The Absorbent Mind: an essay by Pete Friend

An essay by Peter Friend, Elementary Guide.

The year Maria Montessori opened her first Casa dei Bambini in San Lorenzo mankind’s urge to explore underwent a profound shift of focus. No waters were yet to be chartered, and all the continents had been claimed, but there was one direction of exploration which was attracting more attention than it had ever done before. The direction was inward, and it was towards the subconscious. Sometimes referred to as the unconscious, this human characteristic was not discovered in 1907, but when Dr Freud met Dr Jung in person for the first time that year and they engaged in their infamous thirteen hour conversation, it is fair to say that it became one of the vanguard topics of human civilisation.

Many praise Freud as being the discoverer of the unconscious but he rebuffed this claim and pointed to philosophers and poets generations before him as the first to tap into the mysterious entity. Indeed in the 1650’s, poet John Milton is said to have set himself a personal mission to quell his reasoning mind so as to improve his poetry. He did this by drafting his next poem in his sleep. On awakening he dictated twenty to thirty lines, before knocking them into shape and into the opening of his acclaimed poem Paradise Lost. This was one of two pre-eminent British poems to have been written from the unconscious. The second is Coleridge’s, Kubla Khan, written after a night spent in an opium induced dream.

What Freud did admit to was the discovery of the scientific method by which the unconscious could be studied. Following their epic chat, Jung took this on through his work as well and became particularly interested in the collective unconscious. Throughout this exciting and pioneering time in the field of psychology Dr Montessori was employing her own scientific background to discovering the powers of the unconscious mind. Her attention of course was specifically focused on the infants and young children gracing the four walls of the San Lorenzo Children’s House.

Montessori’s most relevant discovery in this realm, and the topic of discussion for this essay is the power of the human child to build a relative intelligence which far surpasses the genius of Dr’s Freud, Jung and Montessori. She called this power the Absorbent Mind.

This essay will be comprised of: a brief overview of the phenomenon of the Absorbent Mind as Montessori saw it; a presentation of the two types of absorbent mind she discovered, unconscious and conscious; the ways in which Montessori advised the adult to facilitate the power of the absorbent mind; an account from Montessori herself of the history of the unconscious; a summary of contemporary literature on memory, the  fundamental component of the Absorbent Mind; and finally a closing statement summing up the discussion.

An Introduction

The Absorbent Mind is a phenomenon found and defined by Dr Montessori in the early twentieth century in children up to the age of six, which enables them to absorb knowledge quickly and effortlessly. The Absorbent Mind she observed does not construct with a voluntary effort, but does so according to the guidance of inner sensitivities which she called sensitive periods (Montessori, 1955). The result is a child with an unconscious state which is of a creative nature. The child creates not only language but organs and this is not done by the conscious mind but by the will free unconscious.

Despite being will free Montessori (1979) saw a logical directive in the child’s development guided by nature. The child at this age she said is getting ready to act in the world and like a traveller in an unknown country must take account of his bearings, studying his surroundings and absorbing the images of his surroundings. Montessori (1955) described this adaptation as quite basic. She observed that the child incarnates within himself the environment in which he is in, and begins construction of a man adapted to those surroundings (Montessori, 1955). Montessori (1955) called this initial period one of psycho-embryonic construction only to be found in the human race. She argued one of the distinguishing features between humans and animals was man’s ability to adapt himself to anything, despite she observed having the longest inert period of all the animals (Montessori, 1979). By inert she means helpless at birth, with no faculties to live independently. Stark contrast it can be seen with a fawn for example who is born and almost immediately is able to walk. Montessori (1976) also maintained that man had no limits to his level of progress and adaptation, something which builds throughout the lifetime of man, where as the animal reaches it’s full potential quite soon after his birth. The individual though is only potentially a human, perhaps for his entire existence. To fulfil it’s potential Montessori believed the human being needs an operational society to live in.

Almost it seems for dramatic purposes Montessori draws a comparison between, the adult mind and the absorbent mind of the child, on a number of occasions. She sites the tremendous step taken by the child to create his personality, and that this is achieved by a brain far different and superior to the adult brain (Montessori, 1946). The total acquisition of language she says cannot be compared to the functioning adult memory who easily lets ephemeral acquisitions slip from him, and takes many times longer to learn something as involved as a second language (Montessori, 1955). An incisive quote from Montessori (2007) on the comparison between the adult’s and the child’s essence is, “Only poets and little children can feel the fascination of a tiny rivulet of water flowing over pebbles.” (pp72).

