Shape the future

Keeping the Montessori vision of History alive

“The story of the past can be just a boring account of events, but it should not be given in this way. It must be given like a fairy tale. The stories must be short, with a few well-drawn characters; the environment must be limited, unusual and very clear. The stories must all be built around something fantastic. History can show an environment that is very different from our own. The child will not only reconstruct the tale, he will also develop his intelligence. Without intelligence we cannot understand anything. We live in a narrow environment and if we only take from this environment, our intelligence will be very poor. We must take knowledge in such a fashion that it will give us something more.

We cannot make discoveries unless we can first imagine what we are seeking. We must not think that the imagination works only through fairy tales. The intellect works like a form of the imagination. All discoveries are the fruits of man’s imagination. Imagination is the real substance of our intelligence. All theory and all progress come from the mind’s capacity to reconstruct something. When Darwin brought out his theory of evolution, he gave us an example of what imagination could do, for it was not exactly true. We cannot have progress without imagination…”

Maria Montessori
— The Child, Society and the World, p. 46