Spontaneous Activity in EducationMontessori, Maria
Science
Spontaneous Activity in Education
Montessori, Maria
Montessori method of education
in which X is the internal and intrinsic part peculiar to the
individual life, it may be said that every individual has his X. But
in order to _approach_ to direct knowledge of X, it is essential to
know P and E.
He who carries out an examination, or supposes himself to be
performing a "psychical measurement" by dwelling on psychical results,
is in reality measuring a mixture of two unknown quantities, one of
which, being external to the individual, nullifies the results of
research.
Hence, to study individual differences in isolated activities, such as
the perception of colors, musical sounds, the letters of the alphabet;
or the capacity for observation of surroundings and the detection of
errors; or coordination of movements, language, etc., it is essential
to have first determined a _constant_ element: the means of
development offered by environment.
Here a simple and clearly defined difference between pedagogy and
psychology manifests itself: pedagogy determines experimentally the
means of development and the method of applying them while respecting
the internal or personal liberty of the individual; psychology studies
average reactions or individual reactions in the species or the
individual. But the two things are two aspects of a single fact, which
is the development of man; the individual and the environment are the
two factors X and E of the same product: the psychical entity.
Isolated psychical researches of a moral order must also, if they are
to be of any real value, be based upon prolonged observation, _after
the internal activities have become orderly_; because it is easy to
make errors of judgment in a chaos. In clinical psychiatry or in
criminal pathology, when we speak of "keeping a subject under
observation" for purposes of diagnosis, we mean placing him in
special surroundings, under hygienic and disciplinary conditions,
etc., and observing him for some time in such an environment. Such a
process has a value still more extensive and profound in the case of
normal individuals in process of evolution. In such a case it is
necessary not only to offer orderly external surroundings, but to
reduce the chaotic internal world of the child to order, and, after
this, to observe him for a considerable time.
We may offer as an illustration the following observations made upon
two of the most interesting children who attended our schools. They
were admitted into the training school for teachers during my last
International Course in Rome.
ASPECTS OF THE TWO CHILDREN
_During the period they were retained as subjects for anthropological
observation in the class-room for teachers_
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