In this written work I’m going to explain what the absorbent mind is, how it works and why it is so important, through three key words used by Maria Montessori. 

To explain the absorbent mind we have to clearly state the difference between the mind of the adult and the mind of the child under the age of three. Montessori meant that the mind of the adult looks at the environment and forms an opinion about it; it’s