Nichole Holtvluwer writes for fellow guides who work in the toddler community. Recognizing that communication with parents is the most important path to serving the child, Holtvluwer offers concrete advice beginning with the guide's most important stance: withholding judgment. She details four steps to working with parents or caregivers: building…

Jennifer Rogers writes with apt and lyrical snippets from her perspective as a Montessori parent and from her long history as a primary guide. This short piece examines the word "grace" from multiple facets and serves as a meditation that uplifts and reminds us "that the life of a child is a gift."

Lynne Lawrence puts forward the solemn belief that each child is fulfilling the destiny of every human being. As children make their own contributions to their unique family, society, and global life, they are putting the common good above their own needs. Lawrence begins her case for universality with a moving statement from an African teacher in…

Joen Bettmann's depiction of practical life exercises as character-building reveals how caring, careful, and independent work leads to higher self-esteem, more concern for others, better understanding for academic learning, and a self-nurturing, respectful classroom community. Particular aspects of movement and silence exercises bring out what…

Margaret Stephenson begins with the reasoning elementary child as he answers questions about "all things." She centers on the unity of knowledge, leading "from the whole via the parts back to the whole." Imagination is enhanced to bring abstraction to an engaging and lofty motivation, and the elementary self is referred to as…

Presents an intellectual view of transcendence in relation to the widening of consciousness. Indicates that the spiritual beginnings of life establish and integrate the human personality, which, when connected to a vital center, gives a fundamental point of reference. (Author/KB)

Discusses the reciprocal relationship between the Montessori child and teacher that provides spiritual rejuvenation to the teacher. The key to teachers' spiritual development can be found in Montessori's insights into the true nature of the child. (PAM)

Reprint of 1973 letter issued by the Association Montessori Internationale to its members regarding signs that although people have been striving for greater general welfare, individual rights, freedom, and leisure, extending reduced work and more leisure to children will disrupt healthy development. Describes necessary environments for healthy…

Draws upon Maria Montessori's writings to examine work as a universal human tendency throughout life. Discusses the work of adaptation of the infant, work of "psycho-muscular organism" for the preschooler, work of the imagination for the elementary child, community work of the adolescent, and work of the adult. Asserts that…