Maria Montessori Quotes

In a lifetime devoted to improving the education of children. Maria Montessori’s discovery that every child has a spontaneous urge to learn led her to develop the prepared environments, apparatus and devices that now characterize Montessori education. (E.M.Standing, Maria Montessori, Her Life and Work)

 
Her Quotes:

‘A system of education that is based on liberty ought to aim at assisting a child in obtaining it, and it should have as its specific aim the freeing of the child from those ties which limit its spontaneous manifestations.’ (M. Montessori, The Discovery of the Child, pg.55)

‘If teaching is to be effective with young children, it must assist them to advance on the way to independence. It must initiate them into those kinds of activities which they can perform themselves and which keep them from being a burden to others because of their inabilities. (M. Montessori, The Discovery of the Child, pg.57)

‘The strength of even the smallest children is more than we imagine, but it must have a free play in order to reveal itself.’ (M. Montessori, The Discovery of the Child, pg.69)

‘The successive levels of education must correspond to the successive personalities of the child.’ (M. Montessori, From Childhood to Adolescence, pg.1)

‘An education that suppresses the true nature of the child is an education that leads to the development of anomalies.’ (M. Montessori, From Childhood to Adolescence, pg.5)

‘It is up to the adult to assist the child’s development by creating an environment adapted to his new needs.’ (M. Montessori, From Childhood to Adolescence, pg.11)

‘The role of education is to interest the child profoundly in an external activity to which he will give all his potential.’ (M. Montessori, From Childhood to Adolescence, pg.11)

‘Knowledge can be best given when the seed of everything can be sown, the child’s mind being like a fertile field, ready to receive what will germinate into culture.’ (M. Montessori, To Educate the Human Potential, pg.3)

‘We shall walk together on this path of life, for all things are part of the universe, and are connected with each other to form one whole unity.’ (M. Montessori, To Educate the Human Potential, pg.6)

‘The secret of good teaching is to regard the child’s intelligence as a fertile field in which seeds may be sown, to grow under the heat of flaming imagination. Our aim therefore is not merely to make the child understand, and still less to force him to memorise, but so to touch his imagination as to enthuse him to his inmost core.’ (M. Montessori, To Educate the Human Potential, pg.11)