Maria Montessori
We recommend for the training of teachers not only a considerable artistic education in general but special attention to the art of reading.
The child, merely by going on with his life, learns to speak the language belonging to his race. It is like a mental chemistry that takes place in the child.
If education is protection to life, you will realize that it is necessary that education accompany life during its whole course.
Man is capable of every great heroism; it was man who found a means of conquering the formidable obstacles of his environment, establishing himself lord of the earth, and laying the foundations of civilization.
Many people must have noticed the intense attention given by children to the conversation of grown-ups when they cannot possibly be understanding a word of what they hear. They are trying to get hold of words, and they often demonstrate this fact by repeating joyously some word which they have been able to grasp.
With man, the life of the body depends on the life of the spirit.
It is surprising to notice that even from the earliest age, man finds the greatest satisfaction in feeling independent. The exalting feeling of being sufficient to oneself comes as a revelation.
We teachers can only help the work going on, as servants wait upon a master.
Observation, very general and wide-spread, has shown that small children are endowed with a special psychic nature. This shows us a new way of imparting education!
It would be so simple to allow children, when tired of sitting, to rise, and when tired of writing, to desist, and then their bones would not be twisted.
Books are mute as far as sound is concerned. It follows that reading aloud is a combination of two distinct operations, of two 'languages.' It is something far more complex than speaking and reading taken separately by themselves.
If an educational act is to be efficacious, it will be only that 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.
If intelligence is the triumph of life, the spoken word is the marvellous means by which this intelligence is manifested.
The only language men ever speak perfectly is the one they learn in babyhood, when no one can teach them anything!
If the ways of the Almighty are not humanly logical, it is not the fault of the Almighty but of the limitations of human logic.
It is the children between five and seven who are the word-lovers. It is they who show a predisposition toward such study. Their undeveloped minds can not yet grasp a complete idea with distinctness. They do, however, understand words. And they may be entirely carried away by their ecstatic, their tireless interest in the parts of speech.
The ancient superficial idea of the uniform and progressive growth of the human personality has remained unaltered, and the erroneous belief has persisted that it is the duty of the adult to fashion the child according to the pattern required by society.
The task of the educator lies in seeing that the child does not confound good with immobility and evil with activity.
The consciousness of knowing how to make oneself useful, how to help mankind in many ways, fills the soul with noble confidence, almost religious dignity.
It is not true that I invented what is called the Montessori Method... I have studied the child; I have taken what the child has given me and expressed it, and that is what is called the Montessori Method.
We await the successsive births in the soul of the child. We give all possible material, that nothing may lack to the groping soul, and then we watch for the perfect faculty to come, safeguarding the child from interruption so that it may carry its efforts through.
The chief symptom of adolescence is a state of expectation, a tendency towards creative work, and a need for the strengthening of self-confidence. Suddenly, the child becomes very sensitive to the rudeness and humiliations which he had previously suffered with patient indifference.
If the whole of mankind is to be united into one brotherhood, all obstacles must be removed so that men, all over the surface of the globe, should be as children playing in a garden.
All the movements of our body are not merely those dictated by impulse or weariness; they are the correct expression of what we consider decorous. Without impulses, we could take no part in social life; on the other hand, without inhibitions, we could not correct, direct, and utilize our impulses.
My system is to be considered a system leading up, in a general way, to education. It can be followed not only in the education of little children from three to six years of age, but can be extended to children up to ten years of age.
The maternal duty of suckling her own children, prescribed to mothers by hygienists, is based on a physiological principle: the mother's milk nourishes an infant more perfectly than any other.
Temptation, if it is not to conquer, must not fall like a bomb against another bomb of instantaneous moral explosions, but against the strong walls of an impregnable fortress strongly built up, stone by stone, beginning at that distant day when the foundations were first laid.
There can be no 'graduated exercises in drawing' leading up to an artistic creation. That goal can be attained only through the development of mechanical technique and through the freedom of the spirit.
The person who is developing freely and naturally arrives at a spiritual equilibrium in which he is master of his actions, just as one who has acquired physical poise can move freely.
It is by developing the individual that he is prepared for that wonderful manifestation of the human intelligence, which drawing constitutes. The ability to see reality in form, in color, in proportion, to be master of the movements of one's own hand - that is what is necessary.
Do not tell them how to do it. Show them how to do it and do not say a word. If you tell them, they will watch your lips move. If you show them, they will want to do it themselves.Collection: Leadership
The goal of early childhood education should be to activate the child's own natural desire to learn.Collection: Children
The education of even a small child, therefore, does not aim at preparing him for school, but for life.Collection: Children
Let the children be free; encourage them; let them run outside when it is raining; let them remove their shoes when they find a puddle of water; and when the grass of the meadows is wet with dew, let them run on it and trample it with their bare feet; let them rest peacefully when a tree invites them to sleep beneath its shade; let them shout and laugh when the sun wakes them in the morning.Collection: Running
There is a great sense of community within the Montessori classroom, where children of differing ages work together in an atmosphere of cooperation rather than competitiveness. There is respect for the environment and for the individuals within it, which comes through experience of freedom within the community.Collection: Children
To assist a child we must provide him with an environment which will enable him to develop freely.Collection: Children
The most important period of life is not the age of university studies, but the first one, the period from birth to the age of six.Collection: Children
The child who has felt a strong love for his surroundings and for all living creatures, who has discovered joy and enthusiasm in work, gives us reason to hope that humanity can develop in a new direction.Collection: Strong
What the hand does the mind remembers.Collection: Hands
We shall walk together on this path of life, for all things are part of the universe and are connected with each other to form one whole unity.Collection: Generosity
The essence of independence is to be able to do something for one’s self. Adults work to finish a task, but the child works in order to grow, and is working to create the adult, the person that is to be. Such experience is not just play... it is work he must do in order to grow up.Collection: Children
Our aim is not merely 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.Collection: Children
The greatest sign of success for a teacher...is to be able to say, "The children are now working as if I did not exist."Collection: Inspirational
Peace is what every human being is craving for, and it can be brought about by humanity through the child.Collection: Children
Free choice is one of the highest of all the mental processes.Collection: Choices
Education should no longer be most imparting of knowledge, but must take a new path, seeking the release of human potentialities.Collection: Education
Joy is the evidence of inner growth.Collection: Joy
Respect all the reasonable forms of activity in which the child engages and try to understand them.Collection: Children
Play is the work of the child.Collection: Children