On Education : Maria Montessori

A few lines from the book "From Childhood to Adolescence" by Maria Montessori

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

Since the human mind is mathematical and philosophic, we try, in reasonable proportions, to turn it towards mathematics and philosophy.

    

 During the course of our experiments with the elementary school childern, we have noted that it is exactly between the ages of size and tewelve years that the bases of all the sceiences ought to be contructed. Ther exists at that time a psychologically sensitive period that could be called "the sensitive period for culture", during which the abstract structure of the human mind is organized. It is at that time that all must be sown. One ocan compare this period of the human mind to a field where seeds of grain are thrown which then await their respective season to germinate.

The aim of education is to study all possible means to "sow the seed" at the suitable age. The "seeding" ought to interest not only the elementary schools but also the university, in the same way that the planting of flax ought also to interest the canvas-maker, since it becomes useless to have good instruments to work the raw meaterial if the latter is wanting.

Psychological life proceeds in the same manner. At certain ages an inner activity forms the roots of the first intellectual development, thus arousing enthusiastic reactions and awakening the capacities that, without such activity, would remain half-dormant. There follows the whole age of youth which develops these centers of interest. But if the seeds of knowledge have not been sown at the right season, only an inertia remains, which causes the child to balk at effort, and all study is sterile. One could say that it is when one has committed this sin against the laws of life that work becomes an arid effort, a sort of condemnation similar to that described in the Bible regarding Adam. Evidently it is not work, but work outside the laws, that is condemned by divine curse. It is thus that the student follows a dry course in a forced manner and without animation. A supreme encouragement would be necessary, a ray of light to call out the hearts that are withdrawn into themselves by inertia and error, to revive the languishing life. But it is not a dry school that can do this, one that underestimates the personality of the student and continues to aggravate the disagreement and inertia.

Therefore, even for the acquisition of knowledge the various phases of school have a common interest. Or rather, the higher schools have, with regard to the elementary schools, a concern with control. For it is in the latter that human energies are prepared.

The university professors, as much those of the sciences as of letters, will have before them ardent apostles, intelligent critics, and veritable collaborators in their students if these have developed normally. If not, they will have before them resistant, indifferent, and inert minds, disrespectful youths whom they will have to keep on a leash as so many young goats.

But collaboration is still more necessary when treating of the human personality in its totality, because man is thirsty not only for culture. Culture brings with it something receptive, while life is active and expansive and seeks creativity outside itself. Which is to say that to study is not to live; but to live is precisely what is most necessary in order to be able to study.