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PRSENTING the UNIVERSE, Cosmic Education Lecture 5 Kodaikanal
To awaken interest, we address the imagination of the child.
We do not start by giving the basic ideas of a subject merely to make
them understand. Instead, we begin with loftier notions of a philosophical
nature and present them in a way that follows the psychology of the
child. Accordingly, we can make comparisons with fairy tales which will
lead the children to grand ideas, but not the ones that end in fantasy.
For example, we can offer the layers of the earth and speak of the
three states of matter: the solid, the liquid and the gaseous. Then we can
look further at another enclosure, the one that contains life and includes
parts of the atmosphere, the hydrosphere, and the surface of the earth,
all together called the biosphere. These outer layers of the atmosphere
can be compared to the fur of an animal, the tiger for instance, whose
body covering forms a living part of the animal. This is how we must
consider life. Life did not suddenly appear on earth because of the suitable
environment provided. Rather, life is a crucial component of the layers
of the Earth, just as much as the skin of the animal is an essential part
of the animal. Pages 138-139 from the book Cosmic Education. https://montessori-pierson.com/products/cosmic-education;

FROM SENSORIAL TO ABSTRACT
While the younger child seeks comforts, the older child is now eager to encounter challenges. But these challenges must have an aim. The difference between a schoolteacher who takes children on a hike and an organization of this nature may be noted here. It is true that the former makes the children come out of the closed environment of the school and causes them to use their feet in walking and to see sensorially that which surrounds them. But this in no way increases the dignity of the child, who is still kept in a restricted circle. One may well multiply the number of hikes without changing anything, because the child’s acceptance is passive. On the other hand, if the children consciously leave the school having a definite and freely chosen aim in mind, it is quite a different matter…
…As in the first period: We seek the child’s consent to receive a lesson given. The lesson is now abstract when earlier it was sensorial. In the second period there exist, then, possibilities superior to those we used to know in the child. Only, these possibilities are subordinate not to the command of someone, but rather to the command of the child’s own conscience. Page 8-9 from the book From Childhood to Adolescence https://montessori-pierson.com/products/from-childhood-to-adolescence-vol-12; https://montessori-pierson.com/products/de-la-infancia-a-la-adolescencia-vol-12 ; https://montessori-pierson.com/products/van-de-kinderjaren-naar-de-adolescentie

THE HELP OF NUMBERS FOR PAINTING THE IMAGINATIVE PICTURE
Life is a cosmic agent. How shall this truth be presented to the children so as to strike their imagination? Perhaps the child is likely to be most impressed by size, and the tremendous extent and magnitude of life on the globe may easily be introduced, because he already has in his possession the power of numbers. He may be given the figures of the human population in every country, these being easily obtained, before we pass on to life in the depths of ocean, which are known to be incalculable. First we deal with those impressive giants of the sea, the whales, which must logically, from their size, be much fewer in number than the smaller fish. Whales live in herds in the northern seas but swim in the cold season to the warmer regions, where they are joined by other groups, such as s***m whales, from the Antarctic. Their herds can then be counted not by hundreds, but by thousands of hundreds, so we can imagine the rest of the life of the sea, consisting of myriads of swarms of lesser creatures. We need the help of numbers for painting the imaginative picture, Page 18 from the book: To educate the human potential: https://montessori-pierson.com/products/to-educate-the-human-potential-vol-6; https://montessori-pierson.com/products/la-educacion-de-las-potencialidades-humanas-vol-6; https://montessori-pierson.com/products/opvoeden-voor-een-nieuwe-wereld-en-onderwijs-en-het-menselijk-potentieel

Today is the final day of the 30th International Montessori Congress in Mérida, Yucatán, Mexico. Pamela and Alexander enjoyed a wonderful event with many new and familiar contacts and inspiring talks.
Lupa Montessori is our official distributor in Mexico. For books in Mexico, visit: https://lupamontessori.com/

THE HANDS HELP THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE INTELLECT
The hands help the development of the intellect. When a child is capable of using his hands, he can have a quantity of experiences in the environment through using them. In order to develop his consciousness, then his intellect, and then his will, he must have exercises and experiences. It is not that man must develop in order to work, but that man must work in order to develop. The work of the hand is the expression of psychic growth.
We must realize that we must encourage children from the beginning. No one has yet done this consciously – though many have done it unconsciously. Education has never said, ‘Work in order to grow.’ Instead it has said, ‘Wait until the child is well developed, intellectually strong and obedient, then we can teach him.’ We must learn to look at reality. The child must grow through the experiences he has in the environment, not because he is conscious of a duty and not because he is willing, but because the horme of nature urges him. We must facilitate the realization of this energy which leads to normal development. We must encourage children and give them the means, because without them they cannot make these great acquisitions. Page 126 from the book The 1946 London Lectures: https://montessori-pierson.com/products/the-1946-london-lectures-vol-17 ;https://montessori-pierson.com/products/las-conferencias-de-londres-en-1946-vol-17

