Montessori-Pierson Publishing Company, p/o Koninginneweg 161, Amsterdam (2025)

24/06/2025

THE UNIVERSE AS A VISION OF THE WHOLE
It is certainly necessary to centralize the interest of the child, but the usual methods today are not effective to that end. How can the mind of a growing individual continue to be interested if all our teaching be around one particular subject of limited scope, and is confined to the transmission of such small details of knowledge as he is able to memorize? How can we force the child to be interested when interest can only arise from within? It is only duty and fatigue which can be induced from without, never interest! That point must be very clear.
If the idea of the universe be presented to the child in the right way, it will do more for him than just arouse his interest, for it will create in him admiration and wonder, a feeling loftier than any interest and more satisfying…Page 4 from the book: To educate the human potential: https://montessori-pierson.com/products/to-educate-the-human-potential-vol-6; https://montessori-pierson.com/products/la-educacion-de-las-potencialidades-humanas-vol-6; https://montessori-pierson.com/products/opvoeden-voor-een-nieuwe-wereld-en-onderwijs-en-het-menselijk-potentieel

17/06/2025

EDUCATION FOR PEACE
I would like to propound an idea of fundamental importance: the sort of education required to advance the cause of peace must necessarily be complex and altogether different from what is ordinarily meant by the word education.
Education as it is ordinarily regarded plays no part in solving important social questions and is believed to have no effect on situations concerning humanity as a whole. It is considered, in short, to be of very limited importance. But if we are to have genuine education for peace, education must be universally considered a fundamental and indispensable factor, the point of departure, a question of crucial interest to all mankind. When we consider social questions, the child is totally ignored, as if he were not a member of society at all. But if we ponder the influence that education can have on the attainment of world peace, it becomes clear that we must make the child and his education our primary concern…
Education must no longer be regarded only as a matter of teaching children, but as a social question of the highest importance, because it is the one question that concerns all mankind. The many other social questions have to do with one group or another of adults, with relatively small numbers of human beings; the social question of the child, however, has to do with all men everywhere. Page 44 from the book Education and Peace https://montessori-pierson.com/products/education-and-peace-vol-10 ; https://montessori-pierson.com/products/educacion-y-paz

10/06/2025

THE SURPRISING POWER OF THE YOUNG CHILD
…It was the revelation of the great powers existing in man at an age when there was not yet any regard for him – when he is a young child. These little children came alight with joy and began to read and write. No teacher had taught them and they read and wrote from morning to night. Their joy was like a flame. The important thing was this sudden revelation in the psychology of the child. Their achievement was not due to the action of an educator – it was a revelation of the power of little children. People made a lot of fuss about the method. Everyone said it was my marvellous method which gave this ability to children, and everyone was enthusiastic about it. However, it was neither the school nor the method which produced this phenomenon. It was the expression of the power of the small child and it was a revelation of something that had hitherto remained unknown. The important thing was the discovery of the surprising power of the young child. I was lost in admiration – in the realization that children at such a young age, four and a half years, have this great power, this great intelligence! The older children, the nine- year-olds, were less intelligent. This was the first time that we had evidence that the intelligence of man does not progress forward, becoming ever greater. At the different ages there are different mentalities. There is a form of mind in younger children that is different from that of older children. For the first time we realized that the young child has powers which are lost as it grows older. It is a matter of the evolution of each life individually. Page 10/11 from the book The 1946 London Lectures: https://montessori-pierson.com/products/the-1946-london-lectures-vol-17 ;https://montessori-pierson.com/products/las-conferencias-de-londres-en-1946-vol-17

02/06/2025

ORGANISATION OF THE INTELLIGENCE
Experience in the first ten digits and in the meaning of zero is provided by further materials until the child is able to lay the ten number cards in sequence and put under each the corresponding number of counters. By now he is between four and five years old. It was logical to conclude that the next step would be to continue with 11, 12, 13, etc., and this Dr Montessori did for many years. One day, children of this age were present at a lesson given to seven-year- olds with a material that presented in concrete form the working of the decimal system. The seven-year-olds were lukewarm, but surprisingly the younger ones showed great enthusiasm...This is another example of the sensitive periods: what leaves the older children more or less indifferent can arouse intense interest in the younger ones…..How was this possible? How could children who were not interested in 11 be so enthusiastic about 100s and 1000s? It seemed illogical. And then she saw how very logical it was. With the clear knowledge they had gained of the numbers up to 10 the children had got hold of a “key” which allowed them to explore the decimal system. It was the possibility of doing so that aroused their enthusiasm...Gradually she showed them the difference between addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. The enthusiasm and enjoyment of the children in carrying out these operations is difficult to describe – as was the disbelief of many visitors who were astonished that children so young could be given such big sums. Dr Montessori, however, considered all spontaneous activities of the children as psychological phenomena connected with the formation and the organisation of the intelligence. She was not trying to teach mathematics logically, she was witnessing certain facts which, in this case, were occurring in connection with mathematics and she was striving to understand what they meant. Page 57,58 from the book Interpreting Montessori, A Selection of Writings by Mario M. Montessori https://montessori-pierson.com/products/interpreting-montessori-a-selection-of-writings-by-mario-m-montessori-vol-26

