Education

The child who has never learned to work by himself, to set goals for his own acts, or to be a master of his own force of will, is recognisable in the adult who lets others guide him and feels a constant need for the approval of others...

The schoolchild who is continually discouraged and repressedcomes to lack confidence in himself. He suffers from a sense of panic that goes by the name of timidity, a lack of self-assurance that in the adult takes the form of frustration and submissiveness and the inability to resist what is morally wrong.

The obedience forced upon a child at home and in school, an obedience that does not recognise the rights of reason and justice, prepares the adult to resign himself to anything and everything."
Education and Peace p 19, Chap 1

Montessori's views on education were truly radical for their day. At that time children were seen as naturally disorderly, reluctant to learn and in need of constant discipline and control. All educational emphasis was on the later years, rather than early childhood.

Montessori was the first person who recognised and stood up for the rights of the young child. Her training as a scientist meant that she did not enter the educational field with any pre-conceived ideas about how to teach, but, instead, followed the actions of the children in order to better understand what it was that was motivating them.

Because she allowed the children such an unusual amount of freedom they demonstrated, for the first time, what they could achieve and become on their own. What become apparent was that educators had vastly underestimated the importance of these early years and that, rather than being insignificant, they represented the very foundations of the developing personality.

What Montessori saw convinced her that there should be a different way of teaching children and that creative freedom was fundamental to natural development.

She saw that children valued processes rather than results, that concentration was the key to intellectual development and that discipline was something that should be an internal process rather than an external demand.

She also saw that children had a natural love and desire to work and that they could achieve infinitely more than had been assumed if they were given the appropriate environment from which to choose their activities.

She was a gifted speaker and was convinced that education was the key to transforming society. She was truly a champion for children and she challenged educators around the world to address the damage that she felt was being done.

"Education today causes the individual to dry up and his spiritual values to wither away. He becomes a cipher, a cog in the blind machine that his environment represents.

Such preparation for life has been absurd in every age; today it is a crime, a sin. And education that represses and rejects the promptings of the moral self, that erects obstacles and barriers in the way of the development of intelligence, that condemns huge sectors of the population to ignorance, is a crime."
Education and Peace, p xiii Preface

Good education follows the development of the child. The Emotional relationship with the educator is the central aspect of all education. Everything that benefits it, benefits education. The child's capacity to tolerate tensions can only be increased if tension never surpasses what the child can stand.

The good educator offers the child material adapted to his development and at the moment in time when he is most likely to respond. Progress from one phase of development to the next is optimal when there has been sufficient gratification: not too much and not too little.

A good educator should have a positive attitude towards the instinctual life of the child, and understand its developmental potential. Secrets should be avoided in education.

• The object of education is an entity in the process of becoming a human being.
• Education should not focus on special functions, facilities, or skills, but on the whole personality.
• Educational planning must be longitudinal, taking into account the continuity as well as the discontinuity of different maturational sequences.
• Adults must stimulate and guide the spontaneous activity of the children by offering them an environment that appeals to their urge for self-realization, and by discouraging behaviour that may block it.
• Respect for a child's personality and trust in its inner potentialities are pre-requisites for the establishment of an adequate educational alliance.
Montessori, Mario Education for Human Development p 56, Chap 5

Quotations

"...today education is not so much interested in science as in humanity and civilization, which has only one nation - the world."
The Discovery of the Child p 3, Chap 1

"...Adults look upon a child as something empty that is to be filled through their own efforts, as something inert and helpless for which they must do everything, as something lacking an inner guide and in constant need of direction. In conclusion we may say that the adult looks upon himself as the child's creator and judges the child's actions as good or bad from the viewpoint of his own relations with the child. The adult makes himself the touchstone of what is good and evil in the child. He is infallible, the model upon which the child must be moulded. Any deviation on the child's part from adult ways is regarded as an evil which the adult hastens to correct... An adult who acts in this way, though he may be convinced that he is filled with zeal, love, and a spirit of sacrifice on behalf of his child, unconsciously surpresses the development of the child's own personality."
The Secret of Childhood p 16, Chap 2

"When acting during the first year of his life, the child is creating himself not only by intelligence because he is not yet able to understand, but by instinct or psychic urges... He constructs his intelligence according to his inner guide. He becomes a conscious individual whose intelligence is similar to that which we see working in nature so that the human individual does not incarnate an instinct but a soul."
The Child, Society and the World p 98, Chap VI/2

"The secret of education is to recognise and observe the divine in man; that is to know, love and serve the divine in man."
Ibid p 99, Chap VI/1

"Education should be a science and a help to life, a definite and exact study... Education depends upon a belief in the power of the child and on a certainty that the child has within himself the capacity to develop into a being that is far superior to us."
Ibid p 99, Chap VI/3

"It appears that the rights of the child might be considered as something just for the child's good. But it is something far greater than that, it is as it were the rights of the soul of humanity, the rights of the greatness and possibility of man to live, a cry that the spirit of man be given the possibility to develop to heights such as have already been reached on the material side."
Ibid p 102, Chap VI/3

