Maria Montessori: Child

Maria Montessori was Italian pedagogue, philosopher and physician. Explore interesting quotes on child.
Maria Montessori: 78   quotes 77   likes

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

Maria Montessori

Part II : How Language Calls to the Child, p. 121
The Absorbent Mind (1949)

Education

“That which the educator must seek is to be able to see the child as Jesus saw him.”

Maria Montessori

The Secret of Childhood, p. 108.
Context: We have in ourselves tendencies that are not good and which flourish like weeds in a field. (Original sin). These tendencies are many; they fall into seven groups, known of old as the Seven deadly sins. All deadly sins tend to separate us from the child; for the child compared to us, is not only purer but has mysterious qualities, which we adults as a rule cannot perceive, but in which we must believe with faith, for Jesus spoke to them so clearly and insistently that all the Evangelists recorded His words: Unless ye be converted and become as little children, ye shall nor enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. That which the educator must seek is to be able to see the child as Jesus saw him. It is with this endeavour, thus defined and delimited, that we wish to deal.

Education

“Our care of the child should be governed, not by the desire to make him learn things, but by the endeavor always to keep burning within him that light which is called intelligence.”

Maria Montessori
Intelligence , Light , Learning

“It is not enough for the teacher to love the child. She must first love and understand the universe. She must prepare herself, and truly work at it.”

Maria Montessori
Love , Understanding , Teachers , Universe

“Never help a child with a task at which he feels he can succeed.”

Maria Montessori

Attributed in Words of Wisdom (1990), edited by William Safire and ‎Leonard Safir, p. 58

Feeling , Help

“The task of the educator of young children lies in seeing that the child does not confound good with immobility, and evil with activity.”

Maria Montessori

Attributed in The Encarta Book of Quotations (2000), edited by Bill Swainson, p. 662

Children , Education , Evil

“Rewards and punishments, to speak frankly, are the desk of the soul, that is, a means of enslaving a child's spirit, and better suited to provoke than to prevent deformities.”

Maria Montessori

Source: The Discovery of the Child (1948), Ch. 1

Soul

“Adults have not understood children or adolescents and they are, as a consequence, in continual conflict with them. The remedy is not that adults should gain some new intellectual knowledge or achieve a higher standard of culture. No, they must find a different point of departure. The adult must find within himself the still unknown error that prevents him from seeing the child as he is.”

Maria Montessori

Source: The Secret of Childhood (1936), Ch. 2

Children , Error , Departure , Knowledge

“If a child finds no stimuli for the activities which would contribute to his development, he is attracted simply to 'things' and desires to posses them.”

Maria Montessori

Source: The Secret of Childhood (1936), Ch. 23

“The child is essentially alien to this society of men and might express his position in the words of the Gospel: My kingdom is not of this world”

Maria Montessori

The Secret of Childhood, p. 199

Men , World

“Freedom without organization of work would be useless. The child left free without means of work would go to waste, just as a new-born baby, if left free without nourishment, would die of starvation. The organization of the work, therefore, is the cornerstone of this new structure of goodness [in education], but even that organization would be in vain without the liberty to make use of it.”

Maria Montessori

Dr. Montessori's Own Handbook: A short guide to her ideas and materials (1914), Schocken Books, Inc." New York, p. 94

Education , Freedom , Baby

“We have in ourselves tendencies that are not good and which flourish like weeds in a field. (Original sin). These tendencies are many; they fall into seven groups, known of old as the Seven deadly sins. All deadly sins tend to separate us from the child; for the child compared to us, is not only purer but has mysterious qualities, which we adults as a rule cannot perceive, but in which we must believe with faith, for Jesus spoke to them so clearly and insistently that all the Evangelists recorded His words: Unless ye be converted and become as little children, ye shall nor enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.”

Maria Montessori

That which the educator must seek is to be able to see the child as Jesus saw him. It is with this endeavour, thus defined and delimited, that we wish to deal.
The Secret of Childhood, p. 108

Faith , Children

“In the vivid description of the Gospel, it would seem that we must help the Christ hidden in every poor man, in every prisioner, in every sufferer. But if we paraphrased the marvelous scene and applied it to the child, we should find that Christ goes to help all men in the form of the child.”

Maria Montessori

The Secret of Childhood, p. 106

Help , Christ , Suffering , Men