GLOBAL CITIZENSHIP
Montessori's philosophy of promoting a global outlook and diversity in education combined with personal responsibility, she believed, was essential to peace.
By guiding students to cultivate a global perspective to issues, it will help them grow up seeing themselves as citizens of not only their nation of birth or origin, but of the wider world. guiding them to grow up with a sense of responsibility for keeping the world peaceful.
Promoting respect for diversity will make the children grow up respecting diverse cultures both from within their immediate environment and all over the world. The spirit of respect for diversity will surely foster compassion and love among peoples of the world.
Being guided to see themselves as global citizens, children grow up with an understanding of why they have a stake in taking good care of the physical environment itself.
By being guided to see the relationship between man and his environment, it will build and encourage a spirit of environmental consciousness in the growing youths that will help reduce or ultimately eliminate the current environmental recklessness that exists in the world.
By being guided to see that taking care of the environment will actually be to mankind's benefit, a sense of personal responsibility for taking acre of the environment will certainly grow.
Peace, in its wider sense must include living within an harmonious environment and this aim of Montessori's philosophy certainly will help promote this.
PREPARED ENVIRONMENT
Using Montessori's concept of prepared environment, the children will be guided to acquire learning in an environment that would foster internal peace in the children and teach them about peaceful inter-personal relations with their peers and their teachers. Since the individual and group exploration techniques allow the children the freedom to make their choice of what to learn and how to learn,conflict and friction (both internal and external) are reduced or eliminated completely.
Her techniques for conflict resolution are very admirable and practical. The "Peace Rose" method for instance would teach children to voice out their concerns (instead of bottling them up which might lead to repressed anger). It will also offer them an opportunity to learn about using dialogue which is very essential for the effective resolution of any conflict.
In the Montessori system, the environment doesn't necessarily need to be restricted to the classroom or school environment alone. Field trips, which are an essential part of the philosophy will help the children acquire skills and knowledge from practical sources instead of only learning from books or only what the teacher passes on. It will however be more advisable if the field trips are designed with the active collaboration of the students. the educator should allow the students proffer options on where to visit or the activities that should be carried out during the trip.
Before the trip proper, (after the destination has been decided), the teacher should facilitate a discussion to decide on a list of things that should observed during the trip and encourage the students to write out that list and make sure they make notes of their observations during the trip. These observations could offer ample resources for class discussions later.
PEACE:
Montessori's "Peace Rose" technique for conflict resolution is a very good method that can actually guide students to learn peaceful methods of conflict resolution and best of all, it will improve the quality of their interpersonal relationships. It will help them understand that although conflicts could occur among persons or societies, they can be resolved through dialogue. They'd learn to apologize and make amends to others when they hurt them by their words or actions and also learn to accept apologies and forgive when they are the aggrieved parties.
This conflict resolution technique will certainly ensure there is less friction in the classroom as everyone will recognize and accept that there is a peaceful avenue for seeking settlement if a misunderstanding arises.
With such an upbringing, it is expected that the children will cultivate the values of peaceful conflict resolution which will help them and the society in future.
GLOBAL CITIZENSHIP
Montessori's philosophy of respect for everything and everyone in the world, if properly incorporated into the school environment will make the students grow up with a global perspective based on respect for the world's diversities.
By promoting the respect of the physical environment, Montessori believed the students will grow up with a sense of responsibility for taking care of their physical environment and cultivate environmentally-friendly habits.
By promoting respect for human relations, Montessori believed youths will grow up with a sense of love and respect for all peoples of the world. and thus be ready ready to live in peace with everyone.
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