How it all started...
Each of us Montessori teachers discovered the Method in a different way. All of us, however, graduated from the post-graduate Maria Montessori pedagogy studies at Marie Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin.
We learned more and more about Montessori Pedagogy and with each passing year our aim to establish a special group in our nursery school began to take shape. We visited nurseries in Lublin and in Łódź and teachers who had been working with the method for many years offered their help and shared their experience.
Finally, in 2001, it was decided to establish a Montessori group in our town, Świdnik.
The decision to set up such a class meant raising a lot of money for the cause. Although our nursery has never had financial problems, purchasing educational materials, equipment, and furniture as well as redecorating the classroom was a real challenge. The process of purchasing special equipment was divided into three years. Some equipment was made by Polish craftsmen, our friends and family. Our next step in creating the group was to organize workshops for parents and teach them some basics of Montessori pedagogy. Here Jolanta Wierucka, MA was of great help to us – she shared her knowledge and experience throughout the workshops.
After several meetings, when the parents learned about the method and knew the work and play routine in a Montessori group, those who were interested and determined handed in their declarations.
We must admit it was quite difficult for us at first. Still, we can proudly say that we managed to create the group from scratch and its present shape and character to a great extent mirror our personalities and ideas of what such a group should look like.
After recruitment to the Montessori group we started modernizing the classroom. We wanted to prepare the environment, which is a very important element of M. Montessori's teaching.
According to the Montessori Method, teachers should prepare the environment together with parents. This is exactly what we did and it is thanks to the parents' help and commitment that our classroom looks the way it does.
We wish we had some pictures from the time of the renovation. Just imagine those heaps of plaster we had to scrape off the ceiling and the walls, a pervasive smell of floor varnish, oil and emulsion paint. We really had a lot of work and we had to overcome a lot of obstacles but now we are happy to have the classroom where children can feel safe and build their happy childhood with us.
Our Montessori environment is composed of a bright, spacious classroom, rest corner, bathroom and changing room as well as a separate room for artistic laboratory. In November 2007 we also managed to create a religious and music corner.
Our nursery school has all the essential equipment necessary for the first stage of Montessori education.
Moreover, our nursery is surrounded by a large grassed play area with a playground among fruit trees.
Together with the children's parents we adapted some of the yard for a small garden where the kids can grow herbs, vegetables and fruit – all in accordance with the Montessori-inspired environment.
On September 1, 2003 we established our first Montessori group. It was a great event for all of us. For our special teacher's council we invited the mayor for education in our town as well as the vicar of our local parish and representatives from Marie Curie University of Lublin, headmasters and teachers of schools in Lublin and Świdnik.
2007/2008 was the fifth year of our work with Montessori pedagogy.
What does a year in a Montessori group look like?
Working in a Montessori group is not easy. It requires authentic commitment and constant willingness to help others and to be with the child. It is very satisfying, though. It gives us a strong sense of purposefulness of our work; every day we can see measurable effects in children's progress.
What is characteristic of our group is this remarkable cooperation between teachers and parents, which serves our mutual purpose – child's well-being.
Parents are an important part of our group. They actively engage in the group's work, they take part in its life and our job is to encourage them to do it. That is why our doors are always open for parents. They assist us in organizing, economic and executive work. They are also our frequent guests during the day, when their children are still at nursery. They can, for example, take part in the ritual of making tea with their own and other children. They systematically help us organize different events, celebrations, occasional meetings. They often prepare Nativity plays for children, Christmas and Easter meetings, bonfires, sleigh rides, family picnics, the end of the school year celebrations in a stud farm etc.
In our group there is a really friendly and homely atmosphere. Parents are close not only to their own children but to all the members of the group who – in turn – are not afraid to ask for help or assistance when they need it.
Furthermore, every year, starting in February, we organize adaptive classes for children who are not members of our community yet.
In March we offer workshops on the Montessori Method for parents who are interested in the subject and want to send their children to our nursery school.
In April and May we have adaptive Montessori classes for children who have been admitted to our group.
Right after holidays we invite our new children’s parents for special workshops which take place in September and November. These are usually three meetings during which we discuss the adaptive process of three-year-olds.
In our Montessori group there are children aged three, four and five. Such multi-age groups promote developing co-operation, keeping friendly relations and getting to know each other's interests; the age variety also encourages good manners and inspires teaching and learning.
We realize Montessori pedagogy by helping children develop their independence and faith in their own abilities. We also help them develop their talents and skills and teach them respect for order and work. Children are also taught to appreciate silence and in this atmosphere, which inspires individual and group work, they also learn to concentrate on a task and help each other - without competition but with respect for other children's work.
In May 2007 our Montessori group obtained the patronage of the Polish Montessori Association. It is a very important document for our nursery, because we are one of very few schools in Lublin province that were distinguished that way.
By providing the patronage, the Association not only supports establishing schools that work according to M. Montessori pedagogy but it also helps in their development. The patronage is an indicator of the quality and compliance of the educational and didactic work with the principles of Montessori pedagogy.
In September 2007 Nursery School number 4 in Świdnik opened a new Montessori group and in September 2009 we created our third Montessori group.
We are well aware of the fact that this work realizes only part of Maria Montessori pedagogy – the method which may be called the pedagogy of love and great respect for child's developing potential.
Our work in Montessori groups changed us both. It taught us humility and gave us strength to overcome obstacles. Yes! In Montessori groups we experience the world with the child; we learn a lot from children every day.
It has occurred to us on many occasions that Montessori pedagogy gives us a lot of possibilities and satisfaction. However, it does not provide a recipe for a quick and easy life with no difficulties, nor does it create a genius.
We – adults - parents, educators and teachers often forget that children are people. They have their own plan for development, which we often tend to change or modify at all costs so as to make it more attractive in our eyes.
„We think that our children cannot walk, so we carry them in our arms, we assume that they cannot work so we do their work. This is the best way to give them a complex at the very beginning of their life.
Children aspire for independence through work.
They aspire for independence of their body and mind.
They do not care what other people know – they want to learn on their own. They want to experience their environment; they want to absorb it with their senses, through their own, individual effort”
We are extremely happy to work with children in Montessori groups. We believe that children here have a chance to develop peacefully, a chance to become wise, good and responsible people.
We do not mean to criticize traditional nursery education. After all this is how we started our teaching practice.
Now, however, we know - because we experience it every day - that Montessori pedagogy is an alternative also for educators themselves. It is a way to stop complaining, find authentic joy in what you do, see the purposefulness of your work and gain true partners among parents and friends among children.
We managed to enthuse a few of our friends about the Montessori Method. Despite some initial doubts, they do apply the principles advocated in the method. They are growing to become proper Montessori teachers in the future.
My Montessori? Our Montessori?
Montessori is a way of life, both personal and professional. It's a way to perceive people in a friendly, open manner that is full of acceptance. It's an admiration for the child's developing potential. It's the inner peace in our hectic reality.
We respect children and their inner world. We treat them as partners and let them grow according to their own needs. It is not just lip service. The freedom to choose their own place and time to work, the chance to develop their own interests is visible in our children's environment, in the considerable number of different working materials as well as in the group rules of living together that we jointly developed.
We attach great importance to respecting others and taking care of our environment.
A child says „Give me time” and we understand it. We walk beside children and watch them grow. We know that „to love children means to serve them as much as possible”. It is not about replacing them in doing things, though. It is about enabling them to find their own way.
M. Montessori says that every child is born with their own plan of development. Then, step by step, they follow their path. They have every right to choose where to go. We – adults - are there to remove stones from under their feet, but only when it is absolutely necessary.
Kinga Sobiesiak
Beata Kowalczyk