Inspired by Montessori

02/21/2011

Assumptions are dangerous things to make, and like all dangerous things to make — bombs, for instance, or strawberry shortcake — if you make even the tiniest mistake you can find yourself in terrible trouble.
Lemony Snicket, The Austere Academy

When I was just entering the world of early childhood education at Lesley College with Gwen Morgan as my mentor, I remember being tremendously inspired reading The Montessori Method by Maria Montessori. I went on to read several other of her books and collected, on 3" x 5" note cards (no computers in those days, kids), a great many quotes from these books. Looking back at them three decades later, I find her wisdom just as apt today. I am going to share some of my favorites below, but before I do so I would like to invite you to share books that inspired you (and other books you think have shaped our field) in our Exchange Insta Poll for the week. We are collecting your insights on our field to help enrich the 200th issue of Exchange, hitting the streets in July.

"If education is always to be conceived along the same antiquated lines of a mere transmission of knowledge, there is little to be hoped from it in the bettering of man's future. For what is the use of transmitting knowledge if the individual's total development lags behind?"

"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."

"Never help a child with a task at which he feels he can succeed."

"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.'

"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."

"We cannot create observers by saying 'observe,' but by giving them the power and the means for this observation and these means are procured through education of the senses."

"We especially need imagination in science. It is not all mathematics, nor all logic, but it is somewhat beauty and poetry."

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