Multimodal Representation of Educational Meanings in Montessori Pedagogy

In Montessori multi-age classrooms, specifically those prepared for children from 3 to 6 years and for children from 6 to 9 years, extended verbal interaction in which teachers and students construct and negotiate educational meanings is not the central feature of the pedagogy. Instead, Montessori pedagogy, since its inception a century ago, has revolved around the precise use of distinctive concrete objects. The Montessori objects represent, and re-represent, educational meanings in concrete and manipulable form, using multiple modes of representation. They are described as 'material of development' by their designer, Maria Montessori (1965a [1918: 67]), who also advises teachers that the objects are 'necessary only as a starting point' in any developmental cycle. This chapter will draw on the socio-cultural view of development, first proposed by Vygotsky (e.g. 1978, 1986), and a social semiotic analysis of meaning, drawing on systemic functional linguistics (e.g. Halliday, 2004), to review the Montessori objects and their function in Montessori pedagogy from two perspectives. The first of these examines the enhanced pedagogical opportunities which emerge when educational knowledge is represented, and re-represented, in multiple modes, as exemplified by the Montessori objects and their use. The second perspective examines design constraints which distinguish the Montessori objects from other multimodal teaching aids, and which, it can be argued, enhance the pedagogic force of the objects in significant ways.