Real Learning

Creativity and learning expert Ken Robinson outlines the conditions necessary for real learning and human flourishing in this talk.

He seems to recognize these features in the Montessori Method, especially insofar as he has spoken at the Alternative Education Resource Organization and sometimes mentions Montessori and has visited at least one Montessori school. He says: "Imagination is the source of every human achievement."

"But what all the high-performing systems in the world do is currently what is not evident, sadly, across the systems in America -- I mean, as a whole. One is this: They individualize teaching and learning. They recognize that it's students who are learning and the system has to engage them, their curiosity, their individuality, and their creativity. That's how you get them to learn."

That's authentic Montessori to a "T"!

Maria Montessori: "Human consciousness comes into the world as a flaming ball of imagination.  Everything invented by man, physical and or mental, is the fruit of someone’s imagination....Our aim is not merely to make a child understand and still less to force him to memorize, but so to touch his imagination and enthuse him to the core. We do not want complacent pupils, but eager ones."