The prepared environment

"The old type of education was a simpler affair. The teacher taught and the children listened: and it was more or less a matter of indifference where this process took place...

But with the coming of the 'new third factor' several fresh relationships are introduced. The teacher now not only has her relationship to the children but also to the environment...

If the teacher and children all migrated to another room - leaving the prepared environment - these new relationships would vanish, and with them the inter-related function of the absorbent mind in the prepared environment."
Maria Montessori: Her Life and Work p 266, Chap XVI

Montessori saw the prepared environment as an essential ingredient for the successful development of the children.

She realised that the child in his vulnerability relied completely on the environment for the sensorial impressions through which he gained a sense of the world in which he lived.

She saw that it was the environment (including the people within it) that could greatly hinder the child in his quest to unfold his hidden potentialities and that by carefully preparing the environment to serve the needs of the child such obstacles could be avoided. She therefore paid a great deal of attention to the way in which Montessori schoolrooms were laid out.

Everything was made to be as easily accessible to the children as possible. It was very much their environment rather than the teachers and she wanted them to feel as comfortable as possible within it.

She knew that order was very important to the children and she therefore ensured that everything had its place and that all materials were kept as neatly as possible. She created materials that she saw the children were drawn to and she removed those items in which they showed no interest.

She tried to ensure that the materials that were provided met with the dynamic emergent needs of the children. It was the children who led the development of the materials and the children who showed how the environment should be prepared.

"There is only one basis for observation: the children must be free to express themselves and thus reveal those needs and attitudes which would otherwise be hidden or repressed in an environment that did not allow them to act spontaneously."
The Discovery of the Child, p 46, Chap 3

Quotations

"The environment is certainly secondary in the phenomena of life. It can modify, as it can assist or destroy, but it can never create. The source of growth lies within."
The Discovery of the Child, p.61, Chap 3

"When we speak of 'environment' we include the sum total of objects which a child can freely choose and use as he pleases, that is to say, according to his needs and tendencies. A teacher simply assists him at the beginning to get his bearings among so many different things and teaches him the precise use of them, that is to say, she introduces him to the ordered and active life of the environment. But then she leaves him free in the choice and execution of his work."
Ibid p.63, Chap 3

"A child must acquire the customs prevailing in his environment. This is why he must have an opportunity to exercise himself in them."
Ibid p.305, Chap 23

"In an open environment, that is, one that is suitable to his age, a child's psychic life should develop naturally and reveal its inner secret. Unless this principle is maintained, all later attempts at education will only lead one more deeply into an endless maze."
The Secret of Childhood p.110, Chap 18

"Obstacles must be reduced to a minimum and the surroundings should provide the necessary means for the exercise of those activities which develop a child's energies." Ibid p.110, Chap 18

"What is most characteristic of our system of education is the emphasis that is placed upon the environment."
Ibid p.110, Chap 18

"I then came to realize that everything about a child should not only be in order, but that it should be proportioned to the child's use, and that interest and concentration arise specifically from the elimination of what is confusing and superfluous.
Ibid p.122, Chap 19

"The first essential for the child's development is concentration. It lays the whole basis for his character and social behaviour. He must find out how to concentrate, and for this he needs things to concentrate upon. This shows the importance of his surroundings, for no one acting on the child from outside can cause him to concentrate."
The Absorbent Mind p 202, Chap 22

"...realizing the peculiarly absorbent nature of the child's mind, she has prepared for him a special environment; and, then, placing the child within it, has given him the freedom to live in it, absorbing what he finds there."
Maria Montessori: Her Life and Work p 265, Chap XVI

"The first aim of the prepared environment is, as far as it is possible, to render the growing child independent of the adult. That is, it is a place where he can do things for himself - live his own life - without the immediate help of adults."
Ibid p 267, Chap XVI

quot;Therefore the environment is a place where the children are to be increasingly active, the teacher increasingly passive." Ibid p 267, Chap XVI

"...living this way, freely in a prepared environment, the child enters into vital communication with this environment, and comes to love it. This love for the environment does not exclude his love for the adult; it excludes dependence."
Ibid p 267, Chap XVI

"In this environment only those things are allowed to be present which will assist development. Out of it must be kept anything that would act as an obstacle, not least a too interfering adult. Even such things as are neutral or irrelevant should be rigorously excluded. The constructive psychic energy granted by nature to the child for building up his personality is limited; therefore we must do everything we can to see that it is not scattered in activities of the wrong kind."
Ibid p 267, Chap XVI

"There is a constant interaction between the individual and the environment. The use of things shapes man, and man shapes things. This reciprocal sharing is a manifestation of man's love for his surroundings. Harmonious interaction - when it exists, as in the child, represents the normal relationship that should exist between the individual and his surroundings. And this relationship is one of love."
Education and Peace p 57, Chap 7

Study guide

The Discovery of the Child - Chapter 3

The Secret of Childhood - Chapter 18, 20

Montessori, A Modern Approach - Chapter 3

Montessori: Her Life and Work - Chapter XVI

Journal articles

Cuevas, Eduardo (1997) 'The Prepared Environment', NAMTA Journal, v22, n2, p107-110, Spring

Cusack, Ginny; Stencel, Marsha (1999) 'Changing the Paradigm of Prepared Environments: The Princeton Montessori School Experience', Montessori Life, v11, n3, p22-23, Summer

Nelson, Greg (1999) 'The "Other" Prepared Environment', Montessori Life, v11, n3, p38-39, Summer

Turner, J (1999) Children and Environment: An Interview with Roger Hart, Montessori Life, v11, n3, p26-30, Summer

Archive resources

Boyd, W (1917) From Locke to Montessori, George Harrap & Co London.

Culverwell, E (1913) The Montessori Principles and Practice, G.Bell & Sons, London.

Kilpatrick, W (1915) Montessori Examined, Constable, London.