Montessori's View of the Young Child

The Absorbent Mind

One of the basic elements of Montessori philosophy is that the child learns from his environment.  The child’s instinctual, internal drives compel him to explore and assimilate every aspect of his environment.  He delight sin using his senses and refining his skills.  He watches the adults in his community with wide eyes and imitates everything they do.  This kind of development requires a certain kind of brain.  Montessori called this infant brain the absorbent mind- able to soak up effortlessly all that its environment contains. 

Learning from the Surrounding Environment

It is the responsibility of the teacher and the adults in the life of the child to ascertain that the environment is optimal for his growth and development.  The ideal environment provides numerous opportunities for the child to interact with people, objects, and ideas.  It should bring the world at large within the reach of the child at whatever stage of development he is in.  It should be centered not in a single function or skill, but call to the child’s entire personality.

Sensitive Periods

Montessorians believe that young children are their own best teachers.  Children have an internal drive pushing them towards complete “self-perfection”.  All children have been given the gift of sensitive periods to fuel this drive.  When the brain is ready for certain experiences, it will seek them out.  This passionate attraction to certain elements of his environment is something the child cannot explain.  Just like the hunger for food is not experienced intellectually but is felt throughout the body as an intense desire, so is the hunger of the child for particular experiences when he is in a sensitive period.  During a sensitive period, the child’s attention is captured by certain objects and experiences, as if a beam of light were chining on them, and not on others.

Concentration and Self Discipline

Surprising to most adults is the intensity of concentration seen when a child is absorbed in a certain activity for which he is in a sensitive period.  It is this absorption that is the basis of discipline in the Montessori classroom.  Montessori speaks almost exclusively of internally driven discipline.  The child will never experience such discipline if he is not free to choose the activities that his psyche requires.  This concept of freedom within discipline is one of the greatest strengths of the Montessori preschool environment.