Spontaneous Activity in EducationMontessori, Maria
Science
Spontaneous Activity in Education
Montessori, Maria
Montessori method of education
When in a school everything revolves around a fundamental fact, and
this fact is a natural phenomenon, the school will have entered the
orbit of science. Then the teacher must assume those "characteristics"
which are necessary in the presence of science.
Among its devotees we find "characteristics" independent of the
content of thought; in short, physicists, chemists, astronomers,
botanists, and zoologists, though their content of knowledge is
entirely different, are nevertheless all students of the positive
sciences, and have characteristics which differentiate them from the
metaphysicians of the past. These characteristics are related, not to
the content, but to the method of the sciences. If, therefore,
pedagogy is to take its place among the sciences, it must be
characterized by its method; and the teacher must prepare herself, not
by means of the content, but by means of the method.
In short, she should be distinguished by _quality_ even more than by
_culture_.
The fundamental quality is the capacity for "observation"; a quality
so important that the positive sciences were also called "sciences of
observation," a term which was changed into "experimental sciences"
for those in which observation is combined with experiment. Now it is
obvious that the possession of senses and of knowledge is not
sufficient to enable a person to observe; it is a habit which must be
developed by _practise_. When an attempt is made to show untrained
persons stellar phenomena by means of the telescope, or the details of
a cell under the microscope, however much the demonstrator may try to
explain by word of mouth what ought to be seen, the layman cannot see
it. When persons who are convinced of the great discovery made by De
Vries go to his laboratory to observe the mutations in the varied
minute plants of the Aenothera, he often explains in vain the
infinitesimal yet essential differences, denoting, indeed, a new
species, among seedlings which have hardly germinated. It is well
known that when a new discovery is to be explained to the public, it
is necessary to set forth the coarser details; the uninitiated cannot
take in those minute details which constituted the real essence of the
discovery. And this, because they are unable to observe.
To observe it is necessary to be "trained," and this is the true way
of approach to science. For if phenomena cannot be _seen_ it is as if
they did not exist, while, on the other hand, the _soul of the
scientist_ is entirely possessed by a passionate interest in what he
sees. He who has been "trained" to see, begins to feel interest, and
such interest is the motive-power which creates the spirit of the
scientist. As in the little child internal _coordination_ is the point
of crystallization round which the entire psychical form will
coalesce, so in the teacher interest in the phenomenon observed will
be the center round which her complete new personality will form
spontaneously.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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