Drawn from my three-year immersion for the film Let the Child Be the Guide, my research, and my Montessori teacher training (AMI), this quote is an excerpt from a thematic selection I compiled to remove the primary obstacle to education: our adult prejudices. Each entry in this collection aims to transform, step by step, our gaze upon the child.
“Those who prevent the child from moving put obstacles in the way of the construction of his personality. Thought then develops independently of action, and action is organized according to the direction of others. Thus, movement remains subject to the variations of the environment instead of depending on the soul. Work and movement are one and the same thing. The life of man, like that of society, is closely linked to movement. If all human beings ceased to act for just one month, humanity would cease to exist. We can therefore say that the question of movement is a social question, and not a question of individual gymnastics.”
Maria Montessori, Lecture at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 2nd, 1931