The Absorbent Mind. Maria Montessori Montessori
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realized, because it is in this period that the construction, the building-up of man takes place, for at birth, psychically speaking, there is nothing at all zero! Indeed not only psychically, for at birth the child is almost paralytic, he cannot do anything, he cannot speak, even though he sees all that happens around him. And behold him after a while; the child, talking, walking and passing on from conquest to conquest until he has built up man in all his greatness, in all his intelligence. If we consider this we begin to have a glimpse of reality. The child is not an empty being who owes whatever he knows to us who have filled him up with it. No, the child is the builder of man. There is no man existing who has not been formed by the child he once was. In order to form a man great powers are necessary and these powers are possessed only by the child. These great powers of the child which we have described for long, and which at last have attracted the attention of other scientists, were hitherto hidden under the cloak of motherhood, in the sense that people said that it is the mother who forms the child, the mother who teaches him to talk, walk etc., etc. But I say that it is not the mother at all. It is the child himself who does all these things. What the mother produces is the new-born babe, but it is this babe who produces the man. Suppose the mother dies, the child grows just the same. Even if the mother is not there, and even if the mother has not the milk necessary to feed him, we give other milk to the child and that is how he continues to grow. It is the child who carries out the construction and not the mother. Suppose we take an Indian child to America and entrust him to some Americans. This child will learn the English language and not an Indian language. By English, we mean American English. So it is not the mother that gives the knowledge. He takes it himself and if these Americans really treated the child as one of their own, this Indian child would acquire the habits and customs of the American people and not those of the Indian people. So none of these things is hereditary. The father and mother cannot claim the credit: it is the child who, making use of all that he finds around him, shapes himself for the future.
The child needs special aid in order to build man properly and society must give this its attention. Recognizing the merits of the child does not diminish the authority of the father and the mother for when they come to realize that they are not the constructors, but merely the helpers of this construction, then they will be able to do their duty better; they will help the child with a greater vision. Only if this help is well given will the child achieve a good construction, not otherwise. So the authority of parenthood is not based upon an independent loftiness but upon the help that is given to the child. Parents have no authority other than that. Let us consider another aspect. Everyone will have heard of Karl Marx who was the originator of a social reform when he made the workers realize that whatever society enjoys was due to their work and that everything we have in our environment has been made by some man or woman. Our daily life is based upon these workers and if they ceased to produce, our social and political life would cease. This is part of the theory of Karl Marx. The workers are those who really give us the possibility of carrying on our lives; they produce the environment and provide everything, food, clothing, every means of life. When people realized this, the working man no longer appeared as the poor laborer who depended for his bread on his employer; he assumed his real importance. Previous to that all importance was given only to princes, kings and capitalists, but later the merits of the workers came to light. And the real contribution of the capitalist was realized as the supplier of the means that the workers needed to carry out their work; also that the better were the conditions afforded to the worker, the better and more accurate was his product.
Let us carry this idea into our field. Let us realize that the child is the worker who produces man. The parents furnish the means of construction to the worker. The social problem confronting us then is of much greater importance, because from the children’s work, humanity itself is produced, not an object. Childhood does not produce one race, one caste, one social group, but it produces the whole of humanity. This is the reality that humanity must envisage: it is the child that society must take into consideration, this worker who produces humanity itself. The two social questions really present a striking resemblance, e.g. before Karl Marx expounded this idea, the working men were not considered. They had to do whatever they were told just as the child has to; the workers’ needs and his dignity as a man were not considered. In the work of the child, the needs of life physical and psychic are not considered, and his dignity of man is non-existent. What have socialists and communists done? They have started a movement in order to obtain better conditions of life for the working man. Also to the child, this constructor, we must give better means of life. Workers ask for more money; more money must also be given to those who produce humanity. The workers wish to free themselves from restraints and repressions. We must free childhood from repression that weighs upon it. The conditions of this constructor of man are more dramatic than those of the constructor of the environment. Bettering the conditions of life for the constructor of man will bring about a betterment in humanity. We must follow this great worker from the moment he starts, at birth, follow him until he reaches adulthood; and provide him with means necessary for a good construction. We must remember that he is going to form that humanity which with its intelligence is building civilization. The child is the builder of our intelligence, and it is our human intelligence which guides our hands and produces what we call civilization.
If life itself is taken into consideration and studied, we shall know the secret of humanity. We shall have in our hands the power of governing and helping humanity. The social vision of Karl Marx brought about a revolution. It is a revolution that we are preaching when we speak about education. It is a revolution inasmuch as everything that we know today will be changed. Indeed I consider it the last revolution. It will be a non-violent revolution because if the slightest violence is offered to the child, then his psychic construction will be faulty. This delicate construction of human normality, as it should be, needs protection; it must be carried out without the slightest violence being offered to it. Indeed all our effort has been to remove obstacles from the path of the growth of the child. We have taken away from him the dangers and misunderstandings that surrounded him.
This is what is intended by education as a help to life; an education from birth that brings about a revolution: a revolution that eliminates every violence, a revolution in which everyone will be attracted towards a common center. Mothers, fathers, statesmen all will be centered upon respecting and aiding this delicate construction which is carried on in psychic mystery following the guide of an inner teacher.
This is the new shining hope for humanity. It is not so much a reconstruction, as an aid to the construction carried out by the human soul as it is meant to be, developed in all the immense potentialities with which the new-born child is endowed.
Chapter III
The Periods Of Growth
According to the modern psychologists who have followed children from birth to university age, there are in the course of development different and distinct periods. This conception is different from the one which was held previously and which considered that the human individual when young holds very little and then becomes more capable as it grows, the conception of something small that developed, i.e., something small which grows, but which holds always the same form. That was the old conception about the human mind. Today psychology recognizes that there are different types of psyche and different types of mind at different periods of life. These periods are clearly distinct from one another. It is curious to say that these periods correspond to different phases in the development of the physical body. The changes are so great, psychically speaking, that certain psychologists, trying to render them clear, have exaggerated and they have expressed themselves in this fashion: “Growth is a succession of births.” At a certain period of life, a psychic individuality ceases and another is born. These successive births take place during the period of growth. The first of these periods goes from birth to six years. This period shows notable differences, but during its whole length the type of mind is the same. From zero to 6 the period shows two distinct sub-phases. The first from to 3 years shows a type of mentality which is unapproachable by the adult, i.e., upon which the adult cannot exert any direct influence and, indeed, there is no school for such children. Then there is another sub-phase from 3 to 6 in which the type of mind is the same, but the child begins to become approachable in a special manner. This period is characterized by the great transformations that take place in the individual. In order to realize this, it is sufficient to think about the difference