The Absorbent Mind. Maria Montessori Montessori
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certainty that, psychically speaking, there is a period in which all the human beings are alike. And when we say that the new born is a psychic embryo, we must understand that all new-born children are alike. There can therefore be but one means of treating or educating children of this age, i.e., if education is to start from birth, there can be but one method. There can be no question of special methods for Indian children or Chinese or Japanese or European children. Here there is an absolute method which is the same for all. There is a period of incarnation in which every human being acts in the same fashion, i.e., every human being incarnates itself in the same way; all have the same psychic needs and follow the same procedure in order to achieve the construction of man. No matter what type of man results from the work of the child, no matter if it is a genius, or a laborer, a saint or a murderer, each in order to become what he is in the end, must pass through these stages of growth, these phases of incarnation. What we must take into consideration is this process of incarnation, we must not pre-occupy ourselves with what the individual will become later on. We cannot interfere with that. First of all we do not know it, and then we should not have the power to achieve it if we knew. What must preoccupy us, what must take our energies is the assistance to those laws of growth that are common to all.
This brings us to the question of the methods of education. There must be there can be only one method of education. The method which helps the natural laws of growth and of development, alike for all. This is not an idea; it is a fact, an evident fact and it shows that it cannot be a philosopher or a thinker to dictate this or that method of education. The only one who can dictate the method is nature itself which has established certain laws, which has infused certain needs into the growing being. It is the aim of satisfying these needs, seconding these laws, which must dictate the method of education; not the more or less brilliant ideas of a philosopher.
This is specially so in the first years of life. It is true that afterwards differences arise in the individuals but it is not we who cause these differences; we cannot even provoke them. There is an inner individuality, an ego which develops spontaneously, independently of us and we cannot do anything about it. We cannot make, for instance, a genius, or a general or an artist. We can only help that individual who is to be a general or a leader to realize his potentialities. No matter what they are, if they are leaders or poets or artists or geniuses, or merely common men, they must pass through these stages: embryonic stages before birth, psycho-embryonic stages after birth, in order to realize their mysterious future self. What we can do is merely to remove the obstacles so that the mysterious being that each individual is to realize can be achieved, because by removing those obstacles, the work can be done better.
We call this fundamental effort of self-realization ‘incarnation.’ This is the first practical point: there is a process of incarnation, this process of incarnation is the same for all, and our aim in education must be to help this process of incarnation.
Further Outcome of Embryology
The three embryos of Fig. 6 are very similar, one to the other. However, when they have finished their development, these beings are very different from one another. Now let us continue to illustrate this question of the development of embryos by following the reasoning of the most modern thinkers. What we have already seen is very striking: the existence of genes, the existence of points of sensitivity around which organs are formed and then the formation of two systems the circulatory system and the nervous system which connect and unite intimately all that has been created. After these organs have come into relation, there is something that is even more mysterious. This is the fact that it is not merely organs that are created and that come to be intimately connected one with the other, but that there come living beings free and independent. It is not merely the construction of those organs and putting them in connection with one another, the whole of these organs, the same in every being, form in each case a being different from the other: each has its own character. This is what is extraordinary. This problem has not yet been solved by science. There is the theory of evolution, but it is a theory and not a fact. Observation unfolds all the facts without explaining them. Whenever there is no explanation a void remains and this is important. The important fact is to recognize that there is a void. If we accept a theory, e.g., that of evolution which covers all the facts, then our intelligence is set at rest. But once the void has been noticed, the intelligence becomes restless and sets out to find an explanation. These voids lead people to think, to study facts until a new discovery is made and with each discovery, one more void is filled and one step forward in knowledge is made.
There was a discovery first made public in 1930 (this seems to be an important year for embryology). It was made in the laboratories of a biologist of Philadelphia. These modern laboratories of America are very well staffed and endowed so that each scientist can dedicate himself to the study of one special detail. One of these studied for seven or eight years but one type of animal, a very inferior sort of amphibian and he studied it for such a long time because the facts did not correspond to the scientific theories which were expounded at the time. Now to give a full explanation of what this man has discovered would be boring and not easy to understand. I just mention it in passing. This scientist discovered that the parts which were first formed were those parts which directed the functioning of the individual and that the formation of the executive organs comes afterwards. Every body knows that we have a nervous system and among other things we have a brain and in our brain are located certain parts each of which deals with an organ. There is a part of the brain which deals with sight and it is called the visual center. Now what this scientist discovered was that the part of the nervous system which was meant to direct sight was formed first, much before the nerve of sight and much before the eye. This was absolutely contrary to the scientific theory of the time. The conclusion he came to was this: that in animals the psychic part is formed before the being itself is formed i.e., the instincts of the animals are there before the animal has finished building itself physically. This means that generation concerns not only the body, and the different inner organs but also the psyche, also the instincts of each animal, and that the habits of these animals are fixed before the organ is formed.
Behaviorism
This is the new idea. The habits that the animal is going to have are fixed in the nerve centers much before the organ is built. Now if this psychic part is preexisting, what does it mean? It means that the organ finishes its own construction, molding itself to the requirements of the psyche, of the instincts. This method of reasoning brings us to the conclusion that animals have their habits pre-established before birth and the organs are built in such a fashion as best to fulfil these habits and these instincts. So according to this new theory, what is important in nature is the habits, the customs of animals. It is interesting to see that the organs, of whatever the animal, are the best suited to carry out the command of its instincts. The new theory has arisen from years and years of study and from observation of facts, not from pre-established ideas. This brings us to the conclusion that the habits of animals are now-a-days more important than the form of the body which was the center of interest in previous times. The term used in this generalization of facts is what is designated as ‘behavior,’ It includes in its meaning the habits and customs of the animals described. The new theory is known in modern books, especially in America, as ‘Behaviorism.’ It is a new light that has come into the field of science. The old ideas which held that animals assume their habits because they had to adapt themselves to their environment have gone. The old theory held that it was the will of the adult which provoked the transformations necessary so that the body became adapted to the environment, that the efforts which animals made to keep alive, this ‘instinct of self-preservation,’ caused a transformation in the successive generations and gradually the species became adapted. The species which could not do this perished. This was called the ‘survival of the fittest,’ This theory averred that by means of continuous efforts carried out during generations, a sort of perfection came about and this was then transmitted to the next generation.
The new theory does not do away with all this, but places the behavior of the animal at the center of all its habits. The facts observed are that the animal which strives for adaptation is successful only if its efforts are expended within its behavior-pattern. So the animal which successfully carries out its experiences of life upon the environment does so along the lines of its behavior. Let us illustrate this by an example. Let