Dear Parents,
As adults, we try to give our children the best start, to open the doors to their future happiness, to give them wings to fly to higher mountain peaks than ourselves. Human development and education is part of this.
We, as Montessori followers, work to support not only education, but assist the overall development of the child’s potential and build him into a person who has the abilities to contribute to others and the world with his unique gifts.
The phrase “materialised abstraction” is essential in Montessori pedagogy. Very often, parents hear about “transition from concrete to abstract” or how the child uses concrete materials in the process of moving towards abstract thinking and work.
What exactly does that mean?
The goal is for the child in the prepared environment to develop an understanding of the concept, to have practical experience in its application from different points of view, to develop his thinking about this concept beyond the concrete, to integrate his abstract understanding in his work.
How does this process happen?
All materials in the Montessori classroom are specifically designed to engage the student’s interest while teaching an important concept. Montessori material is the patient teacher. Each material isolates a certain idea that the child discovers through his own activity. “What the hand does, the mind remembers,” says Dr. Maria Montessori. The adult connects the child to the keys in the prepared environment, using Montessori materials that make the concepts real and easily internalised. The student works abstractly when s/he has developed her/his understanding and mastered the pattern and no longer needs the Montessori material.
What is the student experience? What are the benefits to the child of such an experience?
Involving the hand in the learning process allows students to learn math skills by using concrete materials and progressing at their own pace to abstract concepts. In a short period of time, children in a Montessori classroom go through the same process of discovery, invention, and derivation of inferences and concepts as people in human history. They develop themselves, internalise culture and knowledge, deepen their understanding of how the universe, nature and human society work. The focus is not just on the outcome, but on the process, the work the student has done to achieve the outcome. Children practice life, and this hands-on work not only provides self-confidence and independence, but helps with concentration and memory, leading to more abstract learning of concepts in mathematics, geometry, geography, biology, history and language. Montessori materials provide a way for children to construct their own reality and consciousness by representing it concretely first and allowing children to manipulate and discover the next level of abstraction.
How to get familiar with this process?
The best way to understand how “materialised abstraction” works is to immerse yourself in this world and for a while becoming a child again.
We invite you on a “Silent Discovery Journey”, in which you can feel how the child moves from the concrete to the abstract in the development of language, mathematical thinking, understanding of geometry, the world, the cosmos and human society.
Feel your child’s experience, live their educational journey and visualise where they will be developmentally in a year or two by being our special guests on a “Silent Discovery Journey” on Saturday, December 3, from 9am to 2pm.
You can register here.
