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Quotations from Dr. Maria Montessori |
| Whoever touches the life of the child touches the most sensitive point of a whole which has roots in the most distant past and climbs toward the infinite future. |
| Our care of the children should be governed not by the desire to 'make them learn things', but by the endeavor always to keep burning within them the light which is called intelligence. |
| Education is a natural process carried out by the human individual, and is acquired not by listening to words, but by experiences in the environment. |
| The secret of good teaching is to regard the child's intelligence as a fertile field in which seeds may be sown, to grow under the heat of flaming imagination. |
| The essential thing is to arouse such an interest that it engages the child's whole personality. |
| The training of the teacher who is to help life is something far more than the learning of ideas. It includes the training of character; it is a preparation of the spirit. |
| The teacher's first duty is to watch over the environment, and this takes precedence over all the rest. Its influence is indirect, but unless it is well done there will be no effective and permanent results of any kind, physical, intellectual or spiritual. |
| If we could say, "We are respectful and courteous in our dealing with children, we treat them as we should like to be treated ourselves," we should have mastered a great educational principle and be setting an example of good education. |
| It is well to cultivate a friendly feeling towards error, to treat it as a companion inseparable from our lives, as something having a purpose, which it truly has. |
| The real preparation for education is the study of one's self. |
| The first duty of an education is to stir up life, but leave it free to develop. |
| And so we discovered that education is not something which the teacher does, but that it is a natural process which develops spontaneously in the human being. |
| The teacher's task is not to talk, but to prepare and arrange a series of motives for cultural activity in a special environment made for the child. |
| Since adults have no concept of the importance of physical activity for the child, they put a damper on it as a cause of disturbance. |
| Discipline must come through liberty. . . . We do not consider an individual disciplined only when he has been rendered as artificially silent as a mute and as immovable as a paralytic. He is an individual annihilated, not disciplined. |
| We are here to offer to this life, which came into the world by itself, the means necessary for its development, and having done that we must await this development with respect. |
| The exercises of practical life are formative activities, a work of adaptation to the environment. Such adaptation to the environment an efficient functioning therein is the very essence of a useful education. |
| The first essential for the child's development is concentration. The child who concentrates is immensely happy. |
| The prize and the punishment are incentives toward unnatural or forced effort, and therefore we cannot speak of the natural development of the child in connection with them. |
| We habitually serve children; and this is not only an act of servility toward them, but it is dangerous, since it tends to suffocate their useful spontaneous activity. |
| He who is served is limited in his independence. |
| No one can be free unless he is independent: therefore, the first, active manifestations of the child's individual liberty must be so guided that through this activity he may arrive at independence. |
| It is not the child as a physical but as a psychic being that can provide a strong impetus to the betterment of mankind. |
| We must support as much as possible the child's desires for activity; not wait on him, but educate him to be independent. |
| Respect all the reasonable forms of activity in which the child engages and try to understand them. |
| It is almost possible to say that there is a mathematical relationship between the beauty of his surroundings and the activity of the child; he will make discoveries rather more voluntarily in a gracious setting than in an ugly one. |
| The more the capacity to concentrate is developed, the more often the profound tranquility in work is achieved, then the clearer will be the manifestation of discipline within the child. |
| The most difficult thing to make clear to the new teacher is that because the child progresses, she must restrain herself and avoid giving directions, even if at first they are expected; all her faith must repose in his latent powers. |
| The child is both hope and a promise for mankind. |
| The child is truly a miraculous being, and this should be felt deeply by the educator. |
| Aesthetic and moral education are also closely connected with the training of the senses. By multiplying sense experiences an developing the ability to evaluate the smallest differences in various stimuli, ones sensibilities are refined and ones pleasures increased. |
| Writing is a key to a double gain. It enables the hand to master a vital skill like that of speaking and to create a second means of communication that reflects the spoken word in all its details. Writing is thus dependent upon mind and hand. |
| How easily his helplessness can cause him mental anguish, and how much our understanding of his language can help us to save him from this, and calm his mind! |
| A child is an eager observer and is particularly attracted by the actions of the adults and wants to imitate them. In this regard an adult can have a kind of mission. He can be an inspiration for the child's actions, a kind of open book wherein a child can learn how to direct his own movements. |
| The first aim of the prepared environment is, as far as it is possible, to render the growing child independent of the adult. |
| What matters is not physics, or botany, or the works of the hand, but the will and the components of the human spirit which construct themselves through work. |