Montessori also puts it beautifully when she likens the child and infant to a bird who gathers up everything she can find and deposits it in his/her nest. She also emphasises that this process can be undertaken without the influence of the adult. The child can be left free to work, even without explanations, because it is the absorbent mind which grasps the facts. This taking in of ideas is not learning as has been understood before, Montessori instead describes it as something vital, like a gift and like an incarnation, the word Montessori regularly uses for the phenomenon. There is wonderful example described by Montessori where a lady came to a Montessori Children’s House, a child next to her said “what a beautiful ribbon you have, I have seen a flower absolutely the same shade”. The child went scurrying away and fetched the flower and it was absolutely identical in shade. Montessori marvelled at this wonderful power of memory, and intriguing judgement of the child which again she states, forms completely by itself. Consequently she highlights the potential of the concentrated mind of the child, in awe again of it’s power.

Montessori (1946) surmised these great powers had been hidden under the cloak of Motherhood until her observations in the early twentieth century. In other words she saw the contemporary and historical understanding to be that the mother was the one who taught her child to walk, talk and speak. The idea that the child was teaching himself was radical and revolutionary. Montessori admits though that the idea was not her own, like Freud and the sub-conscious, she merely observed it and then pioneered the scientific method to study it. Here are some of her findings.

Unconscious and Conscious Absorbent Mind.

The first of Montessori’s four planes of development begins with the birth of the child and extends to around six years of age. However Montessori recognised two further sub-planes within this plane, distinguishing the ages zero to three, and three to six. As part of this discrimination she found the absorbent mind to be present throughout the whole first plane, but manifested itself differently across the two sub-planes. Montessori describes the Absorbent Mind of the zero to three year old as wholly unconscious. However during the ages three to six the absorbent mind becomes partly conscious as the will of the child is born. A short discussion of these two delineation’s will now be presented.

The Unconscious Absorbent Mind

According to Stephenson (1990) the unconscious absorbent mind of the zero to three year old is classifying and distinguishing objects and activities within his environment, concentrating on what is necessary for building the psycho-embryonic construction mentioned above. There is no limit to the facts and knowledge he can take in, but order is essential and the adult actually has no influence over this child’s learning other than not to obstruct his eyes and his hands.

It is with the unconscious mind the child achieves his wonderful work of creation, through a sensitivity which resembles a photographic plate, automatically recording impressions in microscopic detail (Montessori, 1946). Before two and a half Montessori (1961) observed the child has very little need for or interest in communion. He is so completely engrossed in the development of his own personality and by three has already met the world and his own immediate society via his unconscious absorbent mind. Now these impressions are to be classified and organised through language so that he can carry this information around with him, something Stephenson (1991) calls the holding of matter in the intellect, through the matching of a word to to that object.

In the infants first three years, through the unconscious absorbent mind the child takes in sounds, intonation, words, grammar and sentence structure to acquire language which Montessori argues is the greatest example of the power of the young child’s inner guide to form himself as a man. Elsewhere Montessori says the procurement of language showed her just how precise and eminent the power of the unconscious absorbent mind is because language takes such a degree of direct and detailed observation to be acquired (Montessori, 1955). As part of this power comes the ability to distinguish, this Montessori (1918) believed was the characteristic sign of intelligence, as she said to distinguish is to arrange internally and therefore prepare for creation.

The Conscious Absorbent Mind

According to Montessori literature, at age three the child’s absorbent mind begins to transform from unconscious to conscious. As the child begins to choose actions for himself, a conscious intelligence begins to develop, demonstrated by his increasing ability to choose actions independently. Stephenson (1990) describes the mind of the three to six year old as still operating through the tendencies and psychological characteristics found in the younger sub-plane, but the ability to choose activities for himself is the mark of an exciting new period. Montessori (cited by Ramachandran, 1998) also observed the child of this age venturing around his environment in search of more knowledge. She even noticed occasions when the five and six year old would be drawn to the elementary classroom to feed this thirst for more knowledge. She also noticed the three old develops a propensity to notice very explicit details of his/her surroundings. Details in fact beyond what an adult would focus on. Montessori (1961) explains this extraordinary characteristic is coupled with a new urge to become sociable for the first time at around three, thus guiding the child to be involved with peers in a Children’s House. Also, through the absorbent mind’s preparation to adapt, the child takes in all information which is presented to him without questioning or criticising it. This is a vastly different quality she highlights to the older child who needs to know the reason for things.

Above the analogy of the photographic plate was given to depict the absorbent mind. Montessori also offers an alternative analogy. She describes the young child’s mind and personality to be soft like a wax. She goes on to explain that if adults put anything on top of it when it is soft it leaves an impression which cannot be removed after the mind has formed in that spot.

