The Absorbent mind

"The greatness of the human personality begins at the hour of birth."
The Absorbent Mind p.4, Chap 1.

Montessori recognised that the mind of a young child was significantly different to that of an adult. From the moment of birth a child is subjected to a multitude of sensorial impressions from the environment.

She talks of him having an "intelligence of an unconscious type" (The Absorbent Mind p.22, Chap 3) which begins with this knowledge of his surroundings.

There is in the child an "intense and specialized sensitiveness in consequence of which the things about him awaken so much interest and so much enthusiasm that they become incorporated in his very existence.

The child absorbs these impressions not with his mind but with his life itself." (Ibid p.22).

A very young child does not have a bank of memories from which to categorise and build his experiences. He simply absorbs knowledge directly into the very fabric of his mind, an unconscious psychological development that takes place through which the child can then relate all his subsequent external experiences.

This is why this first period in human development is so important. It is the foundation on which all else rests. The development of a human child is not restricted to that of instinctive behaviour, but facilitates the absorption of the social world.

At first the growing child has no sense of itself being apart from the world around it, slowly, however, it expands its knowledge and learns to perceive itself as a separate and distinct entity. The child has an innate ability to adapt to the social world in which it finds itself.

It is this ability to absorb its particular world that allows each child to adapt to the characteristics of its individual culture. Montessori realised that it was the influences that shaped a child's mind at these early stages that either released him to develop in his full glory, or impeded him not only in childhood, but on into adulthood

"At no other age has the child greater need for intelligent help, and any obstacle that impedes his creative work will lessen the chance he has of achieving perfection." (Id p.26).

"Impressions pour into us and we store them in our minds; but we ourselves remain apart from them as a vase keeps separate from the water it contains. Instead, the child undergoes a transformation. Impressions do not merely enter the mind; they form it. They incarnate themselves in him... We have named this type of mentality The Absorbent Mind."
The Absorbent Mind p. 24, Chap 3

Quotations

"There is an interchange between the individual, the spiritual embryo, and its environment. It is through the environment that the individual is molded and brought to perfection."
The Secret of Childhood p 35, Chap 6

"During this early period, education must be understood as a help to the unfolding of the child's unborn psychic powers."
The Absorbent Mind p 4, Chap 1

"Impressions do not merely enter his mind; they form it. They incarnate themselves in him. The child creates his own 'mental muscles' using for this what he finds in the world around him. We have named this type of mentality The Absorbent Mind."
Ibid p.24, Chap 3

"Adults admire their environment; they can remember it and think about it; but the child absorbs it. The things he see are not just remembered; they form part of his soul. He incarnates in himself all in the world about him that his eyes see and his ears hear. In us the same things produce no change, but the child is transformed by them."
Ibid p. 56, Chap 7

"This vital kind of memory, which does not consciously remember, but absorbs images into the individual's very life, has been given a special name by Sir Percy Nunn, who calls it the 'Mneme'."
Ibid p. 57, Chap 7

"Nothing has more importance for us than this absorbent kind of mind, which shapes the adult and adapts him to any kind of social order, climate or country. On this, the whole of our study is based."
Ibid p 58, Chap 7

"All the social and moral habits that shape a man's personality, the sentiments of caste, and all kinds of other feelings, that make him a typical Indian, a typical Italian, or a typical Englishman, are formed during infancy, in virtue of that mysterious mental power that psychologists have called 'Mneme',"
Ibid p 59, Chap 7

"This is the terrible revenge of the psychological unconscious. With our conscious memory we forget, but the unconscious, although it seems to feel nothing and not to remember, does something worse, for impressions made at this level are handed over to the mneme. They become graven on the personality itself... This is the great danger of mankind. The child who is not protected with a view to his normal formation will later avenge himself on society by means of the adult who is formed by him."
Ibid p 71, Chap 7

"...the child, it is clear, does not inherit a pre-established model for his language, but he inherits the power of constructing a language by an unconscious activity of absorption."
Ibid p 73, Chap 7

"Man possesses creative sensitivities instead of hereditary models of behaviour, and if it is due to these that adaptation occurs to his surroundings, then it is clear that the whole psychic life of the individual stands upon a foundation which is laid down by them in the earliest years."
Ibid p 75, Chap 7

"The baby is...endowed with an urge, or need, to face the outer world and to absorb it. We might say that he is born with 'the psychology of world conquest'."
Ibid p 77, Chap 8

"...it seems that the field on which we draw is extremely large, almost universal, and this is nature's way. We do not assimilate first this sound and then that, or the various noises, one at a time. But we begin by absorbing all of them at once, an undivided whole."
Ibid p 77, Chap 8

"This is the mark of his first period in the world. If the child feels an impulse to conquer his environment, it follows that this must have for him a certain attraction. So, let us say (using words that are not quite appropriate) that the child is 'in love' with his world."
Ibid p 77, Chap 8

"If what we have to do is to help man's mental life, then the first lesson we must learn is that the tiny child's absorbent mind finds all its nutrients in its surroundings."
Ibid p 88, Chap 9

Study guide

The Absorbent Mind - Chapters 3, 7 ,8

Montessori: Her Life and Work - Chapter 7

Journal articles

Haines, A (1993) 'Absorbent Mind Update: Research Sheds New Light on Montessori Theory', NAMTA Journal, v18, n2, p1-25 Spring

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.