by Vesna Gornik, Early Childhood Head Teacher
(edited by Tori Inkley)
“Just as a physical embryo needs its mother’s womb in which to grow, so the spiritual embryo needs to be protected by an external environment that is warm with love and rich in nourishment, where everything is disposed to welcome, and nothing to harm it.”
(The Secret of Childhood, p. 35)
Dr. Maria Montessori, in The Absorbent Mind, describes the human being as having a “double embryonic life” – one prenatal and the other postnatal. This dual life sets humans apart from animals who rely on instincts, while humans are born with an inner, unseen personality that requires a special environment to flourish. The term “Absorbent Mind” refers to a child’s remarkable ability to absorb effortlessly everything around her, from culture to customs, ideas, ideals, sentiments, feelings, emotions, and religion, especially during the first six years of life.
The first stage of a child’s life is one of adaptation. Unlike adults, who can never fully adapt to a new environment, children are highly adaptable to their surroundings. While adults of various cultural backgrounds will most always prefer to eat food from their native countries… even after relocating to a different country… children will generally embrace the food that is put in front of them. As adults, whether you choose to use plates or bowls, forks or chopsticks, etc., usually depends on your childhood experience. And children don’t just adapt to time and place; they also absorb the local mentality. Dr. Montessori believed that, regardless of the country in which a child is born, he is endowed with an “absorbent mind”.
According to Montessori, a child develops in stages. The first stage, from zero to six years, is a period of transformation and is subdivided into two phases. From birth to three years, the child has an unconscious absorbent mind, where she constantly absorbs impressions from the environment without awareness or will. From three to six years, the child’s absorbent mind becomes conscious, and the child becomes intentional in her actions and begins to exercise her will. During this critical period, intelligence and personality are formed as the child begins consciously interacting with the world around her.
A child absorbs knowledge from the environment effortlessly. He is like a sponge and has a capacity to learn by himself through observation. One of the most impressive demonstrations of this is in children learning foreign languages. You might not be able to tell whether someone speaks with a native accent or not, as children exposed to foreign languages early on tend to speak without an accent. If children have the chance to be exposed to multiple languages, they can easily master them. As an adult, I cannot distinguish tones in Chinese, no matter how hard I try; likewise, I have never spoken English without an accent even after years of practice. Similarly to language, a child also absorbs behavior. For instance, I once read about a young child who was raised in a home for the elderly. By the age of 15, he moved and walked as slowly as the seniors who resided there and had adopted their posture. After enough exposure, children have also been known to replicate how the adults around them interact with each other.
Through her work, Maria Montessori observed that children pass through various “Sensitive Periods” during which they are more receptive to learning certain skills effortlessly, such as walking and talking, and even more refined skills like reading, writing, and good manners. During those periods, children want to do particular activities (practice skills) themselves; they often cannot get enough of an activity and want to repeat it over and over again. These periods are transient, and if not capitalized on, opportunities to perfect specific skills may be lost for good.
The Sensitive Period for Language begins much earlier than most realize. By 10 to 12 months, monolingual babies have already lost the ability to distinguish certain sounds from a second language that is not spoken at home. Children absorb sounds, words, and grammar from their environment. In language acquisition, the social environment plays a crucial role. Infants need to interact with people to learn language; they cannot do it simply by listening to a radio or TV. The best advice for new parents would be not to underestimate a baby. Parents should talk to a baby as much as possible, describing every action they take (e.g., “I’m going to bathe you now”, “It’s time to change your diaper”, “Do you want to wear the blue pajamas tonight?”, etc.).
Introducing books early and using fabric books so the child can engage with them using different senses (sight, touch, and even taste), is a wonderful early step toward language and vocabulary development. Later, parents can provide hardcover books that children cannot destroy. Parents should read to the child, point to the pictures, and patiently repeat words so long as the child is interested. Parents, grandparents, and even older siblings can ask young children to point to objects in a book as the adult or sibling names them. One should also remember that children absorb not just vocabulary, but actual language, tone, and phraseology, and will use those later on as well. Therefore, it’s important to be mindful of what you say. I was surprised when, at two and a half years old, my own daughter ended her first phone conversation with me by saying, “Have a good time.” – a phrase I often use with others.
