Co-presented to the parent community at Compass Montessori School.

1. Grace & Courtesy
in the Montessori Classroom

2. Overview of the Evening
Staff Introductions
Grace & Courtesy: Philosophical Rationale
Sharing by Level
Panel Discussion
Questions & Comments

3. Staff Introductions

4. Grace & Courtesy:
Philosophical Rationale

7. Human Tendencies
Orientation
Order
Exploration
Communication
Activity
Manipulation
Work
Repetition
Exactness
Abstraction
Self-Perfection
(As articulated by Mario Montessori in The Human Tendencies & Montessori Education - 1956)

9. “[T]he whole concept of education changes.
It becomes a matter of giving help to the child’s life, to the
psychological development of man. No longer is it just an
enforced task of retaining our words and ideas. This is the
new path on which education has been put; to help
the mind in its process of development, to aid its
energies and strengthen its many powers.”
- Dr. Maria Montessori, The Absorbent Mind, p. 24

10. “[T]oday, there is a need for more dynamic
training of character and the development of
a clearer consciousness of social reality.”
- Dr. Maria Montessori, From Childhood to Adolescence, p. 62

11. “Therefore a new morality, individual and social,
must be our chief consideration in this new world. ”
- Maria Montessori, From Childhood to Adolescence, p. 73

12. “Moral education is the source of that spiritual
equilibrium on which everything else depends.”
- Maria Montessori, From Childhood to Adolescence, p. 73

14. “When we let the infant develop, and see him construct from
the invisible roots of creation that which is to become
the grown man, then we can learn the secrets on
which depend our individual and social strength.”
- Dr. Maria Montessori, The Absorbent Mind, p. 216

15. “Good laws and good government cannot hold the mass of
men together and make them act in harmony, unless the
individuals themselves are oriented toward something that
gives them solidarity and makes them into a group. The
masses, in their turn, are more or less strong and active
according to the level of development, and of inner
stability, of the personalities composing them.”
- Dr. Maria Montessori, The Absorbent Mind, p. 215

16. “[T]his is the key to social reform… it should be made the
basis of all education. Social integration has occurred when
the individual identifies himself with the group to which he
belongs. When this has happened, the individual thinks
more about the success of his group than
of his own personal success.”
- Dr. Maria Montessori, The Absorbent Mind, p. 212

18. “‘We do not want this child to do this action because we are
doing it, or because we have commanded it to be done…
[I]t should so happen that when the action does come to be
carried out by the child, it must be done as part
of a life that unfolds itself’...”
- E.M. Standing, Maria Montessori: Her Life and Times, pp. 216

19. “‘[I]t is in his mind, and upon his own reflection, that the
action should have its origin… the essential thing is that he
should know how to perform these actions of courtesy
when his little heart prompts him to do so, as part of a
social life which develops naturally from moment to
moment… spontaneous.’”
- E.M. Standing, Maria Montessori: Her Life and Times, pp. 217-218

20. Sharing by Level

21. Panel Discussion

22. Questions & Comments

25. Thank You
and Good Night