For the most part in the Montessori classroom, the child learns independently using the components of the environment. The teacher is a catalyst for learning and observes as the child chooses his/her activities. The teacher is the link between the child and the environment. This Montessori learning environment cultivates individualization, freedom of choice, responsibility, concentration, independence, problem-solving abilities, social interaction, interdisciplinary breadth, and competency in basic skills. The elementary environment reflects the child's new stage of development and offers the following:

An integration of the arts, sciences, geography, history, and language that evokes the native imagination and abstraction of the elementary child.

The presentation of knowledge as part of a large-scale narrative in which the origins of the earth, life, human communities (agricultural and urban), empires, and modern history, unfolds, always in the context of the wholeness of life.

The presentation of formal scientific language of zoology, botany, anthropology, geography, geology, etc. that exposes the child to accurate, organized information and respects the child's intelligence and interests.

The use of time lines, pictures, charts, and other visual aids, providing a linguistic and visual overview of the first principles of each discipline.

A mathematics curriculum presented with concrete materials that simultaneously reveal the arithmetic, geometric and algebraic correlations.

Montessori-trained adults who are able to integrate the teaching of all subjects, not as isolated disciplines, but as part of a whole intellectual tradition.

An emphasis on open-ended research and in-depth study that uses primary and secondary sources (books) as well as other materials.

"Going out" which entails the ongoing use of community resources beyond the four walls of the classroom. The prepared environment is an essential component of the Montessori school. The adults in the school prepare the environment with the physical and emotional needs of the student in mind. The furniture in the environment must be child-sized and all artwork is displayed at a child's eye level.

The Montessori classroom materials make up the bulk of the Montessori prepared environment. These manipulative materials have been scientifically designed and tested. Each material isolates one concept to be mastered, thereby allowing the student to fully comprehend each concept without distraction.

The materials are sequential to allow the student greater and greater levels of difficulty and abstraction and are self-correcting in order to allow the child greater independence from the teacher. The teacher places the materials on the shelf sequentially in order to allow the children to see the progress of their work. The prepared environment is designed to reflect the greater society as well as the natural environment. This provides a safe emotional setting for the children.

The prepared adult is just as important as the prepared environment, but no more so. The teacher is, in fact, the link between the prepared environment and the child. This is because her primary function is not as much to lecture and correct, as it is to direct a natural energy of curiosity in the child. This different approach to teaching also requires a new kind of training.

Through Montessori training the teacher acquires similar characteristics necessary for a scientist pursuing research:

• Humility and patience
• A deeper sense of the dignity of the child as a human being
• An awareness of the child as teacher
• A new appreciation of the significance of the child's spontaneous activities
• A wider and more thorough understanding of the needs and talents of each
  particular child
• A quicker reverence for the child as the creator of the adult-to-be

The Montessori teacher is a facilitator, observer, enthusiast in the subject he/she is 'teaching.' The Montessori teacher interacts with the child in a way that is not authoritarian. This does not mean that the teacher gives up all authority, but that it is exercised in a different way. The Montessori teacher must find the golden mean between giving enough instruction to the child and giving too much. The art of working with students in the Montessori model is knowing when and how to intervene and when not to.

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