12/6/22

Deep and Important --recommend to all teachers, lawmakers, and parents!

This reads sort of like Einstein's Dreams as Montessori puzzles out why things are as they are and why we haven't notice the child is born to learn if we allow it to happen by providing the right environment and materials and teaching methods. This is an excerpt to show the kind of thinking in the book. Highly interesting! Deep! "Supposing we put a little levity into this weighty subject and tell a little story. A certain young man wished to marry and recounted all the praises of the lady of his choice. An elder guide responded in writing and this is what happened: The young man praises her beauty; the guide writes a zero. The young man finding beauty is not enough, states that she is rich; the guide writes zero. The young man says, she is learned, but the guide again writes zero. The young man says: “All this means nothing, well, she is athletic, she rides, swims, plays tennis.” Again the guide writes zero. The young man goes on describing all sorts of qualities which his lady-love possesses and the guide continues to write zero against them. Then the young man says: “She is of good character,” and the guide says: “That is something,” and writes a figure one in front of all the zeros. All the other merits acquire their value from this one quality and with that one in front of all the zeros her total value increases a thousandfold. So it is with civilization, all the achievements are naught and lead to destruction, but if love is there they all acquire a great value." ( )

NA

Every reader loves a mystery, and what more fascinating than one hidden in the 'heart' of the new-born child? This book touches on prenatal experience, but is mainly concerned with the growth and education of the child from birth, through the formative years, to adulthood.

The world-famous educationalist, Dr. Maria Montessori, illustrates the unique mental powers of the young child, which after no more than six years surpasses all other species. With penetrating insight, validated by close observation of child phenomena, she sheds light on the responsibility of adults to prepare the environment for the manifestation of the great potentialities and latent spiritual grandeur in the child.

A tough read, especially a 120 page stretch in the middle (chapers 5-15). But, it has a special kind of complex elegance. Montessori puts forward her theories of education and the whole state of the human race. It’s a real, full, coherent education theory that actually feels workable. This I think is unique in education (I’m no expert). And it is all expressed with such intelligence. I kept finding comments that just needed to be highlighted, and I copied out six pages of quotes.

This is not a book to pick up lightly, and it’s not the one you want to go to if you are thinking of putting your children in a Montessori school and are looking for introduction into the method. This book is work. Also, the book extends far beyond the Montessori teaching method, and only some of the details of that system are included here. Maria Montessori gave the lectures that eventually became this book while in India during WWII. She had gone to Holland after being exiled from Italy by Mussolini in the 1930’s. When the Germans overran Holland, she was placed in India. She was in her 70’s and had successfully been teaching her method for 40 years. This was book was a life's work in summary.

I think these quotes cover part of her theory as expressed here:

We, by contrast, are recipients. Impressions pour into us, and we store them in our minds; but we ourselves remain apart from them, just as a vase keeps separate from the water it contains. Instead, the child undergoes a transformation. Impressions do not merely enter his mind; they form it. They incarnate themselves into him. The child creates his own “mental muscles,” using for this what he finds in the world about him. We have named this type of mentality, The Absorbent Mind. p. 24

The hand is in direct connection with man’s soul, and not only with the individual’s soul, but also with the different ways of life the men have adopted on the earth in different places and at different times. p. 138

We often forget that imagination is a force for the discovery of the truth. p161

The pity of it is that after six, children can no longer develop character and its qualities spontaneously. Thenceforward the missionaries, who are also imperfect, find themselves faced with considerable difficulties. They are working on the smoke, and not on the fire p190

If we examine the programmes of work recommended for use in schools, we see at once their poverty and dullness. The education of today is humiliating. It produces an inferiority complex and artificially lowers the powers of man. Its very organization sets a limit to knowledge well below the natural level. p195 ( )