Reconstruction in education

by Maria Montessori

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Snippet's from the book:

"This is always very difficult for me to set forth my argument, because this argument is not a simple conception like a line, but is immense, if you will, like a desert or an ocean. So it is very difficult for me to know just what I can do in order to give you what I would, for I do not myself know the extent of this greatness. This desert or ocean is not a creation of my mind, my soul, my knowledge, my evolution, but it is Education - not the education that you know, but an unknown education that is new, that is efficient, that gives help and a new orientation, a new knowledge, permit me to say, a new Wisdom to the world." 
 
"This education is something that is given to us, not something that we can construct by ourselves. So you will understand that when I speak of something so far from myself I cannot speak with words that have the sound of modesty; nor is what I have to say an exaggeration. I am sorry that I am not capable of giving you the right value of this change that has come about, this new and very real spark. We have not all known that new master who has a new world and who can give new hope, who can open a new path. If you know me sufficiently well, you will understand by this little beginning that I will speak to you about the Child. You understand that humanity cannot be constructed only by one-half of human life. All of the world today is based upon the adult, and we have a world that is terrible, that is hard, and which people say is unchangeable. But I ask you, is anything unchangeable? "
 
"This other part of humanity can help the first, particularly if the life is full of interest. It is true that each one of us has not always been a grown-up person. We have, each of us, been a child. From the child has come our personality, our humanity. In the long history of the child from birth to the adult state, he has had a work to do. The child has been the constructor of every one of us. Before we became an important adult, a respected person, a person who takes his part in society, we have been another personality, a personality very mysterious, not considered in this world, not respected, a person that has no importance, no choice. Yet he is capable of something we cannot do - he is capable of constructing an immense world in a way we cannot even imagine of doing."
 
"Our idea about the child is that he is nothing, a little thing, an empty thing without importance. No empty thing, nothing without importance, can be the constructor of a Man. He who can do that is himself something great. Imagine the beginnings of this plant here. It was cultivated from a seed. We do not consider a seed as without importance, but we know that the seed has within it the plant and that, if cultivated, forth from it will come anew plant. But it has not been realized that in every child is the seed that will mature into an adult."

About the Author:

Maria Montessori (1870-1952), Italian physician and educationist, born in Rome, the first woman in Italy to receive a mediacal degree (1894), she founded a school for children with learning disabilities (1899-1901), and developed a system of education for children of three to six based on spontaneity of expression and freedom from restraint. The system was later worked out for older childre, and applied in Montessori schools throughout the world. She opened the first Montessori school for children in the slums of Rome in 1907.