Neuroscience and the Montessori Method
For exercising the Whole mind and education the Whole Person
Every discipline, from medicine to information processing, has experienced a great leap forward. Renaissance Schools believes that education is also poised on the precipice of a great breakthrough event thanks to advances in the understanding of the brain and body through neurobiology, physiology, psychology, and pedagogy.
The Montessori curriculum is exceptional in the development of the “three R’s” of reading, writing, and arithmetic, as well as critical thinking, executive functioning, and interpersonal skills. Renaissance Schools will enhance that pedagogy by developing aspects of other teaching methodologies such as Waldorf and Reggio Emilia and by incorporating other subject areas such as music, foreign language, computer programming, kinesthetics, health, and fitness. These are important brain areas for development of the whole person, and also for their impact on the “three R’s” and other areas of learning.
Renaissance Schools is aimed at the practical application of this knowledge in schools and classrooms. The next great leap in education requires at minimum:
- A genuine functional recognition of each students’ learning styles, needs and interests; of individual brain and body maturity, with appropriate timing and methods for stimulation and growth.
- A focus not merely on the “three R’s,” but the components and integrated total of all the cognitive brain functions or “areas of learning” as we know them, including music, math, interpersonal skills, native language, foreign language, special concepts, visual arts, memory, manual skills, kinesthetics (movement, dance, sports, etc.), self-awareness, empathy, ethics, etc. and their component parts; for example native language as effective listening (aural skills), reading and writing (verbal skills), speaking, comprehension, memorization, structure (grammar), development (linguistics), and artistic appreciation (literature).
The Renaissance School’s curriculum includes an Individual Educational Plan (IEP) which includes personal standards for health and fitness for every student. The school will work with the intent that every student will graduate with good mental, spiritual, and physical health. Every student will acquire a baseline proficiency in dietary habits, and common recreational activities ranging from dance to baseball to winter sports to martial arts.
In addition to cultural education and project-based learning, Renaissance Schools will also offer physical education and fitness. Physical education, fitness, diet, sport, outdoor pursuits, and movement activities such as dance, will be integrated at all levels of the curriculum with IEPs for health and fitness where scholastic standards will focus upon individual improvement and personal bests, even while encouraging healthy levels of fitness and body weight.
Also known as the kinesthetic approach, physical education takes advantage of the often overlooked relationship between the brain and body. For example, aerobic activity creates new brain cells (the body affecting the brain) while conversely, stress, which often relates to our perception of any given event or thought, can create illness where the brain affects the body.
The kinesthetic classroom is a brain-based approach to teaching and learning that helps teachers move from the traditional self-view of “teacher” to a new paradigm of “facilitator of learning” and “designer of the learning environment”. This concept not only supports the best instructional practices of brain-based teaching, differentiation, and motivation, it also helps to create healthy students and provides for transformative professional development that builds physical and academic change in classrooms in a meaningful way.
Integrated Musical Training
Each Renaissance School will also include musical training in the curriculum. Music training affects the structure and function of different brain regions, how those regions communicate during the creation of music, and how the brain interprets and integrates sensory information. These insights suggest potential new roles for musical training including fostering plasticity in the brain, an alternative tool in education, and treating a range of learning disabilities.
Playing a musical instrument is a multisensory, motor experience that creates emotions and engages pleasure and reward systems in the brain. It has the potential to change brain function and structure when done over a long period of time. Some of the brain changes that occur with musical training reflect the automation of task (much like one would recite a multiplication table) and the acquisition of highly specific sensorimotor and cognitive skills required for various aspects of musical expertise.
Long-term, high-level musical training has a broader impact than previously thought. Researchers found that musicians have an enhanced ability to integrate sensory information from hearing, touch, and sight. Importantly, the age at which musical training begins affects brain anatomy as an adult; beginning training before the age of seven has the greatest impact.
Renaissance Schools' Objectives
Our mission is to bring high-quality educational daycare to Northern Minnesota. We believe that Montessori is the best method to support the natural development of the human being and instill a lifelong love of learning. Educational opportunity and excellence are integral to economic development and sustainable communities. Renaissance Schools is focusing its efforts on providing its Edu-Care Program to low-income and rural communities. We believe that providing top quality Edu-Care to these often neglected communities is the best way to close the achievement gap and promote healthy, sustainable communities. Engaging a child during the most important developmental period in the child’s life will help foster independence, promote brain development, maximize the potential of the individual, and cultivate our next generation of leaders.
- That every child can succeed, as an individual, in his or her own individual ways.
- That our schools can and will change lives, change communities, and change the world.
- That toughness, persistence, and resilience are important; and so are kindness, respect, and elevation of the human spirit.
- That the status quo is not good enough; that we can, we will, and we must improve.