This book is Dr. Montessori's first monograph on children's education and has been translated into more than 20 languages. It is a summary of her own experience in creating "Children's Home". It is the publication of this book that makes her one of the most influential educators in the theory and practice of children's education in the world. This book reveals the theoretical principles behind Dr. Montessori's educational innovation, introduces the guiding principles of Montessori's method to parents, teachers and educational administrators, and teaches how to "let children learn freely through their own efforts". Through the methods introduced in this book, children's sense of order and logical thinking ability can be cultivated.
Montessori handbook of children's education
This book is an operation manual written by Dr. Montessori at the request of countless parents and teachers who are interested in her method during his teaching of Montessori method in the United States. This manual teaches people the teaching AIDS and skills used by Children's Home and how to provide a "self-education" environment for children. Since Montessori founded the first "Children's Home", all the teaching AIDS in Montessori classrooms are very uniform. In this book, Dr. Montessori teaches children how to use these teaching AIDS to stimulate their observation, cognition and judgment before teaching. Dr Montessori emphasized that each child's method is different, and the role of adults should be to guide children to experiment by themselves, so that they can realize their mistakes and take necessary risks in their study.
The secret of childhood
It is Montessori's exploration and solution to the mystery of preschool children, which records her research and education work in preschool children and expounds the principles and methods of preschool education. Montessori pointed out in the introduction: "The child is not a stranger who can only observe from the outside. More precisely, childhood constitutes the most important part of life, because a person is formed at an early age. " "unremitting and sincere efforts for the benefit of children will enable us to discover human secrets, just as scientific investigation and research will enable us to gain insight into many natural secrets."
The Secret of Childhood is the most vivid book to understand the secret of children's development and growth. In the book, Montessori vividly describes the physical and psychological characteristics of children and reveals the revolutionary concept of the mystery of children's growth. It lets the world know that children have rich potential, but only in an environment suitable for their age can their psychological life develop naturally and reveal their inner secrets. The reason why some children can't develop normally is mainly because they are ignored and suppressed by adults. So what I feel most is that the principles and methods of early childhood education should be to understand and respect children and provide necessary help for children to realize their potential according to the laws of their physical and mental development.
However, Montessori's educational methods also have some limitations, such as overemphasizing the role of work in children's physical and mental development, ignoring the role of games, and only treating games as a pleasant pastime in leisure time; Too much emphasis on the value of teaching AIDS, while belittling the value of toys; With mysticism and religious color and so on. Therefore, in the process of learning and drawing lessons from Montessori's educational theory and method, we should use, transform and innovate it in line with the purpose of all for children and combined with specific conditions.
Discover children
The reason why Montessori's education method can influence the whole world's education system is that she has formed her own revolutionary view of children on the basis of summarizing Rousseau's, pest's and Froebel's naturalistic education thoughts. She believes that children have an innate "inner vitality", a positive, active and developing existence with infinite power. The task of education is to stimulate and promote children's "inner potential" and make them develop naturally and freely according to their own laws. She believes that children should not be treated as objects, but as people. Children are not containers instilled by adults and teachers; Not wax or mud that can be shaped at will; Not a piece of wood that can be carved at will; It is not a flower or animal cultivated by parents and teachers, but a living, energetic and developing person. Educators, teachers and parents should carefully observe and study children, understand their inner world and discover the "secret of childhood"; Love children, respect their personality, and promote the natural development of their intelligence, spirit, body and personality. She also put forward a series of laws about children's development by using first-hand observation data and "Children's Home" experiment.
Montessori believes that every child needs to observe, react to the outside world, study, concentrate and even leave himself alone. To this end, Montessori has been committed to breaking the existing educational tradition and seeking new ways to understand and love children. In this book, she describes the characteristics of children and teaches how to arouse their enthusiasm for learning more fully. As Montessori said: "Even for those very young children, our goal should not be to prepare them for school, but to prepare them for their lives."
An attractive mind
Dr Montessori's seal works are masterpieces of Montessori's thoughts and methods.
This book is one of the most popular books of Dr. Montessori, which can best reflect her theoretical innovation. In this book, we can see that her thoughts are still ahead of the times and are very important. For example, education is not "what the teacher did", but the natural development of human beings plays a decisive role in it; Children's knowledge is not completely acquired through education, but through children's experiences in their environment; Education should not just stay in the curriculum and timetable, it must conform to the reality of human beings, and so on. This book combines Montessori's exploration of children's development and her exposition on "how to establish new educational methods", and is a must-read for understanding Montessori's educational thought.