Answer 1

a) Montessori Method is for abnormal children

No Montessori method as such in particular is not for abnormal children. It is a method of teaching as per
child's normal nature. All children have inherent inner directives from nature that guide their true normal
development.
The Montessori method is an approach to educating children based on the research and experiences of Italian
physician and educator Maria Montessori (18701952). It arose essentially from Dr. Montessori's discovery of
what she referred to as "the child's true normal nature" in 1907, which happened in the process of her
experimental observation of young children given freedom in an environment prepared with materials designed
for their self-directed learning activity. The method itself aims to duplicate this experimental observation of
children to bring about, sustain and support their true natural way of being.
Applying this method involves the teacher in viewing the child as having an inner natural guidance for his or
her own perfect self-directed development. The role of the teacher (sometimes called director, directress, or
guide) is therefore to watch over the environment to remove any obstacles that would interfere with this natural
development. The teacher's role of observation sometimes includes experimental interactions with children,
commonly referred to as "lessons," to resolve misbehavior or to show how to use the various self-teaching
materials
that
are
provided
in
the
environment
for
the
children's
free
use.
The method is primarily applied with young children (26), due to the young child's unique instincts and
sensitivity to conditions in the environment. However, it is sometimes conducted with elementary age (612)
children and occasionally with infants and toddlers, as well as at the middle and high school level
b) Montessori Method is for Pre school children only
Montessori education is right for children of any age. Some Montessori schools provide all levels of learning, from
infant/toddler though the secondary level. Others offer only certain education levels.
Introducing your child to Montessori as early as possible puts her on the right path to becoming a confident, selfmotivated learner.
Montessori teaching materials engage all the senses, important for students with distinct learning styles. Students
learn by doing and are free to move about, an advantage for those who require a high level of physical activity. And
each child has the latitude to learn at his own pace, without pressure to meet formal standards by a predetermined
time.
Depending on a students needs, the school might refer him for additional resources such as speech and language
therapy, occupational therapy, and/or counseling. Nonetheless, some students may need greater accessibility or
more support services than a given school can provide. In each situation, the individual's needs and the schools
resources should be carefully assessed to ensure a successful match.
c) Montessori Method is very rigid. Children from Montessori Environment find it difficult to adapt
themselves in primary schools
Many children spend only their preschool years in a Montessori classroom. Others complete the elementary
grades before transferring to anotherusually traditionalschool. A smallerbut growinggroup of students
stay with Montessori through secondary school.
A child who transfers out of a Montessori school is likely to notice some differences. For example, instead of
choosing his own work to investigate and master, he might have to learn whats on the teachers lesson plan.
Instead of moving freely around the classroom, theres a chance shell sit in an assigned seat. Instead of learning
in a classroom with a mixed-aged grouping, its probable that shell be placed just with students her own age.
Fortunately, children are adaptable. Poised, self-reliant, and used to working harmoniously as part of a
classroom community, students who transition from Montessori typically adjust quickly to the ways of their
new school