So the child at this age, with a fragile but powerful mind is now ready for the Children’s House. Montessori stressed the need for the child to be in an environment in which his tendencies can continue to operate (Stephenson, 1990). These tendencies include exploration, orientation and order. A detailed discussion shall now be presented of how Montessori believed a proper facilitation of these characteristics and tendencies, present from birth, could be achieved.

How to facilitate the power of the absorbent mind

Montessori (1946) believed that for the life of the child to receive the right protection, the specific laws hidden within, including the absorbent mind, must be sympathetically studied and facilitated. This had not been attempted she believed at the time, and although the phenomenon of the child’s helplessness at birth had been the subject of some philosophical speculation, medical practitioners, psychologists and educators had yet to take an interest (Montessori, 1975)

Despite this Montessori became engrossed in discovering the secrets of the absorbent mind. As mentioned before the memory and judgement of the child seemed to display a divine gift like quality, and she believed this could be facilitated further if materials were placed in the child’s environment for them to study.

Counter to this Montessori was convinced this divine power could be obstructed if not proactively facilitated. As an example she states that if the nebula of language meets with obstacles in it’s development and the acoustic sensitivity does not function, the child could become deaf and mute even though his/her organs of hearing and speech would be perfectly normal (Montessori, 1955). Because the new born and infant can be mistaken as helpless, the secrets which reside locked and buried within the subconscious can be unknowingly exposed to conditions which can have grave psychological consequences (Montessori, 1975). Hence the importance to study the child in this period. Montessori also stressed that any deviations observed in the child’s development can only be corrected in that particular sensitive period. This relates back to her analogy of the child’s mind being like soft wax. Once an impression is made it remains if that area of the brain has developed, and moves onto the next sensitive period.

This places a strong emphasis on the role of the adult in the child’s development in this plane. Montessori uses the phrase ‘hell is paved with good intentions’ to impress that thinking and wishing is not enough in the facilitation of the absorbent mind, action is the key. Let’s take a closer look at some of the solutions Montessori proposed.

Facilitating the absorbent mind – examples

As with the adult the role of action for the child is paramount to his development. It is through activity that he makes the environment and the life of the family part of himself as he absorbs it and uses it to make knowledge for himself (Stephenson, 1990). To facilitate this, Montessori in 1907 specifically designed a prepared environment. This environment must encapsulate the qualities of the world and the facts of life from human society via the materials (Stephenson, 1990). Montessori (1961), also placed an emphasis on little social interactions inside and outside the children’s house. She gives the example of letting the child take visits from people at his home, peers and adults, and to be the one to play host with simple actions like taking coats, showing guests around and making their chosen refreshment (Montessori, 1961).

To facilitate the thirst for detail Montessori (1961) encouraged taking the two and and half year old on long walks of uninterrupted discovery. As a progression of this activity she suggested planning the walk with the child beforehand, and emphasised not changing the route unless the child consented to it. This exercise she found to have an educative quality as the child sees a plan come to fruition and feels the feeling of completion when he finishes (Montessori, 1961).

Moving back into the Casa dei Bambini, Stephenson (1990) describes a specific set of materials in the environment which facilitate the absorbent mind’s understanding of three dimensions. The pink tower, the broad stair, the long rods, and the knobless cylinders let the child come into contact with dimensions he has met already but now these objects can be classified and organized in his intellect through language (Stephenson, 1990). Stephenson (1990) draws attention to other materials too, like the biology information, but re-emphasises that it is not the biological subject being given to the child, it is the language associated with it.

Montessori (1961) believes the mind moves toward what is of interest throughout life, but this is intensified during the first six years. The body then follows the mind, and as the mind of the child carries the body involuntarily, the physical energy of the child augments rather than diminishes. She gives the example of a child of two and half who had walked for miles discovering old and new stimuli, with no fatigue whatsoever. Especially the things which are useful to the child’s inner life arouse the interest, and to find these things Montessori proposes the adult should take the lantern of Diogenes and go in search for them (Montessori, 1918).

In the case of the exploratory walk it is the adults business to follow and not vice versa. Montessori (1961) describes an example of a two year old on a walk who sat down for fifteen minutes to watch a donkey graze. Other examples she gives are of the child stopping to see the movements of a worm, or stopping at the top of a hill to admire the panorama. Allowing the child to observe, explore and follow his guided interests is a form of respect towards the child according to Montessori (1961), a respect which also comes from the instinctual action of parental love and natural affection.

