As we celebrate Montessori Education Week, we thought it would be interesting to share some of Maria Montessori’s most famous quotes from her books and speeches.
“One test of the correctness of educational procedure is the happiness of the child”
“If education is always to be conceived along the same antiquated lines of a mere transmission of knowledge, there is little to be hoped from it in the bettering of man’s future. For what is the use of transmitting knowledge if the individual’s total development lags behind?”
“Here is an essential principle of education: to teach details is to bring confusion; to establish the relationship between things is to bring knowledge.”
“We especially need imagination in science. It is not all mathematics, not all logic, but it is somewhat beauty and poetry.”
“The first essential for the child’s development is concentration. The child who concentrates is immensely happy.”
“Respect all the reasonable forms of activity in which the child engages and try to understand them.”
“The only language men ever speak perfectly is the one they learn in babyhood, when no one can teach them anything!”
“Establishing lasting peace is the work of education; all politics can do is keep us out of war.”
“The greatest sign of success for a teacher… is to be able to say, the children are now working as if I did not exist.”
