Montessori beliefs about Children
The absorbent mind—children have an ability to absorb knowledge from their surroundings.
Sensitive Period-a period of time when a child is most susceptible to learning a specific skill
• The hands are the instrument of the mind - children need to explore and to discover; through the activity of their hands, children enrich their experience as they develop their mind.
• Children are nuggets of gold—they have within them, the person they will become; they are constructing their own personality.
• Children deserve our deepest respect— they do not need to earn respect, they deserve respect.
• Most importantly, the child must come first in our minds and in all of our actions. We must carefully observe him and let him teach us what we can do best to release his potential for growth. The following words of Maria Montessori summarize our prime task:
“The child... has a personality of his own. He carries within himself the beauty and dignity of a creativity that can never be erased and for which his spirit, pure and sensitive, extracts from us a most delicate kind of care.” -Maria Montessori
“Even though this development takes place in secret, it would be wrong to imagine, as in the case of speech, for example, that it is not happening.” -Maria Montessori
“What a child’s mind assimilates during the sensitive period remains as a permanent acquisition for his whole life, and it can never be acquired at another stage.” -Maria Montessori
Discipline
“The answer lay in obtaining discipline by giving freedom. These children, ho sought their work in freedom, each absorbed in a different kind of task, yet all belonging to the same group, gave an impression of perfect discipline.” -Maria Montessori
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