Articles

MONTESSORI ON THE IMPORTANCE OF EDUCATION

Maria Montessori, The Absorbent Mind, pp. 8-9

"We discovered that education is not something that 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 experience in which the child acts on the environment...

We then found that individual activity is one factor that stimulates and produces development, and that this is not more true for the little ones of pre-school age than it is for the junior, middle and upper-school children.

A new figure has arisen to greet our eyes. Not just a school nor an education method, but MAN himself: MAN whose true nature is shown in his capacity for free development, whose greatness became visible when mental oppression ceased to bear down on him, to limit his inner work and to weigh down his spirit.

Therefore I hold that any reform of education must be based on the personality of man. Man himself must become the center of education ...

We then become witnesses to the development of the human soul, the emergence of the NEW MAN, who will no longer be the victim of events, but, thanks to his clarity of vision, will become able to direct and mold the future of mankind."