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. This post presents one of the themes from this collection, designed to transform, step by step, our gaze upon the child.
“It is movement that ensures concentration, not silence.” — Maria Montessori, cit. in E.M. Standing, Maria Montessori: Her Life and Her Work
“To repress these movements, the adult knows only how to repeat the monotonous and pointless ‘Be still.’ And yet it is precisely through these movements that the very young child seeks what will allow him to organise and coordinate the movements useful to the human being. That is why one must give up trying to keep the child in a state of immobility. One should rather ‘order’ his movements, direct them toward the actions toward which his efforts are in fact tending.” — Maria Montessori, Dr. Montessori’s Own Handbook