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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 Montessori

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.
MARIA MONTESSORI

Act Complete Educational Efficacious Help Life One Toward Unfold
Man is capable of every great heroism; it was man who found a means of conquering the formidable obstacles of his environment, establishing himself lord of the earth, and laying the foundations of civilization.
MARIA MONTESSORI

Capable Conquer Environment Every Formidable Found Great Man Mean Obstacle Theorsim
We all know the sense of comfort of which we are conscious when a good half of the floor space in a room is unencumbered; this seems to offer us the agreeable possibility of moving about freely.
MARIA MONTESSORI

Aggressive Comfort Conscious Floor Freely Good Know Movement Sense Space Unencumbered
Travel stories teach geography; insect stories lead the child into natural science; and so on.
MARIA MONTESSORI

Children Geography Get Insect Natural Science Stories Story Travel
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.
MARIA MONTESSORI

Faith God Human Oneself Two Unhold
Dependence 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 MONTESSORI

Dependence Feckless Hang Love Man Mother Patriotism Point Son Weak
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!
MARIA MONTESSORI

Building Child Construction General Indeed Nothing Physically Power Realize Small Speak Work Zero
It 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.
MARIA MONTESSORI

Born Bound Children Easily Experimentation Fortunate Human Investigation Laboratory Microscopic Nature Reson Think
To aid life, leaving it free, however, that is the basic task of the educator.
MARIA MONTESSORI

Aid Balance Basic Educator Free However Learn Life Position Task Upright
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.
MARIA MONTESSORI

Child Development Experiment Kind Labirtatry Man Observe Phenomenal Physical Possible Psygeogentetic Relation Scientific Specific
How can any one paint who cannot grade colors? How can any one write poetry who has not learnt to hear and see?
MARIA MONTESSORI

Color Grade Hear Learn Paint Poetry See Write
We await the successsive births in the soul of the child. We give all possible material, that nothing may lack to the groping soul, and then we watch for the perfect faculty to come, safeguarding the child from interruption so that it may carry its efforts through.
MARIA MONTESSORI

Await Birth Child Soul Successive We
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.
MARIA MONTESSORI

Appreciate Capable Enmourous Factor Feel Fewel Human Joy Love Other Production Soul Value
In the first three years of life, the foundations of physical and also of psychic health are laid. In these years, the child not only increases in size but passes through great transformations.
MARIA MONTESSORI

Also First Foundation Health Laid Physical Psychic Three Year
Personal health is related to self-control and to the worship of life in all its natural beauty – self-control bringing with it happiness, renewed youth, and long life.
MARIA MONTESSORI

Beauty Control Health Life Natural Person Related Worship
The adolescent must never be treated as a child, for that is a stage of life that he has surpassed.
MARIA MONTESSORI

Adolescent Child Must never Stage Surpassed Treat

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.’

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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.’

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