Montessori Education                   Dr. Maria Montessori began her career as an educator of children working with a group of fifty children, three-to-five years olds, on January 6th, 1907 in the city of Rome. She had at her disposal an untrained assistant, a room, a bit of furniture and development materials to aid sense perception which she had previously used when working with mentally handicapped children. Those children who were older had to be encouraged before their interest was aroused. Once enticed to used the materials, their attention was volatile. Dr. Montessori was astonished to see that the little ones, however, were intensely attracted by the materials, working spontaneously and repeatedly with them in total concentration.             Comparison of the Montessori and the Integrated Method of Teaching           The Montessori Method     1. The Montessori method is child-centered. Individual attention is paid to each child's learning and development.     2. The child learns in a very relaxed manner, playing whenever he wants and doing some activity when he feels like. There is no need to conform as in a group activity.     3. Number of activities and lessons are less.     4. Each child learns a topic in his own way rather than in a group.     5. The emphasis on development of social skills or engaging in group activities is less.     6. There is no exercise where writing skill development is encouraged     The Integrated Teaching Method     1. In this method the children are taught in a group. They learn a lesson together often helping one another.     2. The different activities and the playtimes in between are decided by the teacher for the whole group. Some child, however, may be a little naughty and do things a litttle differently.     3. There are a lot of activities and many lessons are taught each day. However they enjoy doing the activities as they perform these activities in a group.     4. The children will learn a subject together although some children may learn at a different pace than the average. Since the lessons are repeated every child gets to learn all the activities.     5. There are a lot of group activities which help develop social skills and team spirit in the children.     6. There is a lot of emphasis on development of writing skills.