The Absorbent Mind (Rediscovered Books). Maria Montessori Montessori
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the children came at three years of age; no one could teach them because they were not receptive. But they gave striking revelations of the greatness of the human mind. Our school is not a real school; it is a house of children, i.e., an environment specially prepared for the children where the children absorb whatever culture is spread in the environment without any one teaching them. In our first school the children who attended came from the lowest class of people; the parents were quite illiterate. Yet these children at 4 years knew how to read and write. Nobody had taught them. Visitors were surprised to see children of so tender an age writing and reading. “Who has taught you how to write?” they asked and the children would look up in wonder and answer, “Taught? no one has taught me,” This seemed at the time a miracle. That children so small could write was in itself wonderful, but that they should do so without having received any teaching seemed impossible. The press began to speak about spontaneous acquisition of culture, Psychologists thought that these children were special children and we shared this opinion for a long time. It was only after some years that we perceived that all children have this power of absorbing culture. If this is so, we reasoned, if culture can be taken in without fatigue then let us put different items of culture for them to absorb. So the children absorbed much more than reading and writing, subjects like botany, zoology, mathematics, geography and so on were taken with the same ease, spontaneously, without any fatigue.
So we found that education is not what the teacher gives: education is a natural process spontaneously carried out by the human individual. It is acquired not by listening to words, but by experiences upon the environment. The task of the teacher then becomes not one of talking, but one of preparing a series of motives of cultural activity spread in a specially prepared environment. My experiences have lasted for 40 years now and as the children developed, here and there, in different nations, parents asked me to continue the education for older children and so we found that individual activity is the only means of development: that this is true for the preschool child as well as for the young people in primary and other schools.
The New Man Arises
In front of our eyes arose a new figure. It was not a school or education. It was Man that rose; Man who revealed his true character as he developed freely; who showed his greatness when no mental oppression was there to restrict his soul. And so I say that any reform of education must be based upon the development of the human personality. Man himself should become the center of education. And it must be remembered that man does not develop only at the university: man starts his development from birth and before birth. The greatest development is achieved during the first years of life, and therefore it is then that the greatest care should be taken. If this is done, then the child does not become a burden; he will reveal himself as the greatest marvel of nature. We shall be confronted by a child not as he was considered before a powerless being an empty vessel that must be filled with our wisdom. His dignity will arise in its fullness in front of our eyes as he reveals himself as the constructor of our intelligence, as the being who, guided by the inner teacher, in joy and happiness works indefatigably, following a strict time-table, to the construction of that marvel of nature: Man. We, the human teachers, can only help the great work that is being done, as servants help the master. If we do so, we shall be witnesses to the unfolding of the human soul, to the rising of a New Man who will not be the victim of events, but who will have the clarity of vision to direct and shape the future of human society.
Chapter II
Education For Life
The School and Social Life
It is necessary from the very beginning to have an idea of what we intend by an education for life that starts from birth and even before birth. It is necessary to go into detail about this question, because recently, for the first time, a leader of the people has formulated the necessity not only of extending education to the whole course of life, but also of making ‘defense of life’ the center of education. I say for the first time when I refer to a political and spiritual leader, because science has not only expressed the necessity of it, but from the beginning of this century it has given positive contributions which show that the conception of extending education to the whole life can be done with certainty of success. Education, as a help and protection to life, is an idea which certainly has not entered the field of action of any ministry of education, neither in America North or South nor in Europe. Education as conceived up to today is rich in methods, in social aims and finalities, but it takes hardly into any consideration whatever life itself. There are many official methods of education adopted by different countries, but no official system of education considers life itself or sets out to protect development and help the individual from birth. If education is protection to life, you will realize that it is necessary that education accompany life during its whole course. Education as conceived today prescinds from both biological and social life. If we stop to think about the question we soon realize that all those who are undergoing education are isolated from society. Students must follow the rules established by each institution and adapt themselves to the syllabus recommended by the ministry of education. If we think about it we find also that in these schools no consideration is given to life itself. If the high school student for instance has not enough food, that is no concern of the school. In the recent past if there were children who were partly deaf, they were marked out by their receiving lower marks because they were unable to hear what the teacher said, but the defects of the child were not taken into consideration. If a child was defective in sight he also received bad marks because he could not write as beautifully as other children. Physical defects have not been taken into consideration until very lately and when this was done, it was from the point of view of hygiene. Even now, however, no one worries about the danger there is for the mind of the student, danger due to defects in the methods of education adopted. What school worries about the kind of civilization the children are forced to live in? The only thing officialdom is bothered about is whether or not the syllabus has been followed. There are social deficiencies apt to strike the spirit of young men attending the university and which do strike them, but what is the official admonition? “You students should not concern yourselves with politics. You must attend to your studies and after you have formed yourselves, then go into the world,” Yes. That is quite so, but education today does not form an intelligence capable of visualizing the epoch and the problems of the times in which they live. Scholastic mechanisms are foreign to the social life of the times: its study does not enter the realm of education. Who has ever heard of any ministry of education that is called upon to solve any social problem acutely felt in the country? Never has such a case occurred because the world of education is a sort of retreat where the individuals, for the whole of their scholastic life, remain isolated from the problems of the world. They prepare themselves for life by remaining outside of life.
There may be, for instance, a university student who dies of tuberculosis. That is very sad indeed. But as a university, what can be done? At the most it can provide to be represented at the funeral. There are many individuals who are extremely nervous; when they go into the world, they will be useless not only to themselves, but will be a cause of trouble to their family and to their friends. That may be so, but I, as authority, am not concerned with peculiarities of psychology. I am only concerned with studies and examinations. Who passes them will receive a diploma or a degree. That is as far as the schools of our times go. Those who study sociology or problems of society have said that the people who come from school or university are not prepared for life, not only that, but most are diminished in their possibilities. Sociologists have compiled statistics and have found that there are many criminals, many mad and many more who are considered ‘strange’: they conclude by saying that the schools must do something to remedy this.
This is a fact. The school is a world apart and if there are social problems the school is expected to ignore them. It is the sociologists who say that schools must do something, but the school itself has not the possibility of doing so, because the school is a social institution of long standing and its rules cannot be modified unless there is some outside power which enforces this modification. These are some of the deficiencies that accompany education and therefore the life of all who go to school.
The Pre-School Age
What about the child from birth to the seventh year, or of the child