Montessori Teacher Quotes & Sayings

It is necessary for the teacher to guide the child without letting him feel her presence too much, so that she may always be ready to supply the desired help, but may never be the obstacle between the child and his experience. — Maria Montessori

This is what is intended by education as a help to life; an education from birth that brings about a revolution: a revolution that eliminates every violence, a revolution in which everyone will be attracted towards a common center. Mothers, fathers, statesmen all will be centered upon respecting and aiding this delicate construction which is carried on in psychic mystery following the guide of an inner teacher. This is the new shining hope for humanity. It is not so much a reconstruction, as an aid to the construction carried out by the human soul as it is meant to be, developed in all the immense potentialities with which the new-born child is endowed. — Maria Montessori

The work of education is divided between the teacher and the environment. — Maria Montessori

It is not enough for the teacher to love the child. She must first love and understand the universe. She must prepare herself, and truly work at it. — Maria Montessori

Praise, help, or even a look, may be enough to interrupt him, or destroy the activity. It seems a strange thing to say, but this can happen even if the child merely becomes aware of being watched. After all, we too sometimes feel unable to go on working if someone comes to see what we are doing. The great principle which brings success to the teacher is this: as soon as concentration has begun, act as if the child does not exist. Naturally, one can see what he is doing with a quick glance, but without his being aware of it. — Maria Montessori

To stimulate life, leaving it then free to develop, to unfold, herein lies the first task of the teacher. — Maria Montessori

The environment itself will teach the child, if every error he makes is manifest to him, without the intervention of a parent of teacher, who should remain a quiet observer of all that happens. — Maria Montessori

The art of Montessori, which simply means finding the best way to help the child himself become what he was meant to become from the first moment of conception, is an art that joins home and school. That means parent and teacher supporting one another in their responsibility to the life of the child. — Maria Montessori

In the psychological realm of relationship between teacher and child, the teacher's part and its techniques are analogous to those of the valet; they are to serve, and to serve well: to serve the spirit. — Maria Montessori

The principal agent is the object itself and not the instruction given by the teacher. It is the child who uses the objects; it is the child who is active, and not the teacher. — Maria Montessori

The teacher's first duty is to watch over the environment, and this takes precedence over all the rest. It's influence is indirect, but unless it be well done there will be no effective and permanent results of any kind, physical, intellectual or spiritual. — Maria Montessori

My experiences as a Montessori teacher have led me to realize that our goal as educators is not to impart facts to children as though they were empty vessels to be filled, but to open their eyes so they can exclaim joyfully, "Wow, look at what I am becoming! I've got to know more!" (from Walking in Wonder) — Elizabeth White

Travel stories teach geography; insect stories lead the child into natural science; and so on. The teacher, in short, can use reading to introduce her pupils to the most varied subjects; and the moment they have been thus started, they can go on to any limit guided by the single passion for reading. — Maria Montessori

Personally, I had a great education. My mum was a trained teacher, a Montessori teacher, and I know that I could not have written 'Eragon' if I had gone into a public school system because I would have just been too busy attending classes and doing homework - I wouldn't have had the time to write. — Christopher Paolini

A teacher, therefore, who would think that he could prepare himself for his mission through study alone would be mistaken. The first thing required of a teacher is that he be rightly disposed for his task. — Maria Montessori

The real preparation for education is a study of one's self. The training of the teacher ... is something far more than a learning of ideas. It includes the training of character; it is a preparation of the spirit. — Maria Montessori

A man is not what he is because of the teachers he has had, but because of what he has done — Maria Montessori

Supposing I said there was a planet without schools or teachers, where study was unknown, and yet the inhabitants
doing nothing but live and walk about
came to know all things, to carry in their minds the whole of learning; would you not think I was romancing? Well, just this, which seems so fanciful as to be nothing but the invention of a fertile imagination, is a reality. It is the child's way of learning. — Maria Montessori

The situation would be very much the same if we should place a teacher who, according to our conception of the term, is scientifically prepared, in one of the public schools where the children are repressed in the spontaneous expression of their personality till they are almost like dead beings. In such a school the children, like butterflies mounted on pins, are fastened each to his place, the desk, spreading the useless wings of barren and meaningless knowledge which they have acquired. — Maria Montessori

There is in every child a painstaking teacher so skillful that he obtains identical results in all children in all parts of the world. The only language men ever speak perfectly is the one they learn in babyhood, when no one teaches them anything. — Maria Montessori

Now, what really makes a teacher is love for the human child; for it is love that transforms the social duty of the educator into the higher consciousness of a mission. — Maria Montessori

We discovered that education is not something which the teacher does, but that it is a natural process which develops spontaneously in the human being. — Maria Montessori

It is also important to remember that no state in the United States requires a homeschooling parent to have a public school teaching certificate, just as many private schools do not require one (though some, such as Montessori and Waldorf, require teacher training in their unique programs). The — Patrick Farenga

I was more than an elementary teacher, for I was present, or directly taught the children, from eight in the morning to seven in the evening without interruption. These two years of practice are my first and indeed my true degree in pedagogy. From the very beginning of my — Maria Montessori

The teacher's task is not to talk, but to prepare and arrange a series of motives for cultural activity in a special environment made for the child. — Maria Montessori

Scientific observation then has established that education is not what the teacher gives; education is a natural process spontaneously carried out by the human individual, and is acquired not by listening to words but by experiences upon the environment. — Maria Montessori

The teacher's task is not a small easy one! She has to prepare a huge amount of knowledge to satisfy the child's mental hunger. She is not like the ordinary teacher, limited by a syllabus. The needs of the child are clearly more difficult to answer. — Maria Montessori

The greatest sign of success for a teacher is to be able to say, The children are now working as if I did not exist. — Maria Montessori

There are many things which no teacher can convey to a child of three, but a child of five can do it with ease. — Maria Montessori

The instructions of the teacher consist then merely in a hint, a touch-enough to give a start to the child. The rest develops of itself. — Maria Montessori

The teacher must derive not only the capacity, but the desire, to observe natural phenomena. The teacher must understand and feel her position of observer: the activity must lie in the phenomenon. — Maria Montessori

The observation of the way in which the children pass from the first disordered movements to those which are spontaneous and ordered
this is the book of the teacher; this is the book which must inspire her actions ... — Maria Montessori