What can Organisational

Psychologists learn from

Dr. Maria Montessori?

John Read, MSc

PhD Research Student
Monash Dept. Psychology
john.read@med.monash.edu.au
 Who was Dr Montessori?

• Italy’s first Women

Doctor 1896
• University of Rome
Psychiatric Clinic

• Medical training
• Anthropology and
Psychology
Dr Montessori was known for?
• From Casa Dei
Bambini in Rome in
• Acute sense of
1906
observation,
experimentation
and rigor

• To many hundred’s
of Montessori
School’s today
 Who was influenced by
Dr Montessori?

Jean Piaget, was Head of the Swiss

Montessori Society for many years

Erik Erikson, had a Montessori

teaching certificate.
And these well known people…

Thomas Edison, noted scientist and

inventor, helped found a Montessori
school

Alexander Graham Bell, noted

inventor, and his wife Mabel
founded the US Montessori
Education Association in 1913.
Who were taught in a Montessori School?

• Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Founders

of Google.com

• Jeff Bezos, Founder AMAZON.COM

• Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Nobel Prize

winner for Literature

• Jacqueline Onassis, editor, former first

lady (John F. Kennedy)
What Does She Have To Offer
Organisational Psychology?

• Scientific Observations
• Scientific Practitioner Role
Model
• Theory Tenets, Methods and
Equipment, Practices and
Learning
As a Scientist she can offer us…

– Constructivist Learning and

Development Theory
– Observations and Findings
– Methods and Equipment
– Explanations

• AHEAD OF HER TIME…

Her observations and tenets…

• Movement leads psychological

development
• Development proceeds from self-
driven proactive interaction with the
environment
• Personality develops sequentially
through sensitive periods of
dramatic growth
She appeared to redefine many major
variables and relationships…
• When personality is defined as all
facets of the person including
physical, mental, affective and
social capabilities
• Work is the major mechanism of
development
• Creating a suitable environment
for work, including the ‘teacher’ and
equipment can have a major impact
on development
 Early Adults: The nature
of infants and children
• Child seeks to perfect her skills
• Perfection may entail many
attempts, revisits and repeats for
reinforcement over a period of time
– all self-directed
• Personality develops sequentially
through sensitive periods of
dramatic growth
Movement leads development…

– Movement, control and refinement of

skill develops personality
– Upward cycle of skill perfection as it is
self-perfection
– Once satisfaction (self-defined) with a
particular skill is achieved may discard
focus on intensively improving that
skill, move on…
 Already working…

• Proceeds from
lesson through
discovery…
• Concentrated
effort
• Focused
attention
 From work… to ‘order’

• Creates:
– a sense of order
– A structured personality

• Through her experience of an

ordered environment
Redefines our expression:
A place for everything and everything in
it’s place…
Other insights that struck a chord?

• The best form of

feedback is self
discovery – the
equipment itself
gives feedback
not the ‘teacher’ –
it doesn’t fit/work
so try something
else…
 Planes of Development

• Montessori identifies the four

Planes as
– Infancy 0 - 6 years
– Child 6 - 12 years
– Adolescence 12 - 18 years
– Maturity 18-24 years
First Plane of Development

• 0 – 3 years unconscious creator –

involuntary and voluntary
movement, pre-disposition to
evaluate stimulus,
• Physical changes in growth and
stamina
• Absorbent mind (like a sponge)
• Sensorial explorer
First Plane of Development

• 3 - 6 years conscious creator –voluntary

movement, intentional hand control,
object manipulation

• Concentrated effort = Normalised child

– Integration of personality
– Intention and movement to create result
– Self-observed results give ‘automatic’
feedback for learning
 Key drives

• Sensorial Asorbtion
from Environment
• Perfection of skill as a
means to perfect Self
• Self-direction evident
and operating
• Develops self through
making simple choices
and fulfilling those
 First Sensitive Periods

• Fundamental development:

– sensitive period for movement, which

is linked to the

– sensitive period for order

First sensitive periods for growth

• Fundamental:
– the sensitive period for the
development of the senses connected
with that of love for the environment
and for details;

– the sensitive period for language.

Within two years, or two and a half years
of life (see Dr Montessori's book: The
Absorbent Mind) the child learns to talk
 Adults were all children once…

–Self-centered (reason
for 1:1 presentations)

–Need love for affective

development

–Develops ego through

self centred work/activity
 Really? Yes really…

• The child naturally concentrates their

mind and activity, leading to integrated
and differentiated growth across intellect,
mind, movement and motor control,
feeling and self-regulation

• Observed extended periods (up to

several hours) of concentration and
engagement under certain conditions
Sensitive periods for growth

• the potentialities for these lie within

the infant/child…
 Sensitivities are needs

• Need ordered environment

• Need self direction and freedom to
choose
• Need moderated stimulation
• Need love, support
• Need nutrition etc
• Need to hear language
• Need freedom to move, protection
from harm
Second Plane of Development

• 6 - 12 years conscious creator –

beyond movement towards
increasing cognitive development
• From Concrete to Abstract
• Skill development
• Socialisation
 Key New Drives

• Understanding of Environment
• Explanation of self, others and
objects and events in time, space,
relationships
• Building epistemological structures
• Use social relationships to build
Sensitivities of 6 – 12 years old

• Sensitive period for understanding

how things work
• Sensorial to abstract
• Creative imagination
• Moral development
• Wider environmental awareness
• Time and space concepts developed
as in geography and history
Sensitive periods for growth

• the potentialities for these lie within

the child…and are revealed through
her action on and with her
environment
 Sensitivities are needs

