What is Montessori

“A child’s work is to create the man he will become”

– Dr. Maria Montessori

The PAMS Montessori Education is based upon 100 years of Scientific Research with a clearly defined Conceptual Framework. It requires 18 to 24 months of teacher education before a teacher is qualified as a PAMS educator.
The PAMS framework is based on scientific research over the last 200 years, and has been successfully implemented in over 22,000 schools in more than 100 countries, cultures and languages.

A key concept of the authentic Montessori approach is the importance of a prepared environment. This environment is established to:

PAMS curriculum and teaching approach is based on research from the 1800’s including the most recent research completed on brain development.

The primary influences of the PAMS Montessori approach are:

Also incorporated into the PAMS curriculum are the results of several other researchers

Montessori implements THE 8 EVIDENCE-BASED PRINCIPLES FOR OPTIMAL EDUCATION Identified by the research of Angeline Stoll Lillard Of the University of Virginia

There is now extensive research to support the insight that movement and cognition are closely entwined. This makes perfect sense because our brains develop in response to our actions and movements, not as the product of sitting still and considering abstractions. Both Montessori and Piaget noted that thinking is often expressed by movements of the hands before it can be put into words.”
When we work with children individually and respond to each child’s developmental needs and interests, children flourish in their development. It is when we insist on forcing all the children to do the same activity, whether or not it is appropriate to their level of development or their interest that children progress slowly or not at all.”

Extrinsic rewards are completely unnecessary when we offer children the opportunity to participate in activities and to work with materials that they want to work with. Children respond with intrinsic motivation in response to appropriate invitations to work and play with well designed, developmentally appropriate materials. No rewards are necessary. Children will work tirelessly when given the opportunity to select their own work. Children work for very different reasons than adults.

Adults must work to support themselves and their families, thus, adults work to transform their environment. In contrast, the child works to transform himself through creative acts upon the elements that he encounters within his environment.

In education as in life context is everything! Meaningful experiences are connected to one’s daily life. All too often, schooling is conducted in ways that separate it entirely from real life contexts. If they are to be effective, children’s learning experiences must be relevant to their personal interests and experiences.

Children who are 3 and 4 years of age thrive in environments where they have more competent, older peers who are willing and interested in teaching them. The experience of being the more competent child at ages 4, 5 and 6 is also enriching for the older children.”
Young children have an innate need for order in their lives literally from birth. Order makes it possible for them to trust their environment as consistent, and consistency produces a sense of confidence and well being.

Research shows that order and routines are associated with better cognitive and psychosocial outcomes for young children.” Adults that present, model and scaffold an interesting and challenging activity until the child can take over and do it himself, help the child to make the most progress by using the zone of proximal development.

This adult behavior helps children develop much higher levels of competence and self-confidence than children whose teachers just set up interest centers in the hope that the children will somehow discover something useful there by themselves.