“The greatness of the human personality begins at the hour of birth.”- Maria Montessori, The Absorbent mind, Kalakshetra Publication 2010 edition, pg.2
According to Maria Montessori a child’s potential of learning occurs from birth to six years. The learning takes place in a very amazing and special way. The mind absorbs everything from the environment, and environment plays an important and critical role in early brain development. Maria Montessori referred this important phase of development as the “absorbent mind”. During this period the brain receives processes and stores everything from the environment without any effort, this form absorption is called the unconscious absorption.
Silvana Q Moantanaro, M.D., says in her book “This intense mental activity is always going on, even in prenatal life, and it characterizes”the absorbent mind”. ” Understanding the Human Being, Pg.83
From birth a child absorbs the raw material from the environment to learn and survive, he learns the language around him without any difficulty, and he learns to recognize all the people and things around him, he acquires all his basic abilities. The child uses his psychic force to work his abilities to observe and absorb from the environment. He incarnates or creates himself, using the unconscious absorbent mind; this takes place from birth to three years of age. During this phase, the child works on becoming independent from the adult. He reaches his important milestones of his first year of life by just observing and absorbing. By the age of three he learns to control his body functions, learns to walk and talk. When this phase is successfully fulfilled he moves into the next phase of conscious absorbent mind, which takes place from the age of three years to six years. At this phase the child perfects himself by using his freedom. He consolidates what he has acquired in his previous phase. He practices all he has absorbed, and masters it. He consolidates