Another lovely example Montessori (2007) gives is of the child’s interest in the metamorphoses of insects. This she found quite surprising and forecast many similar surprises as the adult’s attention sought to discover the secrets of the absorbent mind.

Nature is key for Montessori when trying to facilitate the absorbent mind. Very recently Louv (2005) explored this notion of the importance of nature and presented many examples which support Montessori’s inclination. Early in his book Louv sites studies which found surgery patients facing a grove rather than a wall recovered quicker across the board. He also sites an experiment which showed prisoners with a room facing a courtyard got 24% more illnesses than those facing a farmland. He proposed treating ADHD with nature rather than pills and cited studies which supported his proposal as well as a school system in Finland that had environmental breaks every forty five minutes, performed better than schools not using this initiative. Gardening he believed should be part of every school curriculum and gave examples of the joy under six year olds experienced in finding tadpoles and putting sweet mixture on trees for ants and earwigs to later congregate around (Louv, 2005).

There are also a couple of quotes from Louv’s (2005) book from significant figures in history to do with nature. One from Vincent van Gogh who claimed it was nature people should admire not art work, and John F Kennedy who said that God speaks through nature. The parallels in this book to Montessori’s philosophies are a striking example of how her ideas were revolutionary one hundred years ago, and timeless in their essence.

History of the Unconscious

Discovery of the Absorbent Mind was fundamental to the development of Montessori’s educational method. She believed this characteristic in the child revealed a secret which had gone unnoticed up to that point, one which was vital to the understanding of the small child. Subsequently she believed one of it’s components, the unconscious, had also gone unnoticed in human exploration but held the key to information vital to the understanding of man’s history and ultimately his destiny.

According to Montessori (1948) most historians of her time connected the story of the planet to the history of man. However she foresaw this to be only the beginning of the story. Montessori argued that the missing component in the study of human history was the study of the unconscious, in which can be found the instincts which have driven mans rapid evolution: biological, cultural, social, psychological and spiritual. Together with all the other energies of the universe Montessori (1948) was convinced that the human unconscious was as significant a force as that of wind, rain, and the solar rays which descend on planet Earth. She believed humanity had a major part to play in the common purpose found in the hydrosphere, atmosphere and biosphere. She gave this phenomenon the name psychosphere.

For Montessori (1948), history had previously only considered the conscious urges of man when plotting his ascent, but she argued the unconscious drives in humans are far more significant, and by turning scientists and historians attention towards it she was adding a new co-efficient to the study of events past. Humanity in Montessori’s (1948) reckoning had not reached it’s position of power through conscious will but through the procedures of the unconscious. The result is a creature who dominates nature through cultivating crops; a creature who can transform life via the domestication of animals; and who can play the role of magician by depositing ancient sunlight in the form of coal into energy to transport him anywhere on the planet. These characteristics Montessori believed made up the arrow of destiny for humankind, something she described as part of Man’s cosmic task.

Why this is so relevant is to show just how crucial it was to Montessori that the observations of the children in the Casa dei Bambini, and the work to continue to facilitate the Absorbent Mind are elements in a wider cause to fulfil a cosmic destiny like the fusion of hydrogen in the sun fulfils it’s own.

The Memory – A view from contemporary science

While Montessori was busy observing the miracles she describes in the children of her first Casa dei Bambini’s, and Freud and Jung were away pioneering the psychoanalytic movement, it’s clear Dr Montessori  kept tabs on developments in the blossoming field of psychology. In her literature describing the absorbent mind she borrows several terms being used at the time in that field. One was the word ‘Mneme’. It describes the vital memory of the child who does not remember consciously but absorbs images unconsciously (Montessori, 1949). The term she (1949) borrowed to describe the memory traces that these absorbed images leave is ‘engrams’.

For the purposes of contemporary understanding of these concepts it is worth clarifying how modern neuroscientists and psychologists would describe these components of the memory. It would also be useful to take a an entry level snap shot of contemporary empirical evidence related to the memory of infants and young children. First a clarification of modern terms used in neurology and psychology when studying the memory:

Analysing these terms it can be seen that Montessori’s ‘Mneme’ falls under, procedural, non-declarative and implicit memory under the unconscious header. The term ‘Engram’ could obviously be on either side, and it appears that a single direct replacement term for ‘traces of memory/ engram’ is not being used: least not in mainstream academia.

Turning to contemporary literature on the infant and young child’s mind, it is evident to see not everyone paints as simplistic representation of Montessori’s delineation’s of the unconscious and conscious absorbent mind. Zelazo and Zelazo (1998) have described the period from birth to about 8 months as dominated by minimal consciousness. This term they believe serves as an alternative to the implausible ideas that infants either lack consciousness of any sort or are conscious in the adult sense. Minimal consciousness is argued to be intentional, that is, it is about things. The consciousness of a young infant is completely dependent upon the immediate perceptual environment (Zelazo & Zelazo, 1998).