22/05/2025

CONTACT WITH REAL THINGS BRING WITH THEM A REAL QUANTITY OF KNOWLEDGE
In its entirety, the world always repeats more or less the same elements. If we study, for example, the life of plants or insects in nature, we more or less get the idea of the life of all plants or insects in the world. There is no one person who knows all the plants; it is enough to see one pine to be able to imagine how all the other pines live. When we have become familiarized with the characteristics of the life of the insects we see in the fields, we are able to form an idea of the life of all other insects. There has never been anyone who has had all the insects of the universe available to his view. The world is acquired psychologically by means of the imagination. Reality is studied in detail, and then the whole is imagined. The detail is able to grow in the imagination, and so total knowledge is attained. The act of studying things is, in a way, meditation on detail. This is to say that the qualities of a fragment of nature are deeply impressed upon an individual.
It is self-evident that the possession of and contact with real things bring with them, above all, a real quantity of knowledge. The inspiration engendered by it revitalizes the intelligence that was interested and wished to know. From all these things new intellectual interests arise (climates, winds, et cetera). Instruction becomes a living thing. Instead of being illustrated, it is brought to life. In a word, the outing is a new key for the intensification of instruction ordinarily given in the school. Page 17 from the book From Childhood to Adolescence https://montessori-pierson.com/products/from-childhood-to-adolescence-vol-12; https://montessori-pierson.com/products/de-la-infancia-a-la-adolescencia-vol-12 ; https://montessori-pierson.com/products/van-de-kinderjaren-naar-de-adolescentie

12/05/2025

ART AND MUSIC at IMI, DELFT
23-24th of may at the International Montessori Institute in Delft there will be an inspiration weekend: How Art and Music can be incorporated in the Montessori environment. Montessori trainers Elina Rautasalo (AMI 3-6 Trainer) and Bo Mynett (AMI 6-12 Trainer), will share their passion and wealth of knowledge about this year's theme.

Register at https://imi-global.nl/inspiration-weekend/

“How touching it is that man has this instinct, this joy and sentiment for music. Through the little children these things, art and music, remain forever with humanity – over time music has been recombined and developed throughout humanity.” P 94-95 from the book The 1946 London Lectures: https://montessori-pierson.com/products/the-1946-london-lectures-vol-17 ;https://montessori-pierson.com/products/las-conferencias-de-londres-en-1946-vol-17

We will be there too. You can purchase our books with a 15% discount.

04/05/2025

May 4 and 5: The Dutch remember their dead and celebrate freedom.
Taking as a point of departure her (ed: Maria Montessori's) firm conviction that the child must be our teacher and her ideas regarding the free, harmonious, and balanced development of the individual human being, she moved on to consider the problems of human and social development and began a crusade in the name of education: "Establishing a lasting peace is the work of education; all politics can do is keep us out of war." Education and Peace page viii. https://montessori-pierson.com/products/education-and-peace-vol-10; https://montessori-pierson.com/products/educacion-y-paz;

24/04/2025

THE UNFOLDING INTELLIGENCE
It is well known how our pedagogy considers the environment so important as to make it the central point of the whole pedagogical approach, while we give to the child’s sensorial activity a more fundamental and systematic consideration than any previous educational method. There is, however, a subtle difference between the old conception of the child as passive and the real facts. This difference lies in the existence of the child’s inner sensibility. There is a long sensitive period, lasting almost to the age of five, which gives the child a truly enormous capacity of processing the images of its environment. The child is an observer who through his senses is actively absorbing images, and this is very different from saying that he is able to receive them like a mirror. To be an observer implies an inner impulse determined by feeling, by special tastes, leading thus to a selection of certain images rather than others…
Let us go straight to the point. The axis round which the internal working of the sensitive period revolves is reason. Such reasoning must be looked upon as a natural, creative function that little by little buds and develops and assumes concrete form from the images it absorbs from its environment.
Here is the irresistible force, the primal energy. Images fall at once into pattern in the service of reason: it is in the service of his reason that the child first absorbs such images. He is hungry for them, and, we may well say, insatiable. It has always been known that a young child is strongly attracted to light, colours, sounds, in all of which he takes visible delight. But what we want to prove is the inner fact of a reason that exists in a purely germ state. There is no need for us to underline how we should reverence and assist such passing from nothingness to a beginning; he is bringing into being the most precious gift which gives man his superiority: reason. Page 48/49 from The Secret of Childhood: https://montessori-pierson.com/products/the-secret-of-childhood-vol-22; https://montessori-pierson.com/products/el-nino-el-secreto-de-la-infancia-vol-4

