Educate For A New World
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ScribdTranslationsEducate For A New World
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ScribdTranslationsEDUCATE FOR A NEW WORLD
Maria Montessori
Dedicated to the memory of GEORGE SIDNEY ARUNDALE, who invited me to India and
gave me the opportunity to get to know that wonderful country, and to get in touch
with him and his great personality.
BACK COVER
This little gem you have in your hands is a compendium of thought from the
Dr. Montessori. Guides us through the origins of the system, providing us with a
clear vision of the surprising findings he was encountering as he delved into
the secrets of child development; which laid the foundations of what today
we know as 'Montessori principles'.
With a fluid and passionate narrative, we are invited to collaborate with nature.
as parents and teachers and help to develop the individual abilities of each
little beings come out and shine with their own light, removing the obstacles that are
interfere with their path to fulfillment.
INDEX
1 Introduction
2 The discovery and development of the Montessori System
3 The periods and the nature of the absorbent mind
4 Embryology
5 Behaviorism
6 Education from birth
The mystery of language
8 Movement and Its Role in Education
9 Imitative action and cycles of activity
The three-year-old boy
11 How observation evolved methods
The ghost of discipline
13 Qualities a teacher should have to apply the Montessori Method
1. INTRODUCTION
The objective of this book is to expose and defend the enormous potential of
children and help teachers gain a new perspective that will
serve to turn your work from a torture into a joyful task, of the
repression, a work done in collaboration with nature. The world
the environment we live in has been devastated and needs to be rebuilt. A
a fundamental element for this is education. Intellectuals recommend
an improvement in education, as well as a recommendation for the return to the
religion. But humanity is still not ready for such evolution
fervently desired that consists of the reconstruction of a society that
live in peace and harmony and without wars. Men lack education
sufficient to control events and end up being their victims.
Noble ideas and profound feelings have always existed... but it continues
having wars. If education continued with its old formulas and was
would still be considered as the simple transmission of knowledge, the
the problem would become unsolvable and there would be no hope of improving the world.
Only the scientific study of human personality can lead us to the
salvation and for this we have before our eyes a psychic entity in the
children, a gigantic social group, a genuine world power if given
They are correctly guided. If help and salvation are to arrive, it will be the children.
those who bring it, for children are the builders of man and of the
society. The child is endowed with an inner power that can guide us to a
brighter future. Education can no longer be conceived as mere
imparting knowledge, we must seek other ways to free the
human potentialities. At what age should this education begin?
Our response is that the greatness of human personality begins in
the birth, a statement that, no matter how mystical it may seem, is very
close to everyday reality.
The psychic life of newborns has already aroused much interest, and even
There were scientists and psychologists who conducted research with babies between
three hours and five days of life. The conclusion drawn from these studies
the first two years of life are the most important. Like it
They prove the observations, small children are endowed with powers.
special psychics that can be brought to light - literally - 'educate' - for
means of cooperating with nature. For millennia, constructive energy
of the child, always alive and in constant motion, has remained
unknown, a gold mine within the human mind, just like the
the first men who set foot on this planet were unaware of the immense treasures
that were hidden in the depths of the earth. It is so great the
ignorance of man about the hidden riches in the psychic universe
of the child, who from the beginning has done everything possible to suppress that
energy, crush it and pulverize it. Now, for the first time, there are some who
they begin to suspect its existence and to understand that it is a treasure never
exploited, a good more precious than gold, the very essence of man.
The observation of the first two years of life has shed new light on
the laws of the psychic construction of childhood that is completely
different from adult psychology. This is the starting point of a new
path, in which it will not be the teacher who teaches the child, but the child who
teach the teacher.
Maybe this seems like an absurd idea, but it is clearly demonstrated.
when it is discovered that the child mind absorbs knowledge and from that
self-instruction mode. This is easy to prove if one thinks about the
language learning, a true intellectual feat that children accomplish. The
two-year-old child speaks the language of their parents without anyone having taught them.
taught. Everyone who studied this phenomenon agrees in stating that
there is a certain period in life when the child begins to use names and
words related to their environment, and in a short time they master it perfectly
all the irregularities and syntactic constructions that are difficult for him
adults who try to learn a foreign language. Therefore, within
In every child, there is a scrupulous and demanding teacher, who even has their
well-established times and that already at three years has produced a being that,
as psychologists say, learned in that time what an adult would
it would take sixty years of hard work.
Scientific observation has established that education is not what the
the teacher gives to his students; education is a natural process that the
individual acts spontaneously and is not the result of hearing
words, but is based on the experience that contact provides with the
environment. Therefore, the teacher's task now is to prepare
a series of motivations for engaging in cultural activities in an environment
especially prepared and avoid any interference in that process. The only
What teachers can do is help to accomplish the great task and
act as servants before their great lord. Thus they will be witnesses of the revelation.
of the human soul and the emergence of a New Man who is not the victim
of events, but to have a vision clear enough to
to direct and shape the future of human society.