d) The learning of a,b,c,d is very important for the child at pre school level. In the Montessori method, the
language program does not start with a,b,c,d, so its inefficient .
Montessori method do not teach children the letter sounds in alphabetical order. Instead teach them in small
groupings of letters, starting with consonants most often seen that are very different from one another with one
vowel sound incorporated into each group. (such as a, b, g. m)
This way the children learn the sounds independently from similar sounds or similarly shaped letters (letters like
b and d are presented in different groups, as are p and q, as are the short vowel sounds i and e). Later children
are introduced to the "long" vowel sounds and the situations where they come about as well as the differences in
the hard and soft c and g. It is at this time, that, if needed children are given work to compare similar sounding
or looking letters if they still need help in differentiating between the
It is true, Montessorians do not begin the teaching of reading by teaching children the names of the letters. This
is because they then begin to confuse the letter name with the letter sound. A situation that becomes even more
confusing because sometimes certain letters do make the sound of their names, and other times they do not.
More so other letter never make the sound of their names. For example: when they see an "A" it sometimes
makes the "A" sound, but just as often it makes the"a" sound as in apple, or the "ah" sound, as in tuba, or even
the "uh" sound in an unstressed syllable as in Australia. Additionally, the letter "B", never makes the
"beeeeeeeee" sound, just as a "J" never makes a "Jaaaaaaaaaa" sound.
This becomes confusing to a child than to learn the names of the letters first and does not easily segue into the
teaching of reading. Because of this Montessorians forgo the teaching of letter names at first and focus on the
predominate sounds of the letters.
Answer 2
Steps taken at primary level to change the present system of education for better:The nation needs an education system that excites and stimulates children, providing them with the learning
they need - and deserve - to fulfill their potential. This means providing a curriculum of practical and vocational
learning alongside theoretical study.
This need for change has never been more pressing. It is not due to the fault of any individual, any school or
even any one political party but due to the simple fact the world has changed - and our education system has not
changed fast enough. Indeed, it is largely based on a system developed over a century ago; a factory
manufacturing model where children are placed on a learning conveyor belt, then sorted, packaged and labelled
according to their so-called intelligence.
However, in this day and age there is no excuse for such a top-down, one-size-fits-all education system that does
not enable all children to thrive in their own way. We must recognise that young people are individuals with
different talents and dreams. As such, not all children learn in the same way. We need to move towards a
system of mass customisation, based on a strong common core of essential skills and knowledge, which allows
young people to develop their own particular talents and aspirations.
We must support young people in discovering what they enjoy and are good at - and who they want to be in
life. And we must encourage and support teachers and schools in responding to these different needs. Young
people will learn if they see learning as important, meaningful and worthwhile.

The Six Steps to Change are:

1. A broad curriculum up to age 14 with opportunities to develop life skills and experience a range of
future options. Life skills such as team work, problem solving and enterprise should be explicitly taught
and assessed through practical activities linked to academic subjects and vocational areas. There should
be a new emphasis on direct experience of future options, including visits to workplaces, colleges and
universities, and hearing at first hand from people, who have already made career and learning choices.
2. At 14 all students, in addition to continuing a broad curriculum, including English, maths and science,
would be supported in choosing a pathway matched to their interest and abilities, each with a different
balance of theoretical and practical learning. For some the pathway will be largely academic and
theory-based; for many it will be a blend of theory and practice, connecting new knowledge and skills
with the wider world; and for some it will be centred on practical learning. The emphasis will be on
breadth and keeping options open for young people while allowing them to pursue their interest in
depth.
3. Students on practical and vocational courses would be taught in specialist facilities or specialist
institutions and by appropriately experienced staff. This will ensure students are motivated and receive
an excellent professional education. There will be many more specialist institutions, the nature of
which would be determined locally. Teachers of vocational subjects would be appropriately
experienced, trained and receive the same pay and conditions as those teaching academic subjects.
4. At 16, students would choose to specialise within their pathway, change to another pathway or enter
employment with training. For example students on the engineering pathway might specialise in
electrical engineering. Some students might choose to leave full time education and start an
apprenticeship.
5. Beyond 18, students would have the opportunity to study at degree level in a centre of vocational
excellence endorsed by employers. This would raise the status of vocational learning, and provide clear
progression routes, while improving the employability of the students.
All practical and vocational courses should reflect the demands of the modern workplace, be formally endorsed
by employers and evolve under their guidance as well as supported by current experts. Students on such
courses should spend at least ten per cent of their study in the workplace i.e. eight weeks over two
years. They would have a programme of study during this time and receive guidance and support from a trained
workplace mentor.
Steps to Change Manifesto aims to eliminate the current academic bias and the corrosive divide between
academic and vocational learning, which views know how as inferior to know what. It outlines a way to
ensure there more high-quality options that combine theory and practice and are regarded by all as credible
alternatives to a high-class academic route.
The Indian Education system is in great trouble. These are some of the faults I find in the current education
system.

Several children do not even get a basic elementary education.

The rich and upper middle class in cities find decent quality private schools to send their children to.

