Grace & Courtesy in the Montessori Classroom

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Grace & Courtesy: Philosophical RationaleSharing by LevelPanel Discussion

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Staff Introductions

Grace & Courtesy: Philosophical Rationale

Human TendenciesOrientation

OrderExploration

CommunicationActivity

ManipulationWork

Repetition ExactnessAbstraction

Self-Perfection

(As articulated by Mario Montessori in The Human Tendencies & Montessori Education - 1956)

“[T]he whole concept of education changes. It becomes a matter of giving help to the child’s life, to the psychological development of man. No longer is it just an enforced task of retaining our words and ideas. This is the

new path on which education has been put; to help the mind in its process of development, to aid its

energies and strengthen its many powers.”

- Dr. Maria Montessori, The Absorbent Mind, p. 24

“[T]oday, there is a need for more dynamic training of character and the development of

a clearer consciousness of social reality.”

- Dr. Maria Montessori, From Childhood to Adolescence, p. 62

“Therefore a new morality, individual and social, must be our chief consideration in this new world. ”

- Maria Montessori, From Childhood to Adolescence, p. 73

“Moral education is the source of that spiritual equilibrium on which everything else depends.”

- Maria Montessori, From Childhood to Adolescence, p. 73

“When we let the infant develop, and see him construct from the invisible roots of creation that which is to become

the grown man, then we can learn the secrets on which depend our individual and social strength.”

- Dr. Maria Montessori, The Absorbent Mind, p. 216

“Good laws and good government cannot hold the mass of men together and make them act in harmony, unless the

individuals themselves are oriented toward something that gives them solidarity and makes them into a group. The masses, in their turn, are more or less strong and active

according to the level of development, and of inner stability, of the personalities composing them.”

- Dr. Maria Montessori, The Absorbent Mind, p. 215

“[T]his is the key to social reform… it should be made the basis of all education. Social integration has occurred when the individual identifies himself with the group to which he belongs. When this has happened, the individual thinks

more about the success of his group than of his own personal success.”

- Dr. Maria Montessori, The Absorbent Mind, p. 212

“‘We do not want this child to do this action because we are doing it, or because we have commanded it to be done…

[I]t should so happen that when the action does come to be carried out by the child, it must be done as part

of a life that unfolds itself’...”

- E.M. Standing, Maria Montessori: Her Life and Times, pp. 216

“‘[I]t is in his mind, and upon his own reflection, that the action should have its origin… the essential thing is that he

should know how to perform these actions of courtesy when his little heart prompts him to do so, as part of a

social life which develops naturally from moment to moment… spontaneous.’”

- E.M. Standing, Maria Montessori: Her Life and Times, pp. 217-218

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Panel Discussion

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