Friday, March 20, 2009

Maria Montessori Supports Unschooling

As Pearl finished up her last year in Montessori school I am preparing for her first grade year.  We will be homeschooling her, as we did Ruth.  Our method leans toward "unschooling" because I don't follow a scheduled curriculum.   We will follow her interest and I will guide it by exposing her to a variety of subjects.  Letting go of some and picking up others.  Anyway here is a great quote I discovered from Maria Montessori, a clear description of unschooling.

Supposing I said there was a planet without schools or teachers, study was unknown, and yet the inhabitants—doing nothing but living and walking about—came to know all things, to carry in their minds the whole of learning: would you not think I was romancing? Well, just this, which seems so fanciful as to be nothing but the invention of a fertile imagination, is a reality. It is the child's way of learning. This is the path he follows. He learns everything without knowing he is learning it, and in doing so passes little from the unconscious to the conscious, treading always in the paths of joy and love."

—Maria Montessori

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