As an ardent reader and lover of Romantic literature, I had never thought that reading a book about education could excite me to any degree.  For this reason, I had put off my educational reading requirements for many years.  Recently, however, I blew the dust off one of those books and discovered one of the most interesting reading experiences of my life.  Dr. Maria Montessori’s book, THE ABSORBENT MIND, is a classic of educational literature.  Indeed, it may well be the most comprehensive exposition of child psychology ever written.

For years, Dr. Montessori crusaded for her educational techniques, while the world clashed in bloody war.  She worked against great odds to convince the world that her educational principles provided the means by which the world might eliminate its gross problems.  In fact, Dr. Montessori’s system was breeding individuals of such quality and self-confidence that they never required violence in order to solve their problems.  While the adults murdered, the children she taught loved.

Dr. Montessori’s method involves the recognition of the early development of the human baby.  She centers her approach around the period of the infant’s life during which the child is growing constantly, striving energetically to learn more than in any other period of life and she arranged an educational environment that allows this growth its fullest opportunity.  Her approach boasts successes that her contemporaries thought impossible.  She taught children to read before they were five, she taught algebra before nine; she accomplished discipline when it was thought impossible, not by lecturing, commanding or restricting, but by leaving the children alone in an environment where they could safely explore the world.

Dr. Montessori stated that the child’s first impulse is to be independent, to do and learn everything by himself.  She believed that parents tended to check the child in this pursuit and that, in so doing, they are working against the child’s nature.  “Only through freedom and environmental experience is it possible for human development to occur.”

The infant learns by experience.  He is constantly bombarded by countless sensory materials.  But the immediate objects of his awareness follow patterns that he quickly learns to grasp.  His capacity is fully open to all experience.  Although later, he does not remember much of his early experiences, everything is registered, absorbed into his personality.  If his environment is peaceful, orderly and inspiring, he sets patterns of mental stability.  His capacity for dealing with the exigencies of the wider contexts of reality are thereby enhanced. “…an educational technique based on the psychology of infantile development.”

In the development of her technique, Dr. Montessori made several interesting discoveries.  She found that the child has a tendency to seek development that serves its growth, i.e., its life.  In her chapter entitled “Discipline and the Teacher” she actually enters the area of philosophy known as ethics.  She mentions that this selectivity corresponds with what some philosophers call the difference in man, i.e., that man is a being of volitional consciousness.  He must choose between seeking values and seeking destruction.  The child naturally seeks values.  She also states that a misdirected or regressive education can cause this selectivity to disappear. 

There are several areas upon which I take issue with Dr. Montessori.

As she states (P. 71 “The Spiritual Embryo”), the child’s purpose is adaptation.  But I feel that this adaptation differs from an animal’s adaptation to environment.  The child’s adaptation is more probably to his own capacities for living in that environment and also, not primarily for adapting, but for discovering his capacities to understand the environment, so that he might later as a mature person alter it to his own needs, and not vice versa.  This principle, as I have stated, is consistent with man, the biological entity that he is.  The principle of adaptation, as Dr. Montessori states it, applies to animals and other organisms but not completely to man.  Man’s adaptation is to himself.

Dr. Montessori also observes that obedience and social collectivization are a result of the ‘normalization’ that her schools produce in children.  I do not doubt that she had seen many children develop these tendencies, but I feel that her attributing these outcomes to something natural in the human psyche may need to be clarified.  It would seem to me that these outcomes occur not because they are natural, but more because through the exceptional schooling, these children develop a strong trust in their elders and those around them, and consequently, feel no desire to rebel.  Indeed, if the entire educational system were composed of Montessori schools, we may have the harmony she glorifies, Sadly, it is not and I fear that after contact with the outer world, the Montessori youngster learns to think twice about such issues as obedience and collectivization.  To be fair to Dr. Montessori, it may well be that through argumentation of this sort, she may have been trying to sell her ideas to dictators like Mussolini who wanted just this sort of ‘obedience.”  We must remember that the times when she lived were not the most peaceful, nor yet the most free.  And all she wanted from her life was to teach and awaken young minds.

 Posted on 6/1/04