"The goal of early childhood education should be to activate the child's own natural desire to learn."
"One who has drunk at the fountain of spiritual happiness says good-by of his own accord to the satisfactions that come from a higher professional status ... What is the greatest sign of success for a teacher thus transformed? It is to be able to say, "The children are now working as if I did not exist."
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Source: The Absorbent Mind by Maria Montessori, Ch. 27, (p. 283), 1949.
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"Do not tell them how to do it. Show them how to do it and do not say a word. If you tell them, they will watch your lips move. If you show them, they will want to do it themselves."
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