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.
“While the adult tends toward an external goal and strives to obtain a result, the child works solely to grow and to satisfy his need for activity, independently of any external result. […] The adult therefore follows the law of least effort — he conserves his strength, his time, and can have himself replaced. But this is not the case for the child; he […] can neither hasten the process nor be replaced, and so defends himself with all his might against the interference of the adult who claims to help and guide him by dominating him.” — Maria Montessori, Gazette de Lausanne, March 7, 1932