Spontaneous Activity in EducationMontessori, Maria
Science
Spontaneous Activity in Education
Montessori, Maria
Montessori method of education
"In a few days that nebulous mass of whirling particles--the
disorderly children--began to take definite form. The
children seemed to begin to find their own way; in many of
the objects they had at first despised as silly playthings,
they began to discover a novel interest, and, as a result of
this new interest, they began to act as independent
individuals." Miss George's subsequent expression is: "They
became extremely individual." "Thus it came to pass that an
object of absorbing interest to one child had not the
slightest attraction for another; the children were strongly
differentiated in their manifestations of attention...." "The
battle is only definitively won, when the child discovers
some particular object which spontaneously excites great
interest in him. Sometimes this enthusiasm awakens
unexpectedly, or with curious rapidity."
"On one occasion I had tried a child with nearly all the
objects of the series without exciting the smallest spark of
interest; then I casually showed him the two tablets of red
and blue colors, and called his attention to the difference
of tint. He seized them at once with a kind of thirstiness,
and learned five different colors in a single lesson; during
the following days he took nearly all the objects of the
series which he had at first despised, and little by little
mastered them all.
"A child who at first had very little power of concentrating
his attention, found an outlet from this state of chaos by
means of one of the most complex objects of the material, the
so-called length-rods; he played with these continually for a
whole week and learned to count and make simple additions. He
then began to turn to the cylinders and the insets, the
simpler objects, and showed interest in every part of the
system.
"Directly the children find their objects interesting, their
disorderliness disappears at once; their mental restlessness
is at an end, and they amuse themselves with the blocks, the
colors, etc."
It is very interesting to follow Miss George again in her description
of the special qualities that develop after such a phenomenon. She
illustrates the birth of individuality by a pretty anecdote:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account