THE

ADVANCED MONTESSORI METHOD

*

SPONTANEOUS ACTIVITY
IN EDUCATION

BY

MARIA MONTESSORI

AUTHOR OF "THE MONTESSORI METHOD," "PEDAGOGICAL
ANTHROPOLOGY," ETC.

TRANSLATED FROM THE ITALIAN BY

FLORENCE SIMMONDS

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NEW YORK

FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY

PUBLISHERS

Copyright, 1917, by

Frederick A. Stokes Company

All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign languages.

Printed in the U.S.A.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I
a survey of the child's life
Laws of the child's psychical life paralleled by those of its physical. | PAGE
Current objections to a system of education based upon "liberty" | 1
Hygiene has freed the infant from straps and swaddling clothes and left it free to develop | 2
Education must leave the soul free to develop | 5
Principle of liberty in education not a principle of abandonment | 9
The liberty accorded the child of to-day is purely physical. Civil rights of the child in the twentieth century. |
Removal of perils of disease a step toward physical liberation | 10
Supplying the child's physical needs is not sufficient | 11
Child's social rights overlooked in the administration of orphan asylums | 12
Poor child's health and property confiscated in the custom of wet nursing | 13
We recognize justice only for those who can defend themselves | 16
How we receive the infants that come into the world. |
Home has no furnishings adapted to their small size | 17
Society prepares a mockery for their reception in the shape of useless toys | 18
Child not allowed to act for himself | 20
Constant interruption of his activities prevents psychical growth | 21
Bodily health suffers from spiritual neglect | 23
With man the life of the body depends on the life of the spirit. |
Reflex action of the emotions on the body functions | 24
Child's body requires joy as much as food and air | 26
CHAPTER II
a survey of modern education
The precepts which govern moral education and instruction. |
Child expected to acquire virtues by imitation, instead of development | 28
Domination of the child's will the basis of education | 29
It is the teacher who forms the child's mind. How he teaches. |
Teacher's path beset with difficulties under the present system | 30
Advanced experts prepare the schemata of instruction | 33
Some outlines of "model lessons" used in the schools | 33
Comparison of a "model lesson" for sense development with the Montessori method | 42
Experimental psychology, not speculative psychology, the basis of Montessori teaching | 44
False conceptions of the "art of the teacher" illustrated by model lessons | 46
Positive science makes its appearance in the schools | 50
Discoveries of medicine: distortions and diseases | 50
Science has not fulfilled its mission in its dealings with children. |
Diseases of school children treated, causes left undisturbed | 52
Discoveries of experimental psychology: overwork; nervous exhaustion | 57
Science is confronted by a mass of unsolved problems. |
Laws governing fatigue still unknown | 60
Toxines produced by fatigue and their antitoxins | 62
Joy in work the only preventative of fatigue | 62
Real experimental science, which shall liberate the child, not yet born | 64
CHAPTER III
my contribution to experimental science
The organization of the psychical life begins with the characteristic phenomenon of attention. |
Incident which led Dr. Montessori to define her method | 67
Psychical development is organized by the aid of external stimuli, which may be determined experimentally. |
Tendency to develop his latent powers exists in the child's nature | 69
Environment should contain the means of auto-education | 72
External stimuli may be determined in quality and quantity. |
Educative material used should contain in itself the control of error | 74
Quantity of material determined by the advent of abstraction in pupil | 77
Relation of stimuli to the age of the pupil | 79
Material of development is necessary only as a starting point. |
Corresponds to the terra firma from which the aeroplane takes flight and to which it returns to rest | 81
Establishing of internal order, or "discipline" | 82
Psychical growth requires constantly new and more complex material | 83
Difference between materials of auto-education and the didactic material of the schools | 85
Psychical truths. |
"Discipline" the first external sign of a psychical reaction to the material | 87
Initial disorder in Montessori schools | 88
Psychical progress not systematic but "explosive in nature" | 89
Birth of individuality | 91
Intellectual crises are accompanied by emotion | 93
Older child beginning in system, chooses materials in inverse order | 96
Course of psychical phenomena explained by diagrams | 97
Tests of Binet and Simon arbitrary and superficial

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!

Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!