Kritérion is a Montessori School. And this is the pivotal idea of a Montessori School: that it be an opportune place for children to grow to the fullest in confidence and self-esteem, initiative, inner-discipline, and creativity. Handing out the answers of past times is not sufficient in the quickly changing present. Education in not just memorizing. Teaching is bringing forth the will in children to learn.

Kritérion is Greek for criterion. Its root word "krites" comes from krinein, meaning to distinguish, to choose, to judge.

Learning to discern and to choose is part of learning how to live. Kritérion Montessori Education is a preparation for life.

Learning is progressive. It is dynamic and involves the whole personality of the child. Dr. Maria Montessori realized that self-motivation is the only valid impulse toward learning, and she allowed the child the freedom to expand to the fullest in their physical, intellectual, and spiritual life. However, this freedom is not given. It is acquired through the completion of self-chosen tasks.

Once the child has obtained order in the mind and inner discipline, the Montessori child is free to learn.

The Montessori teacher prepares the children's environment, guides their activities, exercises authority where needed, and offers stimulation.

Within the classroom environment a sequence of material is at hand with an ordered progression of tasks. The materials are concrete expressions of abstract subjects. The child discovers that initiative leads to accomplishments; these cultivate personal patterns of concentration, perseverance, and thoroughness.

Montessori exercises have definite aims. They progress from what is known to what is unknown, step by step. The learning process is the process of self-activity. Maria Montessori wrote: "This is the secret which the small child has himself revealed to us by doing work far beyond our dreams and expectations in all fields, including the intellectual and abstract, provided his hand was allowed to work side by side with the intelligence."

The Montessori material facilitates sensory-motor coordination and concept formation, verbal skills, writing and reading, while it strengthens spontaneity, motivation, competence, self-reliance, determination, independence, perseverance, discipline, order, and initiative -- in other words, the priceless work habits of a free person.

In time children begin to use equipment as midway symbols between percept and concept. At their own pace children work their way from manipulation of materials to notion and finally understanding. This is most easily observed in the field of arithmetic.