What is Montessori Integrative Learning?
Montessori Integrative Learning combines the ideas of integrative learning with the wisdom of the Montessori vision, all experienced in an online “Montessori-process” environment.
In To Educate the Human Potential, Maria Montessori writes, “The fundamental principle in education is the correlation of all subjects and their centralization in the cosmic plan.” The Montessori Method, and hence the TIES M.Ed. is predicated on this integration. For a century Montessori’s methodology was applied only to the first three planes of development, birth through adolescence.
Originally, TIES did not set out to establish adult Montessori environments. However, in reviewing our academic contributions since 1996, we discovered that the program of study is congruent with Montessori ways of knowing-being: the three period lesson (give, share, receive), the prepared environment, from details to wholes and wholes to details, the “Circle” as a learning community in dialogue, freedom within limits, no grades, love as cosmic manifestation, multi-age teaching and learning, and scientific pedagogy.
Create Your Individual Focus
Students at The Institute for Educational Studies (TIES) have great freedom to follow their personal, “cosmic task.” It all starts with choosing one of four emphasis areas, then discovering a deeper experience as studies unfold.
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“Montessori Integrative Learning is a love story with the Universe.”
~Sarah Etherington, TIES Graduate
Who was Maria Montessori?
Maria Montessori was born in 1870. Throughout her early years she wanted to be a medical doctor, claiming she would never be a teacher. After focusing on the sciences and engineering during her secondary years she decided to enter Medical school. Turned away by the establishment she persisted until she gained entry.
Her initial work was with mentally challenged children in a psychiatric ward. Through her observations she determined that they were sensorially-deprived so she extended the ideas of Seguin and Itard by providing materials for the children to manipulate. In time, these hospitalized children learned to read and write at advanced levels. Her work gained world-wide attention.
After 30 years of observing children in her “prepared environments” she became increasingly aware of the profound possibilities for the development of a “new” personality… one that had the potential for seeding a “new humnanity’ that would be capable of building a “new world” at peace. (International Congress at Oxford, 1936).
From 1939 through 1946, Montessori lived with her son, Mario in India. Originally planning for a six-month vist to offer courses for teachers, the Montessoris were unable to return to Europe because of World War II. During those years she wrote her most seminal works: To Educate the Human Potential, Education for a New World, Education and Peace and The Absorbent Mind. These and more, taken as a whole, bring us to the realization that Montessori education holds the potential for changing the human journey during the 21st century.