Maria Montessori Quotes - Page 3

The environment must be rich in motives which lend interest to activity and invite the child to conduct his own experiences.

It is necessary for the teacher to guide the child without letting him feel her presence too much, so that she may always be ready to supply the desired help, but may never be the obstacle between the child and his experience.

Imagination does not become great until human beings, given the courage and the strength, use it to create.

There must be provision for the child to have contact with nature; to understand and appreciate the order, the harmony and the beauty in nature.

If we really want children to grow into independent and resourceful adults, we should stop pouring their milk as soon as they have learned to pour it themselves and stop fastening their buttons as soon as they can fasten them without help.

The whole of mankind is one and only one, one race, one class and one society.

Whatever is presented to him must be made beautiful and clear, striking his imagination. Once this love has been kindled, all problems confronting the educationist will disappear.

Watching a child makes it obvious that the development of his mind comes through his movements.

Only through freedom and environmental experience is it practically possible for human development to occur.

Character formation cannot be taught. It comes from experience and not from explanation.

A child is an eager observer and is particularly attracted by the actions of the adults and wants to imitate them. In this regard an adult can have a kind of mission. He can be an inspiration for the child's actions, a kind of open book wherein a child can learn how to direct his own movements. But an adult, if he is to afford proper guidance, must always be calm and act slowly so that the child who is watching him can clearly see his actions in all their particulars.

Every great cause is born from repeated failures and from imperfect achievements.

At a given moment a child becomes interested in a piece of work, showing it by the expression of his face, by his intense attention, by his perseverance in the same exercise. That child has set foot upon the road leading to discipline.

We must support as much as possible the child's desires for activity; not wait on him, but educate him to be independent.

The child can only develop fully by means of experience in his environment. We call such experience 'work'.

Teach by teaching, not by correcting

Of all things love is the most potent.

Within the child lies the fate of the future.

Children have an anxious concern for living beings, and the satisfaction of this instinct fills them with delight. It is therefore easy to interest them in taking care of plants and especially of animals. Nothing awakens foresight in a small child such as this. When he knows that animals have need of him, that little plants will dry up if he does not water them, he binds together with a new thread of love today's passing moments with those of the morrow.

The adult works to improve his environment while the child works to improve himself.

A child needs freedom within limits.

To let the child do as he likes when he has not yet developed any powers of control is to betray the idea of freedom.

Children display a universal love of mathematics, which is par excellence the science of precision, order, and intelligence.

The teacher's task is not a small easy one! She has to prepare a huge amount of knowledge to satisfy the child's mental hunger. She is not like the ordinary teacher, limited by a syllabus. The needs of the child are clearly more difficult to answer.

Children become like the things they love.