Abstract

Teleology is a fundamental aspect of Montessori education. Understanding its implications helps us appreciate Montessori’s deep affinity with Aristotelian thought and how her pedagogy differs from the New Education movement inspired by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The teleological approach has several implications in education: for example, when it comes to understanding concepts such as meaningful learning, active learning, learning stimuli, and progress. To understand the teleological approach in the Montessori method, this article discusses some of its fundamental pillars, such as the prepared environment, control of error, the absorbent mind, sustained attention, the development of personality, purposeful repetition, perfective activity, the joy of learning and the rational nature’s inclination towards its end.
According to Montessori, human activity is naturally oriented towards an end and is ordered by reason. The end of education is the child himself since education consists in perfecting the agent, bringing his potential into action. The child’s eagerness to develop his personality occurs through the spontaneous activity of his absorbent mind and through purposeful repetition, which generates positive habits. The absorbent character of his mind urges him to know, absorbing his surrounding environment. Hence, the prepared environment and control of error are
crucial. Perfective activity, performed with the right and strictly necessary amount of stimuli, helps the child find rest in meaningful voluntary activities done without obstacles. The resulting pleasure should not be understood as a mere experience; it should rather be seen in relation to a natural activity directed towards its end.

Referencias | References

Aquinas, T. (1920). The “Summa Theologica” of St. Thomas Aquinas. London: Burns Oates & Washbourne.

Aristotle (1908). Metaphysics. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Aristotle (1952a). Nicomachean ethics. In R. M. Hutchins & M. J. Adler (Eds.), Great books of the western world (pp. 333-436). Chicago, IL: Encyclopaedia Britannica.

Aristotle (1952b). On the soul (De anima) (J.A. Smith, Trans.) (Vol.8). In R. M. Hutchins & M. J. Adler (Eds.), Great books of the western world (pp. 627-668). Chicago, IL: Encyclo- paedia Britannica.

Avanzini, G. (1995). L’éducation nouvelle et ses concepts. In L’éducation nouvelle et les enjeux de son histoire: Actes du colloque internacio- nal des Archives Jean-Jacques Rousseau (pp. 65-74). Neuchâtel: Peter Lang.

Bergson, H. (2013). L’évolution créatrice. Paris: Presses universitaires de France.

Berlin, I. (1999). The roots of Romanticism. The A.W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts. Prince- ton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Bernacer, J., & Murillo, J. I. (2014). The Aris- totelian conception of habit and its contri- bution to human neuroscience. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 8, 883. doi: https://doi. org/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00883

Dewey, J., & Dewey, E. (1915). Schools of to-mo- rrow. New York: E. P. Dutton & Company.

Driesch, H. (1908). The science and philosophy of the organism. London: Adam and Charles Black.

Ferrière, A. (1911a). Les écoles nouvelles: l’An- gleterre et l’Allemagne. Revue Illustrée, 18, 656-670.

Ferrière, A. (1911b). Les écoles nouvelles: La Suisse et la France. Revue Illustrée, 18-19, 691-696.

Ferrière, A. (1922). L’Ecole active (Forum). Neu- châtel et Genève: Delachaux & Niestle.

L’Ecuyer, C. (2014). The Wonder Approach to learning. Frontiers in Human Neuros- cience, 8, 1-8. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2014.00764

L’Ecuyer, C. (2020). La perspective montes- sorienne face au mouvement de l’Éducation nouvelle dans la francophonie européenne du début du XXe siècle. European Review of His- tory: Revue européenne d'histoire. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/13507486.2020.1765150

Martin, J. R. (2006). Romanticism domesticated: Maria Montessori and the Casa dei Bambini. In J. Willinsky (Ed.), The educational legacy

of Romanticism (pp. 159-174). Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press.

Montessori, M. (1912). The Montessori method. New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company.

Montessori, M. (1917). Spontaneous activity in edu- cation. New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company. Montessori, M. (1927). La discipline et la liberté. Pour l’Ère nouvelle, 29, 111-113.

Montessori, M. (1929). Les príncipes de la psy- chologie appliqués à l’éducation. Pour l’Ère nouvelle, 51, 221-223.

Montessori, M. (1936). El niño y la sociedad. Re- vista de Pedagogía, 174, 241-245.

Montessori, M. (1948a). De l’enfant a l’adoles- cent. Bruges: Descles.

Montessori, M. (1948b). The discovery of the child. Adyar: Mandras.

Montessori, M. (1949). The absorbent mind. Ad- yar: The Theosophical Publishing House.

Montessori, M. (2007a). Les étapes de l’éduca- tion. Paris: Desclée de Brouwer.

Montessori, M. (2007b). The formation of man. Amsterdam: Montessori-Pierson Publishing Company.

Montessori, M. (2016). Dios y el niño y otros es- critos inéditos. Barcelona: Herder.

Murillo, J. I. (1996). Hábito y libertad en Tomás de Aquino. In Actes du IX Congrès Interna- tional de Philosophie Médiéval (pp. 748-758). Legas Publishing: Ottawa.

Polo, L. (2016). Antropología trascendental. Pam- plona: EUNSA.

Rousseau, J.-J. (1913). Discourse on the origin of in- equality. In R. M. Hutchins & M. J. Adler (Ed.), Great books of the western world (pp. 323-366). Chicago, IL: Encyclopaedia Britannica.

Rousseau, J.-J. (2010). Emile or on education: Includes Emile and Sophie, or The soli- taries. Hanover, NH: University Press Of New England.

Spaemann, R. (1994). Ensayos filosóficos. Ma- drid: Ediciones Cristiandad.

Standing, E. M. (1966). The Montessori revolu- tion in education. New York: Shocken Books. Stoops, J. A. (1987, October-November). Maria Montessori: an intellectual portrait. Paper presented at the Convention of the American Montessori Society, Boston. Retrieved from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED289600.pdf

Author Biography

Catherine L’Ecuyer. Doctor in educa- tion and psychology from the Universidad de Navarra, she is currently collaborating with the Mind-Brain Group: Biology and Subjectivity in Philosophy and Contemporary Neuroscience, one of the research groups of the Institute for Culture and Society (ICS) of the Universidad de Navarra.

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1485-6849

José Ignacio Murillo. Doctor in philosophy from the Universidad de Navarra, he is currently Associate Professor at the Universidad de Navarra and Director of the Mind-Brain Group: Biology and Subjectivity in Philosophy and Contemporary Neuroscience, one of the research groups of the Institute for Culture and Society (ICS) of the Universidad de Navarra.

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9789-5573

Citación recomendada | Recommended citation

L’Ecuyer, C., & Murillo, J. I. (2020) . Montessori’s teleological approach to education and its implications. Revista Española de Pedagogía, 78(277). https://www.revistadepedagogia.org/rep/vol78/iss277/10