Kids choose their own work in a Montessori classroom

Every day, in classrooms everywhere, teachers grapple with the age-old challenge of how to capture the attention of young people and engage them with the things we think they should know about. In 1907, in the slums of Rome, Dr Maria Montessori designed an experiment to tackle this challenge. In a room housing about 50 very young street children, Dr Montessori placed some carefully designed learning materials, showed the children how to use the materials, and then left them free to choose their own activity. These unlikely children made rapid progress, both socially and academically. They soon overtook their counterparts in schools where the harsh traditional methods of the era were in force. More than a century later Dr Montessori's experiment has become an educational tradition that spans the globe. It continues to be replicated in thousands of classrooms across the world. Last year more than 200 Australian Montessori schools celebrated the centenary of Montessori education in this country.