Chapter 3

MY CONTRIBUTION TO EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE

The organization of the psychical life begins with the characteristic phenomenon of attention.

Incident which led Dr. Montessori to define her method

Psychical development is organized by the aid of external stimuli, which may be determined experimentally.

Tendency to develop his latent powers exists in the child's nature

Environment should contain the means of auto-education

External stimuli may be determined in quality and quantity.

Educative material used should contain in itself the _control of error_

Quantity of material determined by the advent of abstraction in pupil

Relation of stimuli to the age of the pupil

Material of development is necessary only as a starting point.

Corresponds to the terra firma from which the aeroplane takes flight and to which it returns to rest

Establishing of internal order, or "discipline"

Psychical growth requires constantly new and more complex material

Difference between materials of auto-education and the didactic material of the schools

Psychical truths.

"Discipline" the first external sign of a psychical reaction to the material

Initial disorder in Montessori schools

Psychical progress not systematic but "explosive in nature"

Birth of individuality

Intellectual crises are accompanied by emotion

Older child beginning in system, chooses materials in inverse order

Course of psychical phenomena explained by diagrams

Tests of Binet and Simon arbitrary and superficial

Problems of psychical measurement

Observing the child's moral nature

Transformation of a "violent" child and of a "spying" child in a Montessori school

Polarization of the internal personality

Guide to psychological observation.

Work

Conduct

Obedience