Even in these schools, getting a pass in the exams is the priority, not learning. Even these schools
fail in teaching various arts, and in particular common sense to children.
Both the private and government schools in smaller towns and villages are uniformly pathetic.

1. Compulsory free education should be made available till Class XII

The state and central governments should completely absorb the cost of providing free education till 12th
standard to every child, irrespective of caste, religion and economic status. This should cover not just school
fees, but also free books, food if necessary, uniform clothing and even a place to stay if the parents cannot

afford that to their children. Those with money can always opt for their favourite private school, and feed their
own children. Alternately, some rich may decide to send their children to the govt. schools.
2. Govt. schools should be run by private entities/entrepreneurs.
It is very doubtful if the government can manage hiring qualified teachers and provide quality education to
children. Like in the USA, the government can opt for building the schools and make them available to private
companies on a long-term lease, based on auction. The organization that comes up with the lowest bid and
agrees to maintain the best quality education would be chosen to run each school in each locality.
We need to introduce a concept of 'education credit'. It is an amount equal to the average cost incurred in
teaching a child in the privately run Govt. schools. This education credit is made available to every child. The
child can either avail of the education by exchanging this credit in the Govt. owned and private operated
school, or cash this portion against the fees and other costs incurred by them in a completely private school.
This way, the tax payer does not have to feel miffed that his her money is used only to train OTHER children.
Panchayat and municipalities must own and manage the school premises and oversee the operation of the
private entities running the school.

3.Alternate education must be promoted

It appears to me that there is no need to teach anyone for more than 3 hours a day till the secondary school.
Therefore, the available education infrastructure can be used more effectively through the shift system. Three
normal shifts can be run between 0700-1000, 1100-1400 and 1500-1800 hours. An hour gap in between for the
children to leave the school and the next set to walk in. In the late nights - from 1900-2200, the facility can be
used to provide education to old and unlettered. Facilities such as the building, furniture, library, and computer
center, laboratories and play fields can be used very efficiently in this
manner.
Answer 3
Various possibilities of development that exercise of practical life offered to a child:
Introduction to Practical Life
What is Practical Life
Practical: means basic, useful, purposeful
Life: means the way of living.
Practical life Exercises are just that, they are Exercises so the child can learn how to do living activities in
a purposeful way.

Meaning and Purpose of Practical Life

The purpose and aim of Practical Life is to help the child gain control in the coordination of his
movement, and help the child to gain independence and adapt to his society. It is therefore important to
Teach teaching, not correcting (Montessori) in order to allow the child to be a fully functionional
member in hios own society. Practical Life Exercises also aid the growth and development of the childs
intellect and concentration and will in turn also help the child develop an orderly way of thinking.
Exercice Groups
Practical Life Exercises can be categorized into four different groups: Preliminary Applications, Applied
Applications, Grace and Courtesy, and Control of Moment.

In the Preliminary Exercises, the child learns the basic movements of all societies such as pouring, folding,
and carrying.
In the Applied Exercises, the child learns about the care and maintenance that helps every day life. These
activities are, for example, the care of the person (i.e the washing of the hand) and the care of the
environment (i.e dusting a table or outdoor sweeping).
In the Grace and Courtesy Exercises, the children work on the interactions of people to people.
In the Control of Movement Exercises, the child learns about his own movements and learns how to refine
his coordination through such activities as walking on the line.

Reason for Practical Life Exercises

Children are naturally interested in activities they have witnessed. Therefore, Dr. Montessori began using
what she called Practical Life Exercises to allow the child to do activities of daily life and therefore
adapt and orientate himself in his society.
It is therefore the Directresss task to demonstrate the correct way of doing these Exercises in a way that
allows the child to fully observe the movements. Montessori says, If talking dont move, if moving dont
talk.
The directress must also keep in mind that the goal is to show the actions so that the child can go off and
repeat the activity in his own successful way. Montessori says, Our task is to show how the action is done
and at the same time destroy the possibility of imitation. The child must develop his own way of doing
these activities so that the movements become real and not synthetic.
During the childs sensitive period between birth and 6, the child is constructing the inner building blocks
of his person. It is therefore important for the child to participate in activities to prepare him for his
environment, that allow him to grow independently and use his motor skills, as well as allow the child to
analyze difficulties he may have in the exercise and problem solve successfully.
Montessori also saw the childs need for order, repetition, and succession in movements. Practical Life
Exercises also helps to aid the child to develop his coordination in movement, his balance and his
gracefulness in his environment as well as his need to develop the power of being silent.

