Montessori All Day Quotes to Guide Our Reflection part 1

Our observation of children has made us realize that work is man's fundamental instinct and that the child can work from morning till night without ever feeling tired, as if his labor were part of the order of nature.

The child likes neither to play idly, nor to waste time doing useless

things, nor to flit about aimlessly, as most people believe. He seeks some very precise goal, and he seeks it with an instinctive directness of purpose (...) When he has freed himself of the oppressive adults who act for him, the child also achieves his second goal, working positively toward his own independence.

I was more than an elementary teacher, for I was present, or directly taught the children, from eight in the morning to seven in the evening without interruption.

We do not say that we want to prepare a school for the [child]; we wish to prepare an environment for life, where the child can develop a life. That is why we call this institution a House of Children. The idea is to give the children a house of their own, a house in which they are the masters of themselves.

We Italians have elevated our word ‘casa’ to the almost sacred significance of the English word ‘home,’ the enclosed temple of domestic affection, accessible only to dear ones.

In short, where the manufacture of toys has been brought to such a point of complication and perfection that children have at their disposal entire dolls’ houses, complete wardrobes for the dressing and undressing of dolls, kitchens where they can pretend to cook, toy animals as nearly lifelike as possible, this method seeks to give all this to the child in reality – making him an actor in a living scene.

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