Tuesday 2 September 2014

Quote of the day: Happy birthday Maria Montessori

I’m a couple of days late, but never too late to pay tribute to this heroine. Anoop Verma chose this quote to do the job:

In her essay “The Comprachicos,” Ayn Rand lauded the Montessori Method as exactly what children needed to develop properly.
    “The purposeful, disciplined use of his intelligence is the highest achievement possible to man: it is that which makes him human.” “[the best development of intelligence is what] Dr. Montessori had in mind…when she wrote the following about her method: ‘The didactic material, in fact, does not offer to the child the ‘content’ of the mind, but the order for that ‘content.’…The mind has formed itself by a special exercise of attention, observing, comparing, and classifying…which leads them to become active and intelligent explorers instead of wandering wayfarers in an unknown land.’”

PS: If you want to help children become active and intelligent explorers instead of wandering wayfarers in an unknown land, there’s a Montessori training course starting in Auckland this summer

3 comments:

Ruth said...

Happy birthday! IMO most parents (including myself) don't realise the benefits of Montessori until it's too late.


My son, who is now 23 years old, has spent the best part of 10 years getting over the horror of the school system. He's now doing well, but maintains the root cause of youth suicide is the school system. So many people I know have said " I left school thinking I was an idiot."

Anonymous said...

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/bay-of-plenty-times/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503343&objectid=11317228

>Peace and community spirit were the themes of the day at an event run by a Tauranga Montessori group [to celebrate Maria Montessori's 144th birthday.]

> Laura Rowe, event organiser and administrator at Tauranga Montessori Education Trust, said the children had also been making 1000 peace cranes, which they would send to Hiroshima.
>
> To celebrate Maria Montessori's birthday, all the children were given a cupcake bought from the SPCA's Cupcake Day, held last weekend.
>
> Instead of a birthday cake, we thought we would buy the cupcakes from the SPCA to give back to the community," Miss Rowe said.

WTF? so many mistakes .. such bad philosophy.

Monas Yuan

MarkT said...

@ Monas: As someone who has regular contact with good Montessori teachers, I’ve observed that their reality oriented focus on the mind and development of the child often (but not always) goes hand in hand with a naivety and lack of awareness about the wider adult world. In the context of what's best for your child though this is a very minor downside.