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.
MARIA MONTESSORIIt is fortunate, I think, that nature is not bounded by human reason and by laboratory work and experimentation, for by the laws of pure reason and by microscopic investigation, it might easily have been proved, long before this, that children could not be born.
More Maria Montessori Quotes
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Speech is one of the marvels that characterize man, and also one of the most difficult spontaneous creations that have been accomplished by nature.
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The man of character is the persistent man, the man who is faithful to his own word, his own convictions, his own affections.
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When you have solved the problem of controlling the attention of the child, you have solved the entire problem of its education.
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The possibility of observing the developments of the psychical life of the child as natural phenomena and experimental reactions transforms the school itself in action into a kind of scientific laboratory for the psychogenetic study of man.
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To aid life, leaving it free, however, that is the basic task of the educator.
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The greatest development is achieved during the first years of life, and therefore it is then that the greatest care should be taken. If this is done, then the child does not become a burden; he will reveal himself as the greatest marvel of nature.
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There is need to realize the value of work in all its forms whether manual or intellectual, to be called ‘mate,’ to have sympathetic understanding of all forms of activity.
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It is better to treat an adolescent as if he had greater value than he actually shows than as if he had less and let him feel that his merits and self-respect are disregarded.
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If intelligence is the triumph of life, the spoken word is the marvellous means by which this intelligence is manifested.
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The teacher, in short, can use reading to introduce her pupils to the most varied subjects; and the moment they have been thus started, they can go on to any limit guided by the single passion for reading.
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The respect and protection of woman and of maternity should be raised to the position of an inalienable social duty and should become one of the principles of human morality.
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If help and salvation are to come, they can only come from the children, for the children are the makers of men.
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The hand is, in the highest degree, a human characteristic. It is man’s organ of grasp and of the sense of touch, while in animals these two functions are relegated to the mouth.
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With man, the life of the body depends on the life of the spirit.
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Early childhood education is the key to the betterment of society.
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There are two ‘faiths’ which can uphold humans: faith in God and faith in oneself. And these two faiths should exist side by side: the first belongs to one’s inner life, the second to one’s life in society.
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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.
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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?
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The child is not an empty being who owes whatever he knows to us who have filled him up with it.
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The only language men ever speak perfectly is the one they learn in babyhood, when no one can teach them anything!
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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.
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Indeed there are powers in the small child that are far greater than is generally realized, because it is in this period that the construction, the building-up, of man takes place, for at birth, psychically speaking, there is nothing at all – zero!
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Suddenly, the child becomes very sensitive to the rudeness and humiliations which he had previously suffered with patient indifference.
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Joy, feeling one’s own value, being appreciated and loved by others, feeling useful and capable of production are all factors of enormous value for the human soul.
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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.
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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.
MARIA MONTESSORI