15/04/2025

THE MATHEMATICAL MIND..the child of man is endowed with a mathematical mind and that in developing it, nature follows a definite pattern.
Mastery of mathematics can be conquered by the child as easily as he conquers language. For this to occur, however, it is necessary that the acquisition of language and mathematics be approached in the same manner: that is to provide the children with means, possibility of experiences and the facility to absorb them in their own way. This, according to Dr Montessori, is not by means of direct lessons. At first the knowledge is absorbed subconsciously, and it remains subconscious until the engrams have done their work of building and organising. It is they that then bring it to the full light of consciousness.
….I agree with Dr Montessori that the engrams have a lot to do with the natural development of human intelligence, and they should be taken into great consideration in the transmission of mathematical knowledge, for, according to Dr Montessori, it is the engrams that prepare the subconscious knowledge necessary for the child to arrive at abstraction.
The abstract nature of mathematics need not represent the almost insuperable obstacle that most teachers consider it to be. Nor should the tender age of the child be considered as too immature to deal with such abstractions if these are presented in a manner suitable to the child’s potentialities.
I should like to point out that human language is the most arbitrary and abstract intellectual creation of man, and yet the child is thrown into it from birth itself so that at 2,5 years he is able to express himself correctly.
If, given the abstract nature of language, adults managed to withhold language from the child’s mind until he was ten, I wonder what kind of language the child would then speak and whether he would not find language as distasteful a subject as the majority of children seem to find mathematics. Page 60, 61 from the book Interpreting Montessori, A Selection of Writings by Mario M. Montessori https://montessori-pierson.com/products/interpreting-montessori-a-selection-of-writings-by-mario-m-montessori-vol-26

08/04/2025

INTERPRETING MONTESSORI
For most of his life (1898-1982), Maria Montessori’s son, Mario Montessori, was his mother’s dedicated companion and collaborator. And he was indeed her interpreter – both literally during her life and substantively after her death in 1952.
The first section of the book, Theory to Practice, consists of essays which explore significant theoretical aspects. In the second section, Practice to Theory, we explore specific aspects of Montessori educational practice which then illuminate theoretical principles. This collection of Mario Montessori’s writings offers yet another journey through the unique dynamics of Montessori education. His interpretations guide us on the one hand to adhere to the universal principles revealed through Maria Montessori’s work, affirming their permanent relevance; while on the other hand, he urges us to follow the equally permanent mandate that Montessorians continually adapt their practice for the child who walks through the door as well as for the world that child will create in the future.
Paperback, number of pages: 152.
Price: € 15,00
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31/03/2025

BUILDING UP THE ABSTRACT MIND
The mind of the child finds geometric figures fascinating. We have seen evidence of this. Very often when we give them these figures to handle, children have discovered relations between figures. These figures alone have led them to reasoning. It is certain that one of the most fascinating studies for children concerns mathematics. As for geometry, some of our children have developed a real eye. This has happened so often that it has become a characteristic for which our schools are known. The child has an infinite capacity to create, and each child creates something different from another child. This shows that the geometrical figures also serve as an artistic inspiration, and a very great number of activities open up for the children around them. Therefore it is important that we understand how this material is presented to children. The reason we give so much importance to this geometrical material is just to offer the child a means of building up the abstract mind. Page 95 from the book Creative Development in the Child: https://montessori-pierson.com/products/creative-development-in-the-child-vol-24

20/03/2025

CHILDREN ARE THE VEHICLE WHICH CHANGE HUMANITY
Group characteristics remain from one generation to the next because of the children who absorb them. Once there, it is impossible to change them. You can change the conscious mind, but not the subconscious mind. Something remains which you cannot disturb. The work of the child is like heredity, a heredity that is created by each child who constructs a man of his group. The consequence is that if you want to change these deep deposits in man which are against those of another group, you cannot turn to the adult. They can understand, but they can do nothing. Instead you must take humanity during the age of growing, when the subconscious is being built up just by doing something in the environment, not by direct instruction to the intelligence. Place the child so that he can absorb something from the environment which will be part of him forever – so that he can have the chance of understanding afterwards – so that the subconscious and the conscious are not too greatly in conflict – so that in his deep deposits he is not stunted – so that he is not living within the narrow confines of his group, but in a vaster environment. We must prepare a wider environment for childhood if men are ever to understand each other better. Not just to understand each other at a rational level, but so that they can act together following their deep characteristics.
This is the most important aspect of childhood from the psychological side. We must look to the children as a vehicle for bringing change to humanity, which has now become confined by prejudices and habits that cannot be eradicated. You can persuade, but you cannot alter the facts. The facts come from a deeper origin. To understand is not sufficient. We must educate humanity from the beginning for this purpose and put the children in an environment where they are not the prey of prejudices. Page 101 from the book The 1946 London Lectures: https://montessori-pierson.com/products/the-1946-london-lectures-vol-17 ;https://montessori-pierson.com/products/las-conferencias-de-londres-en-1946-vol-17

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