Top 389 Quotes & Sayings by Maria Montessori - Page 3

If we really want children to grow into independent and resourceful adults, we should stop pouring their milk as soon as they have learned to pour it themselves and stop fastening their buttons as soon as they can fasten them without help.

We must help the child to act for himself, will for himself, think for himself; this is the art of those who aspire to serve the spirit.

A child's work is to create the person she/he will become.

Watching a child makes it obvious that the development of his mind comes through his movements.

The first aim of the prepared environment is, as far as it is possible, to render the growing child independent of the adult.

The land is where our roots are. The children must be taught to feel and live in harmony with the Earth.

Our care of the child should be governed, not by the desire to make him learn things, but by the endeavor always to keep burning within him that light which is called intelligence.

This is the treasure we need today - helping the child become independent of us and make his way by himself, receiving in return his gifts of hope and light.

To teach details is to bring confusion; to establish the relationship between things is to bring knowledge.

Education should no longer be most imparting of knowledge, but must take a new path, seeking the release of human potentialities.

The adult works to improve his environment while the child works to improve himself.

First the education of the senses, then the education of the intellect.

The environment must be rich in motives which lend interest to activity and invite the child to conduct his own experiences.

We must support as much as possible the child's desires for activity; not wait on him, but educate him to be independent.

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. But an adult, if he is to afford proper guidance, must always be calm and act slowly so that the child who is watching him can clearly see his actions in all their particulars.

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 child has a different relation to his environment from ours... the child absorbs it. The things he sees 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.

Whatever is presented to him must be made beautiful and clear, striking his imagination. Once this love has been kindled, all problems confronting the educationist will disappear.

To consider the school as a place where instruction is given is one point of view. But, to consider the school as a preparation for life is another. In the latter case, the school must satisfy all the needs of life.

Within the child lies the fate of the future.

Every great cause is born from repeated failures and from imperfect achievements.

A child is a discoverer. He is an amorphous, splendid being in search of his own proper form.

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 development of the mind comes through movement

There can be no substitute for work, neither affection nor physical well-being can replace it.

Children become like the things they love.

The child is endowed with unknown powers, which can guide us to a radiant future. If what we really want is a new world, then education must take as its aim the development of these hidden possibilities.

The unknown energy that can help humanity is that which lies hidden in the child.

At a given moment a child becomes interested in a piece of work, showing it by the expression of his face, by his intense attention, by his perseverance in the same exercise. That child has set foot upon the road leading to discipline.

The real preparation for education is the study of one's self.

The exercises of practical life are formative activities, a work of adaptation to the environment. Such adaptation to the environment and efficient functioning therein is the very essence of a useful education.

The whole of mankind is one and only one, one race, one class and one society.

It is exactly in the repetition of the exercises that the education of the senses exists; not that the child shall know colors, forms or qualities, but that he refine his senses through an exercise of attention, comparison and judgment.

Children have an anxious concern for living beings, and the satisfaction of this instinct fills them with delight. It is therefore easy to interest them in taking care of plants and especially of animals. Nothing awakens foresight in a small child such as this. When he knows that animals have need of him, that little plants will dry up if he does not water them, he binds together with a new thread of love today's passing moments with those of the morrow.

Giving children the opportunity to stir up life and leave it free to discover.

The child, in fact, once he feels sure of himself, will no longer seek the approval of authority after every step.

Children display a universal love of mathematics, which is par excellence the science of precision, order, and intelligence.

A child needs freedom within limits.

Of all things love is the most potent.

The teacher's task is not a small easy one! She has to prepare a huge amount of knowledge to satisfy the child's mental hunger. She is not like the ordinary teacher, limited by a syllabus. The needs of the child are clearly more difficult to answer.

Discipline must come through liberty.

Imitation is the first instinct of the awakening mind.

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.

We shall walk together on this path of life, for all things are a part of the universe, and are connected with each other to form one whole unity. This idea helps the mind of the child to become fixed, to stop wandering in an aimless quest for knowledge. He is satisfied, having found the universal centre of himself with all things.

The work of education is divided between the teacher and the environment.

Education cannot be effective unless it helps a child to open up himself to life.

To let the child do as he likes when he has not yet developed any powers of control is to betray the idea of freedom.

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.

It is the child who makes the man, and no man exists who was not made by the child he once was.

The child will reveal himself through work.

The child can only develop fully by means of experience in his environment. We call such experience 'work'.

Concentration is the key that opens up to the child the latent treasures within him.

Only through freedom and environmental experience is it practically possible for human development to occur.

The child is truly a miraculous being, and this should be felt deeply by the educator.

The child builds his inmost self out of the deeply held impressions he receives.

Praise, help, or even a look, may be enough to interrupt him, or destroy the activity. It seems a strange thing to say, but this can happen even if the child merely becomes aware of being watched. After all, we too sometimes feel unable to go on working if someone comes to see what we are doing. The great principle which brings success to the teacher is this: as soon as concentration has begun, act as if the child does not exist. Naturally, one can see what he is doing with a quick glance, but without his being aware of it.

Respect all the reasonable forms of activity in which the child engages and try to understand them.

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.

An interesting piece of work, freely chosen, which has the virtue of inducing concentration rather than fatigue, adds to the child's energies and mental capacities, and leads him to self-mastery.

Only practical work and experience lead the young to maturity.