The Absorbent Mind
/The Absorbent Mind
“Impressions do not merely enter his mind, they form it, they incarnate themselves in him.”
A young child’s best learning is gained through authentic and intentional experiences.
You’ve probably heard it before: a child’s mind is like a sponge. This can sometimes be intimidating for parents. After all, there’s plenty that our children see that we’d rather they promptly forget.
This saying has so much truth. By and large, it’s one of the most amazing discoveries of Maria Montessori.
Montessori recognized that a child age six or under was particularly in-tune to learning from his environment. With seemingly little effort, he could absorb information put in front of him and internalize it in a way different from an older child.
Montessori referred to this phenomenon as “The Absorbent Mind.”
Children during this stage of life (from birth to six-years-old) learn most by absorbing information provided from their environment. This is why you don’t generally have to teach a young toddler language. He’ll start to pick it up simply by being around people speaking.
Forming a Child’s Mind, Not Just Filling It
Maria said in her book, The Absorbent Mind, “Impressions do not merely enter his mind, they form it, they incarnate themselves in him.” This quote points out the ease with which a young child learns.
Children have a tremendous capacity for learning, but we often forget that because we look at the world through adult lenses.
The older we get, the more we grow accustomed to gaining knowledge and information through lecture or literary form. This could be due to a love of efficiency. Or possibly it can be attributed to how we consume media. Maybe it’s the lasting effects of the memorize, test, and forget cycle we perfected in traditional school. Regardless, we adults seek information to merely enter our mind.
A child in the Absorbent Mind stage of life learns through experiences. “What the hand does, the mind remembers.” (Maria Montessori) The information they gain is internalized. It forms their brain, their personality, their lifelong learning patterns.
This idea gives education much more weight...and not just education through a school building. The opportunities a young child is provided in his early years will lay the foundation for who he is and how he learns for life.
The Unconscious Mind (Ages 0 - 3)
The Absorbent Mind period is broken into two separate periods. The period from birth to age 3 is known as the Unconscious Mind. As the name would indicate, these youngest children tirelessly absorb their environment, unconsciously learning from everything.
They gain this knowledge without discrimination. There is little to no picking and choosing at this stage.
Think of all the things a child generally learns between birth and three-years-old: holding his head, speaking, crawling, talking, conversing, holding an eating utensil, using a toilet...and those are just the most obvious things!
About 85% of a child’s brain is developed before the age of three. And the child often doesn’t realize he’s learning.
The Conscious Mind (Ages 3 - 6)
From ages three to six the child breaks into what is known as the Conscious Mind phase. Here, he’s more aware of the process of learning. While his brain is still absorbent like a sponge, he begins to select more of what he wants to learn.
A child’s interests start to form here, and they begin to drive his new quest for knowledge. This shift demonstrates the shift in the child’s role in his learning. He is no longer a passive student, but an active one.
Sensitive Periods
Not only does an Absorbent Mind soak up everything, it also opens itself up to specific knowledge at a certain time. Today, you might hear these short periods referred to as “windows of opportunity.” Maria Montessori called this discovery Sensitive Periods.
During a Sensitive Period, a child’s mind will be perfectly primed to learn a specific skill. He’ll become absorbed with a certain feature of his environment. Through this absorption, he will demonstrate an unparalleled focus on this particular feature or characteristic to the point where he hardly notices anything else.
Sensitive Periods happen at varying stages for each child. The key is for the parent or educator to recognize the signs and provide opportunities that allow him to explore this aspect of his environment. This will help him learn this skill with ease.
If a Sensitive Period is missed (and the skill is not acquired when the child’s brain is most developmentally ready to absorb it), the child will have to work much harder in the future to acquire this skill.
Below is a chart of Sensitive Periods in an Absorbent Mind child’s life. Keep in mind that each individual child’s progress through these Sensitive Periods will vary. Additionally, note that specific Sensitive Periods are sometimes called by different names or broken and/or combined a bit differently.
We’ll break down individual Sensitive Periods more in this blog. It is such a fascinating and instrumental tool in a Montessori education, that it will continually be mentioned.
What Can We Do About It?
We’re parents and educators. We want the best for our kids. Information like this, while interesting, can be daunting. Especially if our child is past - or approaching - the end of his Absorbent Mind phase.
But here we like to give information, and we like to give grace.
What can we as the adults do for our children? We can always prepare the environment. We can make sure (Absorbent Mind phase or not) that our child has an environment that cultivates curiosity. An environment that feeds a child’s natural tendency towards exploration. That fosters a lifelong love of learning.
This often means giving plenty of time and space for the child to interact with his environment how he chooses. Again we come back to “follow the child.” When we observe the child, we see what interests him. This allows us to harness that, providing ample opportunities for him to explore what will most motivate him to pursue learning.
Modeling the behaviors and attitudes we want our child to have is also tremendously important. This is a crucial role a Montessori teacher has in the classroom as well. A patient parent (or teacher) is much more effective than a parent (or teacher) who simply tells the child to “be patient.”
As parents and educators, it is our honor to nurture these young humans on their way to develop into the unique individuals they’ll become. How exciting that part of our responsibility is simply joining them on the journey; modeling and experiencing life joyfully with them and through their eyes!
“...the experiences children have in the early years of their life have a direct effect on the quantity and quality of connections made in their brain. In addition, there is now evidence to show that, as Dr. Montessori observed many years ago, there are times during this period when the brain is more susceptible to different types of experiences than others, creating what are called ‘learning windows’, ‘windows of opportunity’ or ‘sensitive periods’.”