Montessori Primary School in Delft, Holland

Abstract

This school has been made to answer the specific demands of a non-traditional teaching system, as far as was possible within the framework of the rather strict building regulations for primary schools in this country. Each classroom is considered and equipped as a complete unit, a house in itself. The houses open onto a central space, "the street"; here all activities take place between students of many ages, interrupting the unity of the classroom-groups, which are merely children of similar age. The working method in a Montessori school is not dominated as in traditional teaching methods by a fixed and static relationship between teacher and children,but exploits the infinite variety of relationships of child to child, child to work and child to teacher. Everybody makes his own choice of what kind of work he is going to do. As a result, the system is characterised by many different activities occurring simultaneously.