I mentioned that I knew I liked Zettelkasten within the first 30 minutes. I think it might be important that when I sat down to try it, I had an idea I was excited to work on. It wasn’t a nice solid mathematical idea -- it was a fuzzy idea, one which had been burning in the back of my brain for a week or so, waiting to be born. It filled the fractal branches of a zettelkasten nicely, expanding in every direction.

Her motto was ‘never interrupt aconcentrating child’

the Montessori model of education was banned in Nazi Germany in1936

Out of the ideas of Pestalozzi and Froebel, in the early 1900s Maria Montessorideveloped her method, depending on practical tasks such as personal care andcare for the environment, putting independence at the centre of the curriculum.

Although Rousseau had an influence on a handful of European educators, itwould be misleading to imply that the impact on education of these new ideasabout learning through discovery was, at the time, profound.

us ed tech folks will recognize some of the themes – individualized learning, learner choice, self-direction, – to name a few.

If it were so very easy to look things up,

The young child’s natural inclination to touch and experience their world in a tactile manner explains why the world famous Montessori apparatus has such fascinating appeal to a child. 

Montessori observed how children learned the language without anyone teaching them. This sparked her idea for the “absorbent mind”.

When the children are able to do things for themselves there is an increase in their self belief, self confidence and esteem that they may carry on throughout their life.

Jean Piaget, John Dewey, Maria Montessori, or Paulo Friere