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.’
MARIA MONTESSORIThe greatest sign of success for a teacher… is to be able to say, ‘The children are now working as if I did not exist.’
MARIA MONTESSORIThe selfsame procedure which zoology, a branch of the natural sciences, applies to the study of animals, anthropology must apply to the study of man; and by doing so, it enrolls itself as a science in the field of nature.
MARIA MONTESSORIThe teacher must derive not only the capacity, but the desire, to observe natural phenomena. The teacher must understand and feel her position of observer: the activity must lie in the phenomenon.
MARIA MONTESSORIThere 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.
MARIA MONTESSORIEstablishing lasting peace is the work of education; all politics can do is keep us out of war.
MARIA MONTESSORIThe study of expression ought to form a part of the study of psychology, but it also comes within the province of anthropology because the habitual, life-long expressions of the face determine the wrinkles of old age, which are distinctly an anthropological characteristic.
MARIA MONTESSORII have for many years interested myself in the study of children from three years upwards. Many have urged me to continue my studies on the same lines with older children. But what I have felt to be most vital is the need for more careful and particularized study of the tiny child.
MARIA MONTESSORIThe consciousness of knowing how to make oneself useful, how to help mankind in many ways, fills the soul with noble confidence, almost religious dignity.
MARIA MONTESSORITravel stories teach geography; insect stories lead the child into natural science; and so on.
MARIA MONTESSORIThe chief symptom of adolescence is a state of expectation, a tendency towards creative work, and a need for the strengthening of self-confidence.
MARIA MONTESSORIWhen you have solved the problem of controlling the attention of the child, you have solved the entire problem of its education.
MARIA MONTESSORIDependence is not patriotism. A man does not love his mother if he hangs about her to the point of burdening her with a weak, feckless son.
MARIA MONTESSORIIt would be so simple to allow children, when tired of sitting, to rise, and when tired of writing, to desist, and then their bones would not be twisted.
MARIA MONTESSORIBooks 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.
MARIA MONTESSORIOne test of the correctness of educational procedure is the happiness of the child.
MARIA MONTESSORIThe only language men ever speak perfectly is the one they learn in babyhood, when no one can teach them anything!
MARIA MONTESSORI