Author Description

Reading and the Brain, Part 1: Developing the Reading Circuit outlines how reading is taught in Montessori, how those strategies correlate with recent reading research, and how the brain is changed through development and connections of disparate brain areas. This paper begins the discussion around the need to develop automatic behaviors necessary for later learning. Born to Move, Part 1: Movement and Cognition, the third paper in this volume, continues that discussion by explaining the link between movement and cognition and explaining why an educational environment rich in sensorimotor materials is necessary to train automatic movements required for executive functions development. Montessori Schools Help Children Exposed to Trauma articulates the various stress levels that children are often exposed to and explains how the Montessori environment, with its concern for the whole child, helps children exposed to toxic stress to develop capacities for resilience and self-reliance. Play is a constant theme in mainstream media with respect to early childhood education; however, the construct of play is rarely defined or examined. Montessori and Play uses the scholarly literature to break down this construct and compares it with the children's work in their Montessori classrooms, dispelling the false dichotomy of work and play. Finally, a white paper (Education for the 21st Century Economy) published in Volume 1 of this series proposed that Montessori is the educational method for developing the skills necessary to be successful in the 21st century knowledge economy. Montessori and the Systems Worldview, however, argues that there is an even more important reason why Montessori is the educational method for the 21st century: Montessori education fosters a systems view of the world, which is necessary for the sustainability of our planet and, hence, our species.