• Need patience and answers

(moderated knowledge)
• Need exposure to narrative
• Need wider spaces
• Need other age groups
• Different experiences, not simply
sensorial one’s
Third Plane of Development

• 12 - 18 years social creator –

develop social role performance
• Questioning, and self review
• Physical maturation
• Moral reasoning
• Moves beyond family roles to
establish new social relationships
 Key New Drives

• Resolution of moral questions

• Development of moral beliefs
• Development of Gender identity
• Adjustment to physical development
Sensitivities in 12 –18 yr olds

• Sensitive to identity and role

modelling
• Sensitive to social and moral issues
 Adolescents…

• Exploring moral reasoning, selecting

role models as ‘idols’
• Choose moral path
• Explore needs of humanity
 Growth in the Third Plane
• the potentialities for these lie within the
adolescent…and are revealed through their
action on and with their environment…now
both individually and part of small groups,
teams and associations
Fourth Plane of Development

• 18 - 24 years Adult emerges

• Readiness for adult roles
• Life mission
• Social contribution
 Sensitivity

• Self-Actualisation of social
contribution through life mission and
self expression

• Life, Personal and

Career/Occupation development
They still have Adult Drives…

• Absorbtion
• Self-direction
• Continuing Self-perfection
– Ongoing self awareness, understanding
and self knowledge
– Later addressing of incomplete earlier
planes of development e.g. language
• Social and individual role fulfilment
(c.f. Maslow)
 Adult Needs…

• Opportunity to express life mission

• Refine and explore life mission
• Understand self and life mission
better
• Make social contribution
• Develop social relationships
• Find work opportunities
• Self-direct, self-control, self-express
 Adult Development…

• Ongoing moral development

• Ongoing cognitive and behavioural
development (Elliott Jaques)
• Ongoing Self Development
• Continuing Social development
• Ongoing Physical development
Growth in the Fourth Plane

• the potentialities for these lie within

the Adult…and are revealed across
their lifespan from birth.
 Spiral of Development

• An earlier plane always prepares the one

that follows, forms its basis, nurtures the
energies, which urge the individual
towards the succeeding period of life.

1st. Plane 2nd. Plane 3rd. Plane 4th. Plane

0-6 6 - 12 12 - 18 18 – 24+
And Lead to Observations of…

• Nature of Man
• Key dimensions of Development
• Self-directed learning
• Work and Normalisation
• Optimisation

• We’re playing catch…

Have you ever experienced ‘optimal
concentration’ or flow?
• Times when your actions, thoughts
and feelings were focused and
aligned, you felt you were in your
ideal performance zone…

• perhaps it was in sports or whilst doing

some other activity that you really like?

I hope that you have…

Self directed study in action
 So I learnt…

• Conditions that
best promote
growth include:
– Planned
environment
– Liberty and
freedom of
choice
– Largely self
directed activity
 Why did I believe it?

• Substantial face validity and much

other evidence of efficacy
• Anecdotal amazement by all who saw the
schools in operation all over the world
• Improvement by those autistic and street
orphans she taught
• Research paper in US comparing
standard school academic measures with
Montessori and non-Montessori students
• Long list of supporters and one rebuttal,
itself now effectively re-butted
 Simplicity

• Watching children grow

themselves…
 Operationalised…

"In the special environment prepared

... in our schools, the children
themselves found a sentence that
expresses the inner need: 'Help me
to do it by myself!'“

Maria Montessori, The Secret of

Childhood
 Take - Aways

• We are from the infant-child-

adolescent we once were so…

• What are the underlying principles

of adult learning, adult development
and adult performance that seem to
be missing from our current
knowledge?
 Let’s look at
some up to date
models

John Mayer
in Journal
of Clinical
Psychology
December
2004
Personality
Systems
Framework
 The Systems Set

The four parts of the system are:

• energy lattice
• knowledge works
• social actor
• conscious executive
– correspond approximately to MM’s
psychology branch of her def’n of
personality
 The Systems Set

• Criteria for divisions:

– as distinct as possible
– collectively covered the personality
system well,
– corresponded to areas of brain
function, and
– conveyed through their functions a
dynamic sense of what personality
does (Mayer, 2001).
 Where is
Organisational
Psychology’s
Wall Chart?

John Mayer in
Journal
of Clinical
Psychology
December 2004

Psychotherapy
Wall Chart
 Features of a Wall Chart

• Perspective of a Whole System

• Components
• Relationships, dependencies and
influences
• Functioning and operability
• Optimisation

Life is complex,
it has real and imaginary components.
Montessori did research on Literacy
with the US Army
– And found…

Later learning beyond these early

sensitive periods is always slower
and more difficult - but is
significantly better promoted via her
same training methods versus the
old teaching style
Matching learning to the learner

• In Maria Montessori's metaphorical

language, "the successive levels of
education must conform to the
successive personalities of the
child."

• Life-long learning matched to the

personality of the adult…
In summary:
• Educational Pedagogy
– Prepared environment
– Sequential learning from sensorial
through practical to social

• Insights into the nature of man,

learning and development
– Primary Tenets:
• Personality
• Development
• Director not Teacher
In Future:
• Challenges:
• Relate MM’s works to traditional
organisational psychology and lift
the paradigm built currently of
disjointed attributes into a systems
view
• Identify and research system
– Systems components
– Drives and needs as properties of the
human system
In Future:
• Positive Psychology
– Relate MM’s works to emerging
positive psychology – life of man
driven innately towards growth
and development

Thank
You.