“There are many who hold as I do, that the most important period of life is not the age of university studies, but the first one, the period from birth to the age of six. For that is the time when man’s intelligence itself, his greatest implement, is being formed…many have begun to study the newborn, and the one-year-old child who is the creator of the adult’s personality.”
Maria Montessori, The Absorbent Mind (1949)
The first 3 years of life are critical for the formation of the personality. The experiences that children will have throughout this time will directly impact their development. It is important therefore that during this vulnerable period we give them the best possible conditions. By providing children with a good start, we are in fact giving them the opportunity to create basic skills which will serve them for the rest of their lives.
The Montessori approach therefore prepares the child, the future adult, for life itself.
The Montessori approach shows respect towards the child and the work the child has to do in order to participate in society. From a very young age, we encourage children to discover their potential and to express their individuality. Children in a Montessori environment have the freedom to be themselves, to move and to make choices. They enjoy the freedom to discover and to explore their interests, to develop their concentration and their sociability, while at the same time being active members of a community, where love, kindness and respect for others is the rule that governs all.
This is the best preparation you can offer your children for the future, so that they may develop into confident, responsible and independent adults, self-motivated, able to adapt, with a love of life and a love of learning.
The school environment – the second most important developmental environment after the family – also provides children with the opportunity to develop their social awareness. It is in these early years, that the seed of social life is planted – a seed that will lay the foundations for our relationship with the world around us. Children will come to understand that each one of us is an important link in the chain that unites not only the peoples of the world, but also unites us with our wider environment – the world of nature.
The Montessori Ηοuse of Glyfada is an environment that has been created just for your children. It is their space – a calm space – where they can meet their friends and spend their day following their own rhythm and making their own choices. Children come to love this space and they begin to look after it, as if it were their home. We see them tenderly putting flowers into little vases, dusting the books in the book corner, tidying a shelf – all things done spontaneously, out of love – as if tending to their home.
At the Montessori House of Glyfada children are given the opportunity to care for their community and to realise that we all need to contribute and share the responsibility of caring, not only for one another, but also for our surrounding environment. In this way, our children gradually become aware of how interdependent we all are and how important this relationship is between ourselves and Νature.