Maria Montessori and learning the guitar

Maria Montessori’s ideas about effective teaching of children have been used and adapted by many educators around the world including guitar teachers like myself.

Here are 5 of Montessori’s ‘big ideas’ and how you might use them to boost your child’s musical ability.

1. The absorbent mind. Montessori believed that children learn more thoroughly, rapidly and efficiently when provided with environments that are designed not to over stimulate but rather encourage focus and concentration. Ideally your child should have her own dedicated practise room away from household noise and minus her phone or other internet enabled device. For a model of what this room might look like, visit my teaching studio.

2. Sensitive periods. According to Montessori, a sensitive period is a time or stage in a person’s development when they are more responsive to certain stimuli and quicker to learn particular skills. I see this happen when guitar students display an especially strong interest, nearing a joyful obsession, with learning and playing guitar. When parents and teachers both recognise and appropriately encourage these sensitive periods the student inevitably makes great musical progress.

3. The prepared environment. Montessori believed children learn best in environments that are calm, orderly and supportive of their needs. Montessori classrooms are often designed to maximise a child’s ability to concentrate and contain materials that allow children to learn and practise skills on their own without needing too much adult intervention. Similarly your child’s practise room should contain a music stand already assembled, guitar stands, a chair and all of the other basic essentials required to practise ready to go as soon as they walk in.

4. A guide on the side rather than a sage on the stage. Montessori believed teachers and parents should facilitate a child’s ability to learn on their own. Sometimes we teach best by being good musical role models and giving students the time and space to assimilate the information we have given them as they independently develop their own unique musical vision.

5. Control of error. Children learn quickly and generally prefer to correct themselves rather than be corrected by an adult. This inspired Maria Montessori to create self correcting teaching materials that allowed children to teach themselves. This simple and powerful concept can be applied in many ways when teaching guitar. One example is to ask a student to improvise over my accompaniment without telling them the key I am playing in. When the student works that out for herself the jam sounds great and she attains a new level of self-confidence.