| The average intelligence of normal children is low compared to that of normalized children. Because their energies have been misdirected, they are like children with broken bones who have need of special care if they are to become physically fit again. |
| I would not be able to cite a single example of a conversion taking place without an interesting task that concentrated the child's activities. |
| As soon as children find something that interests them they lose their instability and learn to concentrate. |
| The child is the spiritual builder of mankind, and obstacles to his free development are the stones in the wall by which the soul of man has become imprisoned. |
| What is generally meant by the word peace is the cessation of war. But this negative concept is not an adequate description of genuine peace. |
| The activity of the child has always been looked upon as an expression of his vitality. But his activity is really the work he performs in building up the man he is to become. It is the incarnation of the human spirit. |
| The child becomes a person through work. |
| The word education must not be understood in the sense of teaching but of assisting the psychological development of the child. |
| Education should no longer be mostly imparting of knowledge, but must take a new path, seeking the release of human potentialities. |
| The role of education is to interest the child profoundly in an external activity to which he will give all of this potential. |
| Education is not something which the teacher does. It is a natural process which develops spontaneously. |
| Education between the ages of six and twelve is not a direct continuation of that which has gone before, although it is built upon that foundation. |
| The first duty of the educator, whether he is involved with the newborn infant or the older child, is to recognize the human personality of the young being and respect it. |
| The elementary child has reached a new level of development. Before he was interested in things: working with his hands, learning their names. Now he is interested mainly in the how and why...the problem of cause and effect. |
| Schools as they are today, are adapted neither to the needs of adolescence nor to the time in which we live. |
| My vision of the future is no longer of people taking exams and proceeding from secondary school to University but of passing from one stage of independence to a higher, by means of their own activity and effort of will. |
| The land is where our roots are. The children must be taught to feel and live in harmony with the Earth. |
| It is not enough for the teacher to love the child. She must first love and understand the universe. She must prepare herself, and truly work at it. |
| When the child goes out, it is the world itself that offers itself to him. Let us take the child out to show him real things instead of making objects which represent ideas and closing them up in cupboards. |
| Experience is a key for the intensification of instruction given inside the school. |
| It is self-evident that the possession of and contact with real things brings, above all, a real quantity of knowledge. |
| There is no description, no image in any book that is capable of replacing the sight of real trees, and all of the life to be found around them in a real forest. |
| How often is the soul of man - especially in childhood - deprived because he is not allowed to come in contact with nature. |
| The needs of mankind are universal. Our means of meeting them create the richness and diversity of the planet. The Montessori child should come to relish the texture of that diversity. |
| The secret of good teaching is to regard the child's intelligence as a fertile field in which seeds may be sown, to grow under the heat of calming imagination. |
| Our aim is not only to make the child understand, and still less to force him to memorize, but so to touch his imagination as to enthuse him to his innermost core. |
| We seek to sow life in the child rather than theories, to help him in his growth, mental and emotional as well as physical, and for that we must offer grand and lofty ideas to the human mind. |
| If the idea of the universe is presented to the child in the right way, it will do more for him than just arouse his interest, for it will create in him admiration and wonder, a feeling loftier than any interest and more satisfying. |
| To do well, it is necessary to aim at giving the elementary age child an idea of all fields of study, not in precise detail, but on impression. The idea is to sow the seeds of knowledge at this age, when a sort of sensitive period for the imagination exists. |
| Bring the child to the consciousness of his own dignity and he will feel free. |
| We see no limit to what should be offered to the child, for his will be an immense field of chosen activity. |
| The teacher's task is no small or easy one! He as to prepare a huge amount of knowledge to satisfy the child's mental hunger, and he is not, like the ordinary teacher, limited by a syllabus. |
| Not in the service of any political or social creed should the teacher work, but in the service of the complete human being, able to exercise in freedom a self-disciplined will and judgment, unperverted by prejudice and undistorted by fear. |
| "Do not fear to destroy evil. It is only the good that we must fear to destroy. As we must call a child by its name before it can answer, so it is necessary to call vigorously to awaken the soul. The teacher must take her materials from the school, and her principles from what she has learnt; and then she must face practically, for herself, the question of this recall. Only her own intelligence can solve the problem, which will be different in every individual case. The teacher knows the fundamental symptoms and the obvious remedies - the theory, in fact, of treatment, and then it is she who does the rest. The good doctor, like the good teacher, is an individual, not merely a machine for administering medicine or applying educational methods. Details must be left to the judgment of the teacher who is taking her first steps on the new path, as for instance whether general disorder is best quelled by raising the voice, or whether it is best to whisper to a few of the children so as to rouse the curiosity of others and make them quiet. |
