sade061

The next period goes from six to twelve. It is a period of growth unaccompanied by other change. The child is calm and happy. Mentally, he is in a state of health, strength and assured stability. —Maria Montessori The Absorbent Mind, p. 18. During the second plane, children move from being egocentric to being social beings. They are self-confident and ready to see what the world has in store for them. According to Montessori, this is the intellectual period. The children’s thirst for knowledge transcends workbooks and tests. They need to know the secrets of the universe, and they will become engrossed in research and topics until they have satisfied that need. The intensity of their focus and concentration far surpasses the things and objects that appealed to them before. Help me discover it myself In the first plane, when children ask “why,” they want to know facts. Or, as Paula Polk Lillard says, although they say “why,” young children really want to know “what.” (Lillard, 1996) The...

It is at six years that one may note the beginning of an orientation toward moral questions toward the judgment of acts. The preoccupation belongs to an interior sensitivity, the conscience. —Maria Montessori From Childhood to Adolescence, p. 12. If the first plane of development can be called the “play-age” (Montessori, The Formation of Man ), then the second plane of development may be classified as the “age of rules.” In fact, Montessori tells us that “A second side of education at this age concerns the child’s exploration of the moral field.” (Montessori, To Educate the Human Potential , p. 4.) It is during this time that children consciously consider, explore, and question universal morality. This is also the age when children learn about and internalize universal principles of right and wrong. As elementary-age children begin to pull away from their family’s identity and start to develop their own identity, they also move toward their own understanding of right and wrong. In ord...