knowing what alternative forms of schooling are out there will help me because I could be teaching kids who come from this background. I think Montessori is an intriguing form of education, and with changing elementary curriculum in the public sector I see a resemblance between the two. The public education curriculum has redesigned itself to be student-centered and flexible, opposing the memory and recall of facts that previously shaped it. I think by learning more about Montessori schooling I could gain guidance and knowledge for my future in teaching, especially since the public sector is adopting Montessori methods.

 

 

  1. The sources I have tell the story of the emergence of Maria Montessori’s educational methods into America. I have a book on Maria Montessori’s biography to get an understanding for who she was and what compelled her to create this new form of education, I have an abundance of primary sources that come from old newspapers after she proposed her methods because I have been very interested in people’s perspectives and inquiries of the new form of education; I have a book which gives an in depth background to Montessori’s methods emergence to America because the Canadian Montessori founder (Alexander Graham Bell) was mentored by American founder (Anne George), I found the Montessori society website which provides the early history of Montessori into Canada to gain an understanding of how Bell began the Montessori school, and found the biographies of Alexander Graham Bell and Margaret Pott’s to understand their background and why they desired to bring Montessori schooling into Canada.

 

  1. I knew Montessori was a ‘freer’ form of learning, but always thought of it as ‘lazy learning’ because there was no discipline and you learned at your own pace. As I read through Maria’s philosophies I am able to relate it societies changing views on education today and no longer hold the view that is ‘lazy.’ I now realize its importance and how it can have very positively effects on a child’s mind.

 

  1. I didn’t have the slightest idea about Montessori schoolings history, but I was very surprised to read that Alexander Graham Bell was the one who brought it into Canada. I never knew Montessori schooling was scientific based and relied so heavily on observation of the children; after reading Maria Montessori’s methods I realized that public education ignored a very important educational system, especially since we are now adopting many of it’s practices.

 

 

  1. I will speak with a librarian earlier into my research. I spent two hours with the librarian and she was able to give me a lot of books and websites that were full of useful information. Before I met with her I really struggled to find sources that were only average, she was able to find gold in a matter of hours.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bibliography

Frierson, Patrick. “Making Room for Children’s Autonomy: Maria Montessori’s Case for Seeing Children’s Incapacity for Autonomy as an External Failing,” Journal of Philosophy of Education, 2016. Pg 334-340.

 

Fisher, Dorothy C. “A Montessori Mother.” Henry Holt and Company. 1912.

 

Gutek, Gerald, L & Gutek, Patricia A. “Bringing Montessori to America: S.S McClure, Maria Montessori and the Campaign to Publicize Montessori Education, University of Alabama Press. 2016.

 

Kramer, Rita. “Maria Montessori a Biography.” University of Chicago Press. 1983. Pg.158-165.

 

“Peels Prarie Provinces.” University of Alberta. 2009. http://peel.library.ualberta.ca/index.html

 

Pendleton, Renee D. “Maria Montessori: A brief Biography.” North American Montessori Teachers’ Association. http://www.montessori-namta.org/Maria-Montessori

 

“The Early History of the Montessori Movement in North America and the Earliest Montessori Schools in Canada and the U.S.A,” MSC Website, 2017, Retrieved from http://www.montessorisocietycanada.org/earlyhistory.html

 

Tozier, Josephine. “An educational Wonder-Worker the Wonders of Maria Montessori,” McClures Magazine, 1911. Retrieved from http://www.montessorisocietycanada.org/overview.html

 

Whitescarver, Keith; Cossentino, Jacqueline. “Establishing an American Montessori Movement: Another Look at the Early Years.” Montessori Life. 18, 2. Educational Database. 2006: pg 44-49.