"The duties of educators are enormous; it is largely because we have failed to fulfil these duties that the spirit of man has remained where it is... We have had the opportunity to see life unfolding in all its beauty and potentialities, but we have remained blind to it, covered it with words, stifled it with our preconceived ideas. Now, as it were, the fruit of our labours is turning its back on us, we see the results of such an education, and we cannot fail to see that it has been wrong."
Ibid p 102, Chap VI/3

"The duty of educators is to insist before the world on the importance of this source of life; to stand together to make a space in which life can grow, where life can have the necessary conditions, and then have the patience and faith to wait for the result: a better order of life, and beings who are capable of living thus.
Ibid p103, Chap VI/3

"One of the obvious causes of the failure of education lies in the training of teachers ... It is utterly ridiculous ... by present standards the teaching of children is not regarded as anything very important as regards the preparation of the teacher. I insist that there should be a scrupulous moral training for all teachers, and that the idea that specialised intellectual training is necessary only for older pupils is entirely mistaken, or that to be of a patient, gentle disposition is all that is necessary for younger children."
Ibid p 103, Chap VI/3

"The preparation of the citizen of tomorrow depends entirely on the psychological foundations of man. Men are by nature social beings. They choose to live together, not as a herd but as independently functioning beings who associate together."
Ibid p 104, Chap VI/3

"They are going to live in the world, therefore they must have contact with it and understand it before they enter it... For the children must understand the present, the economic and political factors controlling the world. To imagine, as is sometimes done, that this can be given in the last years of school is ludicrous."
Ibid p 105, Chap VI/3

"The plan of an education which will give salvation must be based upon the laws that govern human growth and must realize all the potential energies which are latent in man."
Ibid p 111, Chap VI/4

"Education must take advantage of the value of the hidden instincts that guide man as he builds his own life. Powerful among these instincts is the social drive. It has been our experience that if the child and the adolescent do not have a chance to engage in a true social life, they do not develop a sense of discipline and morality. These gifts in their case become products of coercion rather than manifestations of freedom."
Education and Peace p 32, Chap 3

"Education must no longer be regarded only as a matter of teaching children, but as a social question of the highest importance, because it is the one question that concerns all mankind. The many other social questions have to do with one group or another of adults, with relatively small numbers of human beings; the social question of the child, however, has to do with all men everywhere."
Ibid p 48, Chap 6

"Education must concern itself with the development of individuality and allow the individual child to remain independent not only in the earliest years of childhood but through all stages of his development. Two things are necessary: the development of individuality and the participation of the individual in a truly social life. This development and this participation in social activities will take different forms in the various periods of childhood. But one principle will remain unchanged during all these stages: the child must be furnished at all times with the means necessary for him to act and gain experience. His life as a social being will then develop throughout his formative years, becoming more and more complex as he grows older."
Id p 56, Chap 6

"The Montessori approach is based on the revolutionary idea that education has an indispensable role in the formation of man."
Montessori, Mario Education for Human Development p 55, Chap 5

"The aim is to offer adequate aid to the development of the growing human being. Education starts at birth, and therefore concerns parents as well as all other adults who take care of a child in the different milieux in which it grows. It should be directed towards the future and should take into account the whole continuum of growth in establishing its objective."
Ibid p 55, Chap 5

"The technique used to educate children must be one of love."
Ibid p 55, Chap 5

"The dynamic aspect of education stems from a recognition of the child's relation to the world."
Ibid p 56, Chap 5

"Man is not born with pre-established behaviour patterns but with the ability to form them during youth. He does this through his personal experiences in his interaction with the environment. These experiences are internalized, and thus structure his inner world."
Ibid p 57, Chap 5

Study guide

Education and Peace - Chapters 1,3,6

Discovery of the Child - Chapter 1

The Child, Society and the World - Chapters VI/I, VI/2, VI/3

Education for Human Development - Chapter 5

Journal articles

Buckenmeyer, R (1999) 'Science and Faith: Maria Montessori's Principles of Education', NAMTA Journal v24 n2 p59-76 Spring

Dubble, S (1997) 'Growing Schools for Human Growth', NAMTA Journal v22 n1 p158-174 Winter

Kahn, D (1993) 'Montessori Adolescent Education: Toward an Emerging Framework', NAMTA Journal v18 n3 p45-69 Summer

Kahn, D (1998) 'Mario Montessori: In Search of a Deeper Freedom. A Life's Journey of Educational Ideas', NAMTA Journal v23 n2 p1-6 Spring

Loeffler, M (1994) 'Rekindling the Romance: How we can strengthen the Impact of Montessori's Insights on Elementary Education', Montessori Life v6 n1 p19-21 Winter

Roemer, K (1998) 'Outcome-based education and Montessori Schools', Montessori Life v10 n4 p38-41 Fall

Conference papers

AMI (1996) 'The Relevance of Montessori Today: Meeting Human Needs-Principles to Practice', Proceedings of the AMI/USA National Conference, Bellevue, Washington, July 25-28

Archive resources

Boyd, W (1917) From Locke to Montessori, George Harrap & Co London.

Culverwell, E (1913) The Montessori Principles and Practice, G.Bell & Sons, London.

Kilpatrick, W (1915) Montessori Examined, Constable, London.