PREPARE THE MIND FOR SYSTEMATIC STUDY
We only offer the means to prepare the mind for systematic study. These means (the advanced geometry material) could almost be described as a gymnasium for the mind, which is evidently able to discover relationships and therefore not just carry out research and make observations, but also make discoveries. The discovery of relationships is certainly most likely to arouse real interest. The theorem itself is not interesting to a child who hears it enunciated without understanding it and without being able to appreciate its aims, having to tire his mind by studying the solution he is given. However, discovering a relationship oneself, formulating a theorem and possessing the words to describe it correctly, is something truly able to fire the imagination. A single one of these discoveries is sufficient to open up a brilliant, unexpected path to the mind. And so interest is aroused – and where there is interest, indefinite conquests are assured. Page 55-56 from the book Psychogeometry https://montessori-pierson.com/products/psychogeometry-vol-16 ; https://montessori-pierson.com/products/psicogeometria-vol-16

NEW BOOK: COSMIC EDUCATION
This publication brings together a cohesive body of work from primary sources on Cosmic Education. It is the most complete compilation of primary sources, spanning about four decades. It brings into one volume newly published lectures, rare or out-of-print articles, and carefully selected excerpts from widely available publications, turning dispersed quotations into a usable archive. It is not a revision of Cosmic Education but it is a transmission and practical unfolding. As Maria Montessori noted: All of what we have just suggested is, in reality, only an example for the application of the method. But we would like to help the child to reach loftier conceptions. What must first be understood is our aim, which is to follow as nearly as possible, as all-inclusively as possible, the needs of growthThis publication brings together a cohesive body of work from primary sources on Cosmic Education. It is the most complete compilation of primary sources, spanning about four decades. It brings into one volume newly published lectures, rare or out-of-print articles, and carefully selected excerpts from widely available publications, turning dispersed quotations into a usable archive. It is not a revision of Cosmic Education but it is a transmission and practical unfolding. As Maria Montessori noted: All of what we have just suggested is, in reality, only an example for the application of the method. But we would like to help the child to reach loftier conceptions. What must first be understood is our aim, which is to follow as nearly as possible, as all-inclusively as possible, the needs of growth and of life.
Paperback, number of pages: 320.
https://montessori-pierson.com/products/cosmic-education,

DRAWING THE FRUIT OF INDIRECT PREPARATIONS
Although the aim is to make the hand skilful in forming basic strokes, what ensues is a drawing, and a drawing that will lead to the development of a highly artistic form of decorative art. This art is truly a fruit of all those indirect preparations, and it could be said that the exercise we thought was only for writing in fact sowed an artistic seed, that grows from the exercise and very soon becomes independent. To these drawings, then, we should now turn our attention. Since they have geometric shapes as their basis, and those shapes share a common size (10 cm), what ensue are compositions of shapes that lead by intuition to a more analytical observation of those shapes and the relationships between them…
Through these drawings, then, in which the children delight, producing an indefinite quantity (ten or more a day perhaps, for months on end), attracted as they are by the work itself, by the colours of the sheets of paper and the pencils, and by the pleasure of producing such pretty things, small children of four and five years old gradually acquire by experience an intuitive feeling for the detailed characteristics of the geometric figures: their sides, angles, etc.
From this formidable output of thousands of drawings there very soon emerges a composition, a combination of shapes, which is a true decorative creation. The circle (10 cm diameter) can be inscribed in the square (10 cm sides). The smaller circle (5 cm diameter can fit into the narrow rectangle (short side 5 cm). The equilateral triangle can be used to form a star, and when a line is drawn to join the points of the star, a drawing of the hexagon is produced, which is larger than the hexagonal metal tile (Fig. 1,2,3,4). Page 18-19 from the book Psychogeometry https://montessori-pierson.com/products/psychogeometry-vol-16 ; https://montessori-pierson.com/products/psicogeometria-vol-16

THE VARIOUS SOUNDS OF THE ALPHABET
The letters corresponding to the various sounds of the alphabet are clearly seen in the box in which they are kept. The vowels are distinguished from the consonants by their different colour, and each letter has its own compartment. The exercise is so fascinating that children begin to compose words long before they know all the letters of the alphabet. On one occasion a little girl asked her teacher: “Which one is the letter t?” The teacher, who wanted to follow a certain order in presenting the alphabet, had not yet shown her the letter t, one of the last letters. But the girl then said: “I want to make ‘Teresa’, but I do not know which is the t.” The teaching of new letters was thus often encouraged by a child’s ambition, which went faster than his teacher. Once interest has been aroused, that is, when the children grasp the principle that each sound of the spoken language can be represented by a symbol, they advance on their own. This certainly facilitates the learning of the written word. A teacher finds that her own position is changed. She no longer instructs but simply tends to a child’s needs. Indeed, many children are convinced that they have learned to write by themselves. Page 234 from the book the discovery of the child https://montessori-pierson.com/products/the-discovery-of-the-child-vol-2 ; https://montessori-pierson.com/products/el-descubrimiento-del-nino-vol-2 ; https://montessori-pierson.com/products/de-methode