The child, making use of all that he finds around him, shapes himself for the future.
Interpretation
Children learn and grow by interacting with their environment, which prepares them for future challenges.
This quote by Maria Montessori emphasizes the idea that children actively engage with their surroundings to learn and develop crucial skills for their future. It highlights the importance of experiential learning and the role of the environment in shaping a child's growth and abilities, suggesting that every experience can contribute to personal development.
In practice
In a parenting workshop discussing the importance of experiential learning.
... the first thing his education demands is the provision of an environment in which he can develop the powers given him by nature. This does not mean just to amuse him and let him do what he likes. But it does mean that we have to adjust our minds to doing a work of collaboration with nature, to being obedient to one of her laws, the law which decrees that development comes from environmental experience.
When we want to infuse new ideas, _x000D_ to modify or better the habits and customs of a people, _x000D_ to breathe new vigor into its national traits, _x000D_ we must use the children as our vehicle; for little can be accomplished with adults.
Noble ideas, great sentiments have always existed and have always been transmitted, but wars have never ceased.
What we need is a world full of miracles, like the miracle of seeing the young child seeking work and independence, and manifesting a wealth of enthusiasm and love.
To aid life, leaving it free, however, that is the basic task of the educator.
It is fortunate, I think, that nature is not bounded by human reason and by laboratory work and experimentation, for by the laws of pure reason and by microscopic investigation, it might easily have been proved, long before this, that children could not be born.
I didn't have any idea of what I was getting into by going away to college. And I was scared. I was scared of failing. I was scared of it not being for me because I was going to be one of the first people in my family to go off to college.
A bookstore is one of the only pieces of evidence we have that people are still thinking.
Reading is the creative center of a writer's life." -
I don't think that our Founders would believe that America could long prosper if the people were not readers.
What is a coach? We are teachers. Educators. We have the same obligations as all teachers, except we probably have more influence over young people than anybody but their families. And, in a lot of cases, more than their families.
Become a teacher. Your country needs you.
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