Zelazo and Zelazo (1998) also consider the age of around 18 months to be the time when the child shows signs of self-consciousness. Tulving (2001) aggregates and presents a number of studies in his book which support the proposition that around this age the child develops  autonoetic consciousness. Autonoetic consciousness is the ability found in humans to cognitively place themselves in the past or future, and also the ability to analyse ones own thoughts. One study cited by Tulving (2001), was by Nelson (1984), and analysed tapes of a young child who often talked to herself before sleeping. At age 21 months she often reviewed personal events or thought processes, and in the next couple of months she used temporal markers for the past and appeared to be anticipating the future.

Opposing conjectures, supporting Montessori’s clear demarcations do exist however. Howe and Courage (1993) claimed that it is not until the third year that children are able to recall their personal past with respect to place and time. Tulving (2001) offers a supporting argument when he claims that while there are glimpses of episodic memory by the third and fourth years, numerous studies show this age group as capable of learning via noetic consciousness only. Although enlightening, Tulving (2001) is careful to make clear there are numerous other cognitive processes involved in learning for the child. He uses the term mnemonic strategies as one such faculty, as well as language, narrative plus reasoning and problem solving but argues a discussion of all of these factors on the memory development of the child was too ambitious, even for his lengthy book.

Even with just this superficial look at modern evidence and literature in the field shows that Montessori’s own scientific eye was unsurprisingly accurate. While her terminology might be a little be out of date, the premise for her philosophies holds true and can be used with confidence by contemporary Montessori practitioners.

Conclusion

The present essay aimed to present a discussion of Maria Montessori’s notion of the Absorbent Mind. It began with an introduction to the idea that the Absorbent Mind does not help to construct the personality of the child with a voluntary effort, but instead in accordance with naturally guided inner sensitivities. As regularly seen in Montessori literature comparisons were made between the mind of the human and the mind of the animal, as well as the contrast between the adult mind and the infant and child’s absorbent mind.

The concept of unconscious Absorbent Mind as belonging to the zero to three child, was then fleshed out. Montessori observed this child to be wholly engrossed in it’s own development, taking in all parts of language, and through distinguishing sounds and meanings showed clearly the development of intelligence.

The conscious Absorbent Mind was then discussed. It’s characteristics as cited by Montessori’s observations included a increased ability to choose actions independently; a propensity to notice explicit details of his/her surroundings; plus a need to become sociable for the first time to broaden the information being absorbed.

The Absorbent Mind was and is presented as a fragile yet powerful tool. The question was posed as to why due care and attention was required to facilitate this phenomenon. The answer included obstructions to it’s development can lead to grave psychological consequences, and specific examples of ways to nurture it’s qualities were discussed. A specifically designed environment which supports the continuing operation of the child’s tendencies was identified as paramount, and evidence about the nourishing quality of nature was presented.

A short interlude on the history of the unconscious as envisioned by Dr Montessori was detailed next. This brought an added dimension to the importance of facilitating the infant and child’s absorbent mind, not only for the child’s sake but for the future survival of the human race. No modesty of proclamation was found there, and nor should it have been.

Finally there was a brief discussion about the primary component of the absorbent mind: the memory. A clarification of Montessori’s and modern neuroscientists and psychologists terms was presented. This was followed by a smattering of research into contemporary literature on the memory which was compared and contrasted to Montessori’s observations.

 

References

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Louv, R. (2005) Last Child in the Woods. New York: Workman Publishing

Montessori, Maria (1918) The Advanced Montessori Method-I. Amsterdam: Montessori-Pierson Publishing Company

Montessori, Maria (1946) Education for a New World. Amsterdam: Montessori-Pierson Publishing Company

Montessori, Maria (1948) The Unconscious in History. India: AMI

Montessori, Maria (1949) The Absorbent Mind. Amsterdam: Montessori-Pierson Publishing Company

Montessori, Maria. (1955) The Formation of Man. Oxford: Clio,

Montessori, Maria (1961) What You Should Know About Your Child. Amsterdam: Montessori-Pierson Publishing Company

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Tulving, E. (1999) Memory, Consciousness, and the Brain: The Tallinn Conference. London: Psychology Press

Zelazo, P.D. & Zelazo, P.R. (1998) In Tulving, E. (1999) Memory, Consciousness, and the Brain: The Tallinn Conference. London: Psychology Press