Assignment II (ch:15 - 28 )

Rati Sivashankar

Assignment 2 Absorbent Mind – Chapters: 15- 28


Chapter 15:

The very young child’s efforts are not towards imitating but to forming in himself the capacity to imitate; thus exhibiting to the world the universal importance of indirect preparation.


Chapter 16:

The child before the age of three unconsciously creates himself by absorbing the environment (hence, he has no memory of it); after three he deliberately and consciously acts on his environment to construct himself.


Chapter 17:

The child in the postnatal/psychological period of his embryonic life absorbs from the world around him the basic patterns of his social group and they remain with him as fixed characters for the rest of his life.


Chapter 18:

The normal development of a child in any of the three stages before the age of 18 has its foundation in the previous stage; hence the more fully the needs of one period are met, the greater will be the success of the next….this unfortunately is true in the reverse too!

Chapter 19:

The child when given the freedom has the power to choose his work spontaneously and keep herself occupied with deep concentration, joy and serenity; this arrival of discipline from freedom is the evolving of a psychological type common to the whole of mankind.

Chapter 20:

A child between the ages of three and six carries out gradually the work of building his own character; what the adult can do is put education on a scientific footing so that the child can work effectively without being disturbed or impeded.

Chapter 21:

In the formation of the child’s character nature plays a pivotal role; we can observe in the child initially the trait of concentration followed by perseverance (normalization), one of the flawed character traits that disappear after this is possessiveness (possess to lose it or break it) and this is instead replaced by a secondary possessiveness which is the interest in knowing how things work.

Chapter 22:

The children in a multi age classroom unravel from within themselves the quality of concentration which in turn gives rise to the virtue of patience; these are key components in the development of character and social behavior.

Chapter 23:

The children in a 3 – 6 environment slowly become aware of forming a community and their activities contribute toward it; once they have reached this level they put the group first and try to succeed for its benefit.

Chapter 24:

When the children make an error in our environment other children become the bearers of corrections; this forms a unity among all children.

Chapter 25:

The three levels of obedience in a child are 1) the level of obedience is one in which the child can obey, but not always; a period in which obedience and disobedience seem to be combined. 2) The level in which the child can absorb another person’s wishes and express them in his own behavior. 3) The child becomes enthusiastic, anxious and impatient to obey; this comes about with his obedience being turned toward a personality whose superiority he feels.

Chapter 26:

The task of the teacher is to enable the emergence of discipline in the children by not only preparing the environment where she is in a role of service, but also, to know to be firm when the spirit of the children need awakening and effort to pull them back on track when they digress from the path.

Chapter 27:

The teacher in a Montessori class must have faith that the child will reveal himself through work; she works on this via the following three aspects;
1. Watch over the environment and be its keeper and custodian.
2. To be able to entice children in a timely and appropriate fashion to work or use soothing techniques to calm them.
3. Know when not to interrupt or interfere with a child who is concentrating on a piece of work.

Chapter 28:

The child is the only point on which there converges from everyone a feeling of gentleness and love; the child is a well-spring of love.