The fun of figuring things out
January 11, 2018
Jesse McCarthy
Told by biographer and friend of Maria Montessori, this is the cute story of a "little fellow" who teaches himself some basic math and of another boy who learns to undress himself for the first time.
I had once a little fellow — of four and a half — in my class, who discovered, quite off his own bat, by means of some number-beads, that three sixes made eighteen. He was so elated with this discovery that he went round to every member of the class, solemnly announcing ‘Do you know? Three sixes make eighteen,’ adding very quickly and triumphantly each time, ‘but nobody told me!’ Montessori tells a similar story of another little boy, of two and a half years, who had managed quite unaided to undress himself. So great was his joy at this feat that, still in the state of nature, he ran into the drawing room where his mother was having a tea party and exclaimed triumphantly, 'I did it all by myself!'
E.M. Standing | Maria Montessori: Her Life and Work