Dr. Montessori believed that scientific words should be taught to children between the ages of three and six years, and that writing can only be learned with joy and enthusiasm before this period ends. I observed the process of repetition firsthand when my own daughter insisted that I repeat the names of objects in a book countless times, pointing at them with her finger. Once she mastered those words, she lost interest and moved on to her next task. The case of Victor, the “Wild Boy from Aveyron”, who never learned to speak, is an example of a missed sensitive period for language acquisition. Victor was discovered in the wild in 1800, when he was about ten or eleven years old. Developmental disability was ruled out, and his case provided evidence that there is a critical period during which spoken language must be learned.
The Sensitive Period for Order occurs in a child’s first year and continues through the second. Everything in the child’s environment should be kept in its proper place, and the actions of the day should follow a regular routine. This sense of order extends to both time and space. This can be clearly observed in young children, who need regular meals and sleep times to avoid becoming fussy. An ordered environment leads to order in the mind. To help children the most, we should maintain order and routine, stability and a general rhythm in their environment and their lives.
Among other things, Maria Montessori noticed a young child’s fascination with small objects, particularly beginning in the child’s second year. E. M. Standing wrote that this period is somewhat connected to the Sensitive Period for Order. “Children are drawn by a peculiar fascination to tiny objects in their environment – objects so small that adults often overlook them.” In today’s world, this interest is often overlooked because small objects are generally removed from environments where children under the age of three are present.
Some sensitive periods are not necessarily easy for the adult to determine, other than a general age range. Some periods, however, are very easy for adults to recognize, such as the Sensitive Period for Walking. There is also a Sensitive Period for Toilet Training, and when introduced at the right time, some say children can become trained in a week.
The Sensitive Period for the Refinement of the Senses lasts from 2 ½ to 6 years. This period coincides with the Sensitive Period for Learning Good Manners. Dr. Montessori used the Sensitive Period for the Refinement of Movement to introduce children to Practical Life exercises. “If,” said Montessori, “this perfecting of movement is introduced at the creative moment (2 ½ – 4 years), it not only tends to the normal development of the mind but also affects the whole personality, bringing contentment, concentration, and inner nourishment.” Skiing is a good example of a skill that is easily learned in childhood but becomes difficult to learn as an adult. Even if an adult does learn, his movements would not be as graceful or natural as those of someone who learned at a younger age. Similarly, we observe that athletes in gymnastics or ice skating can truly excel only if they begin practicing before a certain age.
In summary, the concepts of the “Absorbent Mind” and “Sensitive Periods” underscore the importance of creating a nurturing environment for children. During the early years, children have an incredible ability to adapt to whatever environment they were born into. To succeed in this task, a child absorbs everything in her environment. Because of the child’s absorbent mind, it’s crucial that adults be mindful of our behavior and actions. A child becomes a mirror of the adults in his life, absorbing not only positive behaviors but also negative ones. The Absorbent Mind and Sensitive Periods are closely connected. Dr. Montessori used the knowledge of Sensitive Periods to help children learn easily at the right time. By understanding these periods, she was able to support children in refining their senses, movements, and manners with ease, and the results were permanent. Montessori used individualized lessons, knowing that children experience different sensitive periods at different times. We must be observant when a child is going through a sensitive period and offer the right support.
Montessori’s recognition of Sensitive Periods gives us a framework for understanding how children learn best. We need to offer them the right opportunities to develop, to allow them to follow certain interests, to not interrupt them, to prepare the environment (making materials accessible so that when the time comes, the child will notice them and start using them independently), and to provide only the necessary help, as any unnecessary help is an obstacle to the child’s development.
As it would be unrealistic to expect an adult to change, Maria Montessori believed in the power of a child to achieve peace: “By taking the child into consideration, we touch something common to all humanity. We cannot achieve world harmony simply by attempting to unite all these adult people who are so different; but we can achieve it if we begin with the child, who is not born with national and racial prejudices.” (Her Life and Work, p. 157)
Works Referenced
“Hearing Bilingual: How Babies Sort Out Language”. New York Times, 11 October 2011.
Lillard, Paula Polk. Montessori: A Modern Approach. Schocken Books, 1972.
Montessori, Maria. The Absorbent Mind. Henry Holt, 1995.
Montessori, Maria. The Secret of Childhood. Ballantine Books,1966.
Standing, E.M. Maria Montessori: Her Life and Work. Plume, 1998.
