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VOLUME 17
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Welcome to Volume 17 of The Mark of a Leader E-zine. We have had a lot of interest in our SPECIAL OFFERS for MPI, CCGD and Incentive Works customers, so we're pleased to say we are extending the offers. If you are a member of MPI or CCGD, or visited us at Incentive Works in Toronto last month, we'll give you a 25% Discount on any booking that you make before October 31. This can be for any conference that is held before the end of 2007, and is applicable on the first day fee. Hopefully you have already received one of our Offer emails. If not, please simply email us at info@themarkofaleader.com. The Mark of a Leader will make your next conference amazing: this discount simply makes it even more irresistible. September is the time when those of us with kids get back into the routine of school. So we thought it appropriate this month to feature a leader who changed the world of education, and had a powerful impact on many of us and our children. We hope you enjoy the great story of Maria Montessori. Yours in leadership
Please visit our website at www.themarkofaleader.com |
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FEATURE
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QUOTABLE QUOTES "Be bold. If you're going to make an error, make a doozy. Don't be afraid to hit the ball." Billie Jean King |
MARIA MONTESSORIIf education is always to be conceived along the same antiquated lines of a mere transmission of knowledge, there is little to be hoped from it in the bettering of man's future. For what is the use of transmitting knowledge if the individual's total development lags behind? 
Italy, 1870. A woman's opportunities were severely limited. Women 'belonged' to their fathers, husbands, brothers, uncles... and their future was determined by them and the all-male Catholic church. Women were not allowed a public education, a bank account, ownership of property, or a vote. It was into this male dominated world that young Maria Montessori was born. Hers was an educated but not wealthy family, one that had never strayed from the social "norm". Their daughter, however, was not someone for whom "norms" held much sway. She was fascinated with science, and very good at it, and defied her patriarchal society by becoming the first female physician in Italy in 1894. The males who ran the medical profession did not know what to do with this strong willed and academically excellent young woman, so she was given the task of caring for - educating - those whom the society had deemed "mentally retarded" and "impossible to educate". She was given a psychiatric position the University of Rome. There she began exhaustive studies into how children learn. She became convinced that children can learn from their environment, thereby teaching themselves, a theory which was totally contradictory to the accepted practice of teaching by lecture. |
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QUOTABLE QUOTES "Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time." Thomas Edison |
Montessori set out to change the traditional relationship of active teacher and passive student. She believed that active environments involving games, explorations, and many tactile and exploratory materials would keep childrens' interest and attention. The teacher's role became more facilitator that lecturer - intervening to help individual children when needed at the time when they specifically needed it. Her new ideas had considerable success. Even so called "retarded" children flourished in her learning environments. In 1907, she left the academic world to open a casa dei bambini or children's house in a slum outside Rome. Here she took in young children who had been written off because of the impact of the horrible poverty in which they were raised. Once again, in classrooms where they explored, interacted with their environment, and could develop at their individual pace, the results were impressive. In fact, even Montessori was surprised. Children were reading and adding 4 and 5 digit numbers at ages 4 and 5. 
Her success was so significant that she was soon asked to take her methods to other countries. She traveled Europe, Africa, India, Sri Lanka, and ultimately America, helping teachers redesign the way they taught and the way their students learned. In 1922, while serving a post as a government Inspector of Schools, she was forced to leave Italy because of her staunch opposition to Mussolini's fascism. She continued to travel the world spreading her methods through the remainder of her adult life, and was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize three times. She died in Holland in 1952. Today, thousands of schools around the world carry the name or accreditation "Montessori" and continue Maria's work of transforming the classroom into a place where all children have a chance to flourish, regardless of their learning ability or financial capabilities. |
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QUOTABLE QUOTES "It's easy to make a buck. It's a lot tougher to make a difference." Tom Brokaw |
And what is the mark of Maria Montessori, and what can we learn from it today in the early part of the 21st century? The key to her method is engaging the child in their environment with all their senses, and allowing them to grow and learn, to some degree at their own speed. She created active classrooms, though there was excellent discipline. She recognized that all children are different, each having different skills and different ways of relating to the world. She believed those differences must be recognized in a learning environment. As a parent of a child whose learning increased exponentially in a Montessori classroom, I can speak for the effectiveness of her simple ideas. And I thank Maria Montessori for the tremendous impact she has made on children around the world. I would also offer that adults are no more disposed to sit passively in a conference room for 8 hours than they were as children in a classroom. As you put together your next great PowerPoint "deck", I encourage you consider how Maria Montessori might have approached engaging your audience! It would not have included charts!
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Please visit us at www.themarkofaleader.com. Copyright 2006 Mark of a Leader |
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