| The fundamental principle in education is the correlation of all subjects and their centralization in the cosmic plan. |
| School cannot start too early to encourage the refinement of taste in children. To present for their learning the fine gradations between right and wrong, and to support their treasuring of a sense of the past. |
| Education starts a birth. |
| A new education from birth onwards must be built up. Education must be reconstructed and based on the law of nature and not on the preconceived notions and prejudices of adult society. |
| Let us leave the life free to develop within the limits of the good, and let us observe this inner life developing. This is the whole of our mission. |
| It is necessary for the teacher to guide the child without letting him feel her presence too much, so that she may always be ready to supply the desired help, but may never be the obstacle between the child and his experience. |
| To keep alive that enthusiasm is the secret of real guidance, and it will not prove a difficult task, provided that the attitude towards the child's acts be that of respect, calm, and waiting, and provided that he be left free in his movements and experiences. |
| "Wait while observing". That is the motto of the educator. |
| Let us wait, and be always ready to share in both the joys and the difficulties which the child experiences. |
| Our intervention in this marvelous process is indirect; we are here to offer this life, which came into the world by itself, the means necessary for it's development, and having done that we must await this development with respect. |
| We seek to sow life in the child rather than theories,to help him in his growth, mental and emotional, as well as physical. And for that we must offer grand and lofty ideas to the human mind. |
| Only practical work and experience lead the child to maturity. |
| The child passes little by little from the unconscious to the conscious, treading always in the paths of joy and love. |
| We have seen children totally change as they acquire a love for things and as their sense of order, discipline and self-control develops within them as a manifestation of their total freedom. |
| The studies which have been made of early infancy leave no room for doubt: the first two years are important forever, because in that period, one passes from being nothing into being something. |
| The first step we must take in our method is to call to the pupil. We call now to his attention, now to his interior life, now to the life he leads with others. |
| A man is not what he is because of the teachers has had, but because of what he has done. |
| The mind of one who does not work for that which he needs, but commands it from others, grows heavy and sluggish. |
| Nature offers an interior guidance, but to develop anything in the field, continuous effort and experience are required. |
| Growth comes from activity, not from intellectual understanding. |
| Children are human beings to whom respect is due, superior to us by reason of their innocence and of the greater possibilities of their future. |
| One of the great problems facing men is their failure to realize the fact that a child possesses an active psychic life even when he cannot manifest it. |
| If a child is to be treated differently than he is today a radical change, and one upon which everything else will depend, must first be made; and that change must be made in the adult. |
| An adult who does not understand that a child needs to use his hands and does not recognize this as the first manifestation of an instinct for work can be an obstacle to the child's development. |
| It is the child who makes the man, and no man exists who was not made by the child he once was. |
| When dealing with children there is greater need for observing than of probing. |
| It is the spirit of the child that can determine the course of human progress and lead it perhaps even to a higher form of civilization. |
| Children decide on their actions under the prompting of natural laws. If someone usurps the function of this guide the child is prevented from developing either his will or his concentration. |
| What the child achieves between three and six does not depend upon doctrine but on a divine directive which guides his spirit to construction. |
| It is true that we cannot make a genius. We can only give to each child the chance to fulfill his potential possibilities. |
| The child is truly a miraculous being, and this should be felt deeply by the educator. |
| The child's development follows a path of successive stages of independence, and our knowledge of this must guide us in our behavior towards him. |
| We must help the child act, think, an will for himself. This is the art of serving the spirit, an art which can be practiced to perfection only when working with children. |
| The child is the spiritual builder of mankind, and obstacles to his free development are the stones in the wall by which the soul of man has become imprisoned. |
| The child's first instinct is to carry out his actions by himself, without anyone helping him, and his first conscious bid for independence is made when he defends himself against those who try to do the action for him. |
| The pedagogical method of observation has for its base the liberty of the child, and liberty is activity. |
| Real freedom is a consequence of development. |
| Freedom without organization is useless. The organization of the work, therefore, is the cornerstone of this new structure. But even that organization would be in vain without the liberty to make use of it. |
| A child is a discoverer. He is an amorphous, splendid being in search of his own proper form. |
| Life is activity at its peak, and it is only through activity that the perfectionments of life can be sought and gained. |
