Educational Psychology—Limitations and Possibilities

174 The Praeger Handbook of Education and Psychology
She then began researching all previous methods of working with this child population. In doing
so, she determined that the clinical environment in which her young patients were forced to live
was contributing to their disabilities. Montessori came to believe that meaningful settings were
critical to children’s cognitive development. She was convinced that children’s natural sensorial
instincts would lead them to interact with the tools and materials around them, which they would
then use to construct meaning of their world. Therefore, Montessori concluded that in order for
her young patients to make progress, they needed to exist in more humane surroundings where
they had appropriate materials to touch, feel, and manipulate. She decided that these children
would never be cured in hospitals; instead they needed to be educated in special schools. This
conclusion turned her attention from medicine to education and crystallized what was to become
her life’s work (see Kramer, 1988).
In searching for models, Montessori discovered two French doctors, Jean Itard and Edouard
Seguin, who had developed educational materials based on sensorial and physiological stimulation
that they had used successfully with “deficient children.” Montessori was sure that these materials
held the key to success with her child patients at the clinic. Having concluded that sensorial
experiences were essential to the psychological and cognitive development of these children, she
determined that if provided with an environment in which sensorial materials were present, her
patients would naturally use these materials to engage in the learning process. Thus, Montessori’s
perspective suggested that children possessed an inherent desire to learn and that they would learn
best through self-instigated actions in an appropriate environment. Before long, her novel ideas
regarding the cognitive and psychological needs of children with disabilities became publicly
acknowledged and she was soon lecturing widely about the imperative for a new kind of education
for “problem children.”
In 1900, Montessori was appointed director of the Orthophrenic School, an institution newly
designed to serve “mentally incompetent children.” This was the first school of its kind for such
children in Rome. Montessori used the opportunity to experiment with the sensory materials developed
by Itard and Seguin. Maintaining her belief that observation was critical to understanding
children’s needs, she studied her pupils carefully as she presented them with the materials. In this
way, she gained important insights into their cognition and modified the materials and methods of
presenting them as the pupils’ developmental requirements became apparent to her. Montessori’s
practices contributed significantly to the field of educational psychology as they functioned to
enhance understandings about the needs and characteristics of children’s development at various
stages (Standing, 1995).
On the basis of the information Montessori gained through her critical observations, she created
a continuum of materials that captivated the children’s natural interests while gradually bringing
their understanding of concepts from the concrete and sensorial into increasing abstraction. For
example, one of Montessori’s designs was a three-dimensional wooden alphabet. The vowels
were painted red and the consonants blue. The children instinctively held and touched the letters
over and over again. Building on their natural curiosity, Montessori used the opportunity to repeat
the sounds of the letters while the children felt them. Eventually, students began to internalize this
letter–sound correspondence and over time, many of them learned to write and read. This form
of education would later become known as the world-famous Montessori Method (Montessori,
1912).
Montessori’s philosophies and practices worked so well that the children who had once been
classified as unteachable, and assigned to live in asylums, became able to master a multiplicity
of skills previously thought totally beyond their capabilities. By 1903, many of the students in
her charge were even able to pass the standard sixth-grade tests given to “normal” children in the
Italian public school system.
Never content with her initial successes, Montessori found her program’s achievements troubling.
She concluded that if her “deficient” students were able to meet the standards expected of