Freinet and Montessori in practice. A comparative analysis of the meanings attributed to the process of learning by early education teachers – research report
Freinet and Montessori in practice. A comparative analysis of the meanings attributed to the process of learning by early education teachers – research report

Summary/Abstract: The article presented is a qualitative analysis of the early education Freinet and Montessori teachersin relation to their educational practices in the scope of educational constructivism. Understandingconstructivism as a metaphor describing process of learning, the authors outline similarities anddifferences in the conceptions attributed to the processes of learning between the two researchedgroups of teachers. The results of the analysis show the opposite “direction” of the thematizations.Freinet teachers concentrate on the techniques and then – in their narratives – outline the values relatedto education whereas Montessori teachers’ narratives are oriented at values and only illustratedwith some technological examples. The outcomes of the analysis can be formulated in a form ofprovisional synthesis: The realization of constructivism in education is not connected so much withso called “active learning techniques” but rather with values, individual and shared axio-educationalorientations and the quality of relations between various subjects involved in education. Such a hypothesisleads to the questioning of the tendency according to which teachers’ education shouldbe practical. On the contrary, we claim that such a conception on teachers’ education might be anobstacle to the wide implementation of constructivism in educational practices.

• Details
• Contents