Goals & Principles
Goals of Montessori Education
Montessori educators today still believe that children are the aptest to learn when they are empowered to do so. The Montessori classroom allows them to foster friendships, learn, and develop critical thinking skills.
We’re going to outline the specific goals that we little wings academy set for ourselves. Please notice that these are the goals that we set in place for ourselves. While they are aimed at educating our children.
Make Learning Joyful
little wings academy believe that learning should be joyful for young children. It shouldn’t be about a letter grade or a percentage. Learning should be accomplished through educational toys that teach children how to get along with others, solve problems for themselves and as a team, and learn through a fun hands-on approach.
Children eventually develop an appreciation for learning and become eager to continue on their educational journey when they learn in this setting.
Grow Self Confident
Montessori educators also want to help children become self-confident. A lack of self-confidence can inhibit the ability to learn. Children who are afraid of failure often fail for lack of trying to master a task.
Children in Montessori settings are guided by teachers who reinforce positive outcomes with praise. In addition, they applaud children for strong efforts, even if they fail. They build the children back up after a failure, and they set them on a path that will lead to an eventual successful outcome.
The result is that Montessori educated children have a self-confidence not only in their ability to learn new things but in themselves overall.
Encourage Curiosity
Children are naturally curious beings. It’s how they learn. Our goal is to provide educational tools, games, and materials that continually encourage children’s curiosity. This is what motivates them to explore their world, interact with new people, and discover how things work.
The result of curiosity is learning. These children learn abstract principles through their classroom interactions with learning materials.
For example, when using sound materials, they quickly realize it makes a certain sound. To make that sound again, they must depress the exact same button for it they press the wrong button it will make a different sound. The child has just learned the abstract principle of cause and effect, even without having the language to express the terminology.
You could never explain that to a child. They need to figure it out for themselves through curiosity.
Set Children up for Educational Success
We want children in Montessori programs to be set up for long-term educational success. Think of some things that made students successful. You probably thought of points such as self-confidence, good habits, a love of learning, working well with others in the classroom.
All of these are hallmarks of Montessori principles. We know that children are capable of learning. Our job is to help them become the best learners that they can be from an early age. Those will become instilled values that will guide them throughout the rest of their educational journey and extend into adulthood.
Establish “Can Do” Attitudes
Children in Montessori programs are able to learn at their own pace even within a group setting. Because of this, they are able to interact with the learning materials as much as they need to, for as long as they need. We don’t place value on how quickly children master a skill or task, we place focus on whether or not they accomplish it eventually.
This teaches Montessori children to be persistent, never give up, and develop a “can do” attitude.
This is a skill that will prove to be very valuable in life.