{Week 3 – Book Club} The Absorbent Mind
Glad to have you back for this week’s The Absorbent Mind
Chapter three adds on to Chapter two‘s information wonderfully. Dr. Montessori moves her conversation into a high level thinking with the stages of development. In this chapter, we begin to see how important the first six years of life are and why the Montessori method from birth is so critical. Montessori also discusses how children move through the developmental stages straight up to the university age.
Dr. Montessori discusses more on how neglecting the first six years of life can stunt an individuals intellectual growth much like how physical restrictions places upon young people over 80 years ago stunted their physical growth. Sensitive periods are described as period in which a child has a conscious heightened awareness of a particular part of the world around them.
How We Montessori has a wonderful graphic that I found helpful while reading through this chapter. Ensuring a child can work through their natural sensitive periods helps to create balance in their lives, much like a balanced diet helps children grow physically.
I love quoting Dr. Montessori. Here are a couple of my favorites from this chapter:
“It never even entered their minds that there must be a very elaborate procedure to enable the new-born individual who had no intelligence, no co-ordinated movement, no will, and no memory, to understand what we say.”
“Movement is another wonderful acquisition…The movement that the child acquires, just as the case with language, are not formed by chance.”
“For there is no age in which the child is more in need of intelligent help than in this (first) period.”
Have you watched your own children work through a sensitive period? What do you think happens to people who do not have the opportunity to work through natural sensitive periods in their life? Does main stream education hinder or enhance the child’s natural need to accomplish tasks in life?
We would love to hear from you! You are welcome to leave a comment with your answers or join the conversation in the Christian Montessori Network Facebook group.
this is so helpful. I just started a certificate course in Montessori Education and I can’t find any of the recommended books in my country Abuja Nigeria. but through this book club I have found great help. God bless you. thanks a lot.