Maria Montessori Quotes - Page 2

The senses, being the explorers of the world, open the way to knowledge.

Whoever touches the life of the child touches the most sensitive point of a whole which has roots in the most distant past and climbs toward the infinite future.

The child is both a hope and a promise for mankind.

Growth comes from activity, not from intellectual understanding.

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

Children are human beings to whom respect is due, superior to us by reason of their innocence and of the greater possibilities of their future.

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

As soon as children find something that interests them they lose their instability and learn to concentrate.

Any child who is self-sufficient, who can tie his shoes, dress or undress himself, reflects in his joy and sense of achievement the image of human dignity which is derived from a sense of independence.

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

The first essential for the child’s development is concentration. The child who concentrates is immensely happy.

What we need is a world full of miracles, like the miracle of seeing the young child seeking work and independence, and manifesting a wealth of enthusiasm and love.

He does it with his hands, by experience, first in play and then through work. The hands are the instruments of man's intelligence.

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.

These words reveal the child’s inner needs; ‘Help me to do it alone’.

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.

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

The secret of good teaching is to regard the child's intelligence as a fertile field in which seeds may be sown, to grow under the heat of flaming imagination.

The child, making use of all that he finds around him, shapes himself for the future.

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

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.

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

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.

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

...we discovered that education is not something which the teacher does, but that it is a natural process which develops spontaneously in the human being. It is not acquired by listening to words, but in virtue of experiences in which the child acts on his environment. The teacher's task is not to talk, but to prepare and arrange a series of motives for cultural activity in a special environment made for the child.