“The secret of good teaching is to regard the child’s intelligence as a fertile field in which seeds may be sown to grow under the heat of flaming imagination. Our aim is not only to make the child understand, and still less to force him to memorize, but so to touch his imagination as to enthuse him to his innermost core.” – Maria Montessori
Dr. Montessori believed that teachers should focus on the child as a whole person, not on a daily lesson plan. The whole child is always more important than the curriculum. A child reveals himself through their choice of activities in the classroom. The Montessori teacher observes these individual choices and prepares the classroom environment to satisfy the child’s developmental interest. In a Montessori classroom sometimes little squeals of excitement are heard when a task has been mastered or a new discovery has been made.
The prepared Montessori environment should support a child’s natural inclination to explore, discover and ask questions.