Dr Maria Montessori was the founder of Montessori Method of education, she was the first lady doctor in Italy in 1870. She devised a method of education, which combines a philosophy with practical approach based on the central idea of freedom for the child within a carefully planned and structured environment. Her philosophy is based on her ten discoveries at casa dei Bambini they are Mental concentration, Love of repetition, Love of Order, Freedom of choice, Love of work, No need for reward or punishment, Lovers of silence, A sense of personal dignity, writing and reading, spontaneous self discipline.
“The child is a spiritual embryo that develops spontaneously, and if we follow him from the beginning, he can reveal many things to us”. (www.montessori quotes .com)
Maria Montessori refers a child a “spiritual embryo” after her discoveries in Casa dei Bambini .She found through keen observation that the child is not an empty vessel they are born with a potential that unfold after birth . For the child to incarnate or self-construct himself she concluded that the child must possess within a pre-determined pattern of psychic unfolding, which is not visible at birth. She referred them as the “spiritual embryo”. She believed that for the psychic pattern to reveal itself, two conditions are necessary. First, the child is dependent upon an integral relationship with his environment, second he needs freedom to reveal himself. If either of these two are not met, the psychic life of the child will not reach its potential and his personality will be stunted.
Montessori observed the principle or natural laws governing the child psychic growth reveal themselves only through the process of his development. By giving an open environment to the children of Casa dei Bambini in which to operate and she observed to make a beginning in their identification. One of the most important of those she observed is the law of work.
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