The 25 educational commandments of Montessori

We often misunderstand that children are just playing, yet they are engaging in the most serious work. They are practicing body control, establishing order, and cultivating concentration and willpower. Play is a child’s work and also an exercise for life itself.

Children don’t need us to transform them; instead, it’s adults who need to change. True education begins when we respect, listen, and wait.

● Children don’t learn by simply sitting and listening. They explore the world with their hands and construct wisdom through actions. Education must be dynamic to reach their hearts.

● We often misunderstand that children are just playing, yet they are engaging in the most serious work. They are practicing body control, establishing order, and cultivating concentration and willpower. Play is a child’s work and also an exercise for life itself.

● In the earliest years of life, children possess a unique mindset that I call the absorbent mind. Without effort, they unconsciously absorb language, culture, and the order of the world. This is one of nature’s miracles bestowed upon humanity.

● Don’t make choices for children in the name of what’s best for them. Love is not intervention or control; it’s respecting a life to become itself.

● Don’t think we are educating children; in fact, children are awakening our dormant hearts. They don’t need to be shaped; they need to be understood and trusted. True education is letting go of control, granting freedom, and allowing children to grow in love and order.

● Don’t rush to correct children’s mistakes; they are their learning and attempts. Mistakes are part of growth.

● Don’t dominate children’s growth with an adult’s pace; they carry their own growth codes. Our job is not to control the direction of their progress but to learn to wait, observe, and follow.

● Children don’t just learn by memorizing with their brains; they absorb everything with their entire being. They grow silently through imitation, experience, and feeling.

● Children are not empty cups waiting to be filled. They are seeds, already prepared with their unique life scripts. Our task is not to instill knowledge but to provide sunlight, air, and space.

We love children not to mold them into what adults idealize but to let go and trust them to grow into who they are meant to be.

● True love is not doing everything for children but quietly standing behind them, being there when they need us and even when they don’t.

● Education is not about lecturing or giving orders; it’s about first understanding what children are going through. When we are willing to understand children, they will naturally be willing to grow.

● True discipline is not about obedience, submission, or suppression. It’s about learning to manage in freedom. When they choose to do the right thing on their own, they are truly free.

● When children are irritable or cry, we often think it’s a personality issue, but actually, they’ve just lost their sense of order. What can calm children down is an orderly and predictable environment.

● Commands, threats, and punishment won’t teach children self-discipline; they only teach them that obedience is safer than thinking.

● Children don’t mean to do badly; they just need time to practice. The more patiently you wait, the more firmly they will grow.

Children are born with deep concentration, but if the adult world constantly interferes, their concentration will never take root.

● Hands are tools of the mind. When children use their hands, they are not just playing; they are constructing their brains, training concentration, and developing willpower. Don’t underestimate that moment when a child is concentrating on work; that’s when the mind is shining.

● Children’s dependence on adults is not weakness but a psychological support before they become independent. They need to take root in safety before they can grow independently.

● We are eager to teach children every step but forget that the most important thing is to trust their own growth rhythm. Children possess strengths we haven’t understood. Leave space for them to become themselves.

● We always think we need to teach children everything. But what’s truly important is understanding that children are born with the power to grow. Our job is not to shape them but to remove obstacles and let them grow freely. Education is liberation, not control.

● The character formed during childhood is the foundation for the rest of one’s life. Adults cannot replace this construction period; we can only provide an appropriate environment for children to build themselves.

● When children talk back, it’s not disrespect; they are trying to express their ignored selves. What needs to change is not the child’s attitude but our way of listening.

● You are not the creator of your child; you cannot determine who they will become. You can only provide an environment, trust, and rhythm for them to fulfill their own life tasks. Education is not control but profound respect.