This article exhorts the observer to take notice of the unconscious and conscious levels of the young child's absorbent mind (infant stare). Montessori notes the social awareness of young children and suggests that their amazing awareness of people, not merely their activities, is integral to observation. [Reprinted with permission from "AMI…

Ginny Sackett lists many of the universal attributes of the absorbent mind--pattern recognition, order, incarnation, the rules for language, and numeracy. Her essay borders on the metaphysical as it suggests that the mathematical mind is really a non-entity and is responsible for all aspects of knowledge acquisition regardless of the discipline of…

Explores Maria Montessori's notion that a young child's brain is significantly different from an adult's and that young children develop according to a series of predictable "sensitive periods." Cites numerous empirical studies that support these and other ideas Montessori postulated without the advantage of sophisticated scientific…