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Home » Montessori » Montessori Theory: The Key Aspect of Movement

Montessori Theory: The Key Aspect of Movement

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Montessori believed that mental and motor activity should act in unity, that a children must be given the chance to act as a whole. Movement with thought is a “synthetic movement” or a “knowing activity”, directed by the intelligence to a reasonable end.

Practical life (and within practical life, grace & courtesy) lessons are examples of such movement. So, each lesson (each movement) has a well-defined and understood purpose which can be transferred easily to a real life situation.

Movement with thought meant breaking up of movements into their components and by focusing on the means of the movement rather than the end. Movement followed by thought or preceded by thoughts could not achieve the same intellectual result.

E.M. Standing writes, “the value of movement goes deeper than just helping in the acquisition of knowledge.” Montessori believed that traditional approaches to giving students an opportunity to take a break from “mental activity” with movements of gymnastics, for example was a disservice to children. She thought that substituting movement without thought, for thought without movement leads to fatigue, that when mental and motor activity act separately (when they should be united) every effort is resented whether mental or motor.

Thank you for reading!
Marnie

Tagged With: Theory

About Marnie Craycroft

Marnie hails from Maine where she spent summers buried in sand and winters buried in snow. She is the daughter of a nearly four decade veteran of the public school systems. Teaching has always been a part of her life. She founded Carrots Are Orange in 2010.

Carrots Are Orange is a Montessori learning and living website for parents and teachers.

Marnie graduated from Wesleyan University in 1999 with a BA in Economics. She spent nearly a decade working in investment management. In 2006, she earned her MA in business from the University of Washington’s Foster School of Business.

Marnie moved to the west coast in 1999 and currently lives in Boulder with her husband and three sons. She is Montessori trained. Her work has been featured on Apartment Therapy, Buzzfeed, PBS Kids, BabyCenter, the Melissa & Doug blog, Huffington Post, and WhattoExpect.com. Besides writing, passions include running (usually after her three sons), photography, and outdoor adventures.

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