Today, on November 14, the country is celebrating the 132nd birth anniversary of the first prime minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru, as Children's Day or Bal Diwas. Nehru had viewed children as country's future and had wanted their quality development through proper upbringing and education. Instead of ritualistic events that now marks the day, I thought of revisiting the early childhood pedagogy of Maria Montessori on this day.
Italian physician turned early childhood educator of early childhood, Maria Montessori, treated children as best teachers for her as reflected in educational philosophy and scientific pedagogy of early childhood education called ' Montessori Method'. She had stressed the precept that teachers needed to know the child first and foremost and develop activities for the holistic development of the child.
Montessori's early childhood pedagogy emphasizes development of a child's pro-action and self-paced unfolding of his or her natural learning abilities experiential and practical play. According to Montessori, the goal of early childhood education should be to activate the child’s own natural desire to learn. She had deemed the early childhood stage (0-6 years) as the most important stage for life and learning.
She had considered learning as process or procedure and had once said, "One test of the correctness of educational procedure is the happiness of the child." She held that education was a natural process carried out by the human individual and was acquired not by listening to words, but by experiences in the environment.
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