Characteristics of Practical Life

Because Practical Life Exercises are meant to resemble everyday activities, it is important that all
materials be familiar, real, breakable, and functional. The materials must also be related to the childs time
and culture. In order to allow the child to fully finish the exercise and to therefore finish the full cycle of
the activity, the material must be complete.
In the environment, the Directress may want to color code the materials as well as arrange the materials
based on difficulties in order to facilitate the classification and arrangements of the work by the children.
The attractiveness is also of utmost importance as Montessori believed that the child must be offered what
is most beautiful and pleasing to the eye so as to help the child enter into a more refined and subtle
world.

Practical Life Lessons offered to Children:

1. Construction and integration of the childs personality through their freedom of choice, and through the
variety of their choices. Freedom of choice is necessary for the healthy development of the will.
2. Spontaneous purposeful activity that is only possible when children are allowed to exercise their curiosity
through repetition. It is only through repetition that abstraction is possible. This abstraction brings about a
feeling of completion for the growing child.
3. Development of co-ordination of movement. The child thinks of the activity, wills himself to the activity,
and then does the activity.
4. Development of the physical, mental, and emotional aspects of the child.
5. Purposeful movement that helps the development of the mind, and a sense of achievement. The
development of the childs mind, movement, and senses will in turn, develop the will.
6. Concentration. The child will concentrate on completing an activity as perfectly as possible; all activities
are intelligible, logical, sequential, and exact. Children will internalize this and try to repeat the exercises as
perfectly as possible; all exercises have a motive for perfection.
7. Orderly work habits. The children need to internalize presentations in an orderly manner in order to
reproduce it in an orderly manner.
8. The practical life exercises develop logical thought through the definite logic in the exercises. There is a
beginning, middle, and end to each exercise.
9. The exercises give the children a sense of responsibility from the result of freedom (freedom which is a
result of co-ordination of movement and awareness of the environment). Children have the freedom and
ability to exercise their will within their environment.
10. Social development. All of the practical life exercises teach the children grace, courtesy, patience, and
respect. These elements of social development are re-enforced through the actions of the other children and
through the actions of the teacher.
11. Establish a sense of reality, rooted in real activities (nothing is make-believe). Exercises are lucid, logical,
and realistic. This helps the children pursue reality. If an activity is not meaningful and purposeful than the
mind cannot develop or construct itself.
12. Emotional stability helps the children become familiar with the real world and their environment. It builds
self-esteem, and through that, their dignity will flourish. Materials and activities are therapeutic, meaning
the mind and body work together.
Answer 4
Rote learning is a memorization technique based on repetition. The idea is that one will be able to
quickly recall the meaning of the material the more one repeats it. Some of the alternatives to rote learning
include meaningful learning, associative learning, and active learning Rote methods are routinely used when
quick memorization is required, such as learning one's lines in a play or memorizing a telephone number.
Rote learning is widely used in the mastery of foundational knowledge. Examples of school topics where rote
learning is frequently used include phonics in reading, the periodic table in chemistry, multiplication tables in
mathematics, anatomy in medicine, cases or statutes in law, basic formulae in any science, etc. By definition,
rote learning eschews comprehension, so by itself it is an ineffective tool in mastering any complex subject at an

advanced level. For instance, one illustration of Rote learning can be observed in preparing quickly for exams, a
technique which may be colloquially referred to as "cramming".
Rote learning is the memorization of information based on repetition. The two biggest examples of rote learning
are the alphabet and numbers. Slightly more complicated examples include multiplication tables and spelling
words. At the high school level, the elements and their chemical numbers must be memorized by rote. Many
times, teachers use rote learning without even realizing they do so.
Is rote learning an outdated technique or is there a valid place for its use in the classroom today? Increasingly,
rote learning is being abandoned for newer techniques such as associative learning, meta cognition, and critical
thinking instead of being used as a functional foundation to higher levels of learning.
Its always useful to apply meaningful relationships to basic skills. At the end of the day, however, rote learning
plays a bigger role than most teachers would like to recognize in todays learning climate.
The difference between memory and intelligence
The mental ability to memorize is often used as an indicator of intelligence. No doubt, the two are strongly
linked, but memory is not always a reliable indicator of intelligence. Working memory does not directly affect
the level of intelligence of a student.
Most of the time, a deficit in working memory is due to the structure of learning. Think of working memory as a
filing cabinet. If each piece of information has a separate file, finding the information becomes difficult. If
factors such as stress, lack of sleep, and distractions are involved, finding the information is even harder.
Instead, effective memorization involves categorization of the information and sections within sections of the
filing cabinet.
Memory is not a strong indicator of intelligence. Instead, it is linked to interaction of environmental factors and
training.
Why rote learning is useful
As an alternative approach to subject areas that require memorization with disdain and conflict, teachers can
build higher-level critical thinking skills with a rote learning as the foundation. Thats not to say that there arent
some problems with rote learning. Obviously, rote learning is not beneficial for the student and promotes
disengagement in the classroom.
Not all rote learning has to be approached with a sheet of loose leaf and writing the same word or mathematical
equation over and over again until the students hand cramps. This can result in a loss of focus where the student
starts to challenge themselves on how quickly they can get it over with or how legible their handwriting is. This
is probably not the goal that the teacher had in mind.
When trying to teach something as fundamental as basic math and literacy and the lesson turns into boredom
and dread, then something has gone wrong.
When is there a problem with rote learning?
Rote memorization becomes a problem when its the main focus of the classroom.. When the majority of the
students day is spent on repetition, the foundation for learning becomes shaky.
When the role of rote memorization is an end in itself, instead of a means to an end, rote memorization fails as a
building block to critical thinking.
Of course in the early stages, the stage of actually memorizing the material, it is an end in itself. The end being
that the students gets the information memorized so that they can move into concepts and application. The
longer view is that the information acquired by rote, is the house of higher-level learning.
Once students have these down and memorized, they can more easily combine them and use them in their
thinking. Otherwise, they just have to pause and use a calculator or computer, which will really slows things
downnot to mention disengages and distracts the student.

At the end of a learning experience, you can assess your own learning outcomes by using two basic kinds of
tests: retention tests, which seek to evaluate if you remember what was taught, and transfer tests, which you
must apply what has been learned to a novel situation (Mayer, 1995). If you have not learned, you would have
poor retention and poor transfer performance. If you have learned in a rote way, you probably have good
retention, but would not know how to transfer. If you have learned in a meaningful way, it is likely that you
have both good retention and good transfer.

As this model is developmental, it is often shown as an upward spiral rather than a circle, implying that the
result of the complete cycle is at a higher level than its starting point. Hence following an experience or after
gathering information, there should be a consolidation that draws you to actively explore in your mind the new
information and relate it to previous knowledge, before moving on to new topics. Wherever you start on this
cycle, it is important not to miss out any stages. Learning opportunities will be wasted if you:

Have no theoretical basis or prior concepts with which to make sense of your experience or to devise
action plans;
Are not involved in setting up your own action plans, but simply carry out the directions of others (e.g.
teachers or peers);
Carry out activities without being aware (not thinking) of what is going on; and
do not reflect upon your experiences.
It can be changed by:

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.

Define problems and troubleshoot solutions;

Tolerate ambiguity;
Make and specify your assumptions;
Consider alternatives and be open to new ideas;
See issues from different perspectives;
Develop a line of argument and marshal support for it;
Value evidence;
Collect, aggregate, analyze and portray data;
Produce and generate solutions;
Synthesize knowledge from a variety of sources;
take responsibility to complete sustained problems;
Persist in the face of failure;
Be reflective;
Self-assess your own progress and make corrections;

15. Recognize that knowledge is tentative.