| The hands are the instruments of man's intelligence. |
| The human hand allows the mind to reveal itself. |
| Our educational aim must be to aid the spontaneous development of the mental, spiritual and physical personality, and not to make of the child a cultured individual in the commonly accepted use of the term. |
| And herein lies the art of the educator; in knowing how to measure the action by which we help the young child's personality to develop. |
| What advice can we give to mothers? Their children need to work at an interesting occupation; they should not be helped unnecessarily, nor interrupted, once they have begun to do something intelligent. |
| To assist a child we must provide him with an environment, which will enable him to develop freely. |
| Our schools show that children of different ages help one another. There are many things which no teacher can convey to a child of three, but a child of five can do it with ease. |
| The child's progress does not depend only on his age, but also on being free to look around him. |
| Free choice is one of the highest of all the mental processes. |
| The children must be free to choose their own occupations, just as they must never be interrupted in their spontaneous activity. |
| Choice and execution are the prerogatives and conquests of a liberated soul. |
| The first thing required of a teacher is that he be rightly disposed for his task...it is not sufficient to have a merely theoretical knowledge of education. |
| The teacher must have faith that the child will reveal himself through work. |
| We must learn how to call upon the man which lies dormant in the soul of a child. |
| The teacher must bring not only the capacity, but the desire to observe. |
| We cannot know the consequences of suffocating a spontaneous action at the time when the child is just becoming active; perhaps we suffocate life itself. |
| If the teacher cannot recognize the difference between pure impulse, and the spontaneous energies which spring to life in a tranquilized spirit, then her action will bear no fruit. |
| A teacher, by his passive attitude, removes from the children the obstacle that is created by his own activity and authority. |
| The teacher's mission has for its aim something constant and exact, bearing in mind the words, "He must grow while I diminish." |
| When the teacher shall have touched, in this way, soul for soul, each one of her pupils, a sign, a single word from her shall suffice; for each one will feel her in a living and vital way, will recognize her and will listen to her. |
| The directress must intervene to lead the child from sensations to ideas. |
| A child who is free to act not only seeks to gather sensible impressions from his environment but he also shows a love for exactitude in the carrying out of his actions. |
| Since it is through movement that the will realizes itself, we should assist a child in his attempts to put his will into action. |
| A teacher, therefore, who would think that he could prepare himself for this mission through study alone would be mistaken. |
| Work is necessary; it can be nothing less than a passion; a person is happy in accomplishment. |
| Confidences would come more easily in the years they are longed for if they were invited in the years when living was exciting and every act a great adventure. |
| Imitation is the first instinct of the awakening mind. |
| The child wants to do something sensible. |
| If children are allowed free development and given occupation to correspond with their unfolding minds their natural goodness will shine forth. |
| I don't need to teach anything to children: it is they who, placed in a favorable environment, teach me. |
| What is the greatest sign of success for a teacher transformed? It is to be able to say, "The children are now working as if I did not exist." |
| The didactic materials control every error. It is precisely in these errors that the educational importance of the material lies. |
| The material, in fact, do not offer to the child the content of the mind, but the order for that content. |
| Not upon the ability of the teacher does education rest, but upon the didactic system. When the control and correction of errors is yielded to the materials, there remains for the teacher nothing but to observe. |
| The education of the senses makes men observers. |
| The senses, being explorers of the world, open the way to knowledge. |
| To collect one's forces, even when they seem to be scattered, and when one's aim is only dimly perceived - this is a great action and will sooner or later bring forth fruit. |
| If an educational act is to be efficacious, it will be only one which tends to help toward the complete unfolding of life. To be thus helpful it is necessary rigorously to avoid the arrest of spontaneous movements and the imposition of arbitrary tasks. The Montessori Method, ch. 5 (1912) |
| If help and salvation are to come, they can only come from the children, for the children are the makers of men. The Absorbent Mind, ch. 1 (1949). |
| The first idea that the child must acquire, in order to be actively disciplined, is that of the difference between good and evil; and the task of the educator lies in seeing that the child does not confound good with immobility and evil with activity The Montessori Method, ch. 5 (1912) |
| The observation of the way in which the children pass from the first disordered movements to those which are spontaneous and ordered -- this is the book of the teacher; this is the book which must inspire her actions . . . The Montessori Method, ch. 5, 1912 |
| The teacher must derive not only the capacity, but the desire, to observe natural phenomena. The teacher must understand and feel her position of observer: the activity must lie in the phenomenon. The Montessori Method, ch. 5, 1912 |
| We teachers can only help the work going on, as servants wait upon a master. The Absorbent Mind, ch. 1, 1949 |
| "There was no method to be seen, what was seen was a child...acting according to its own nature." Secret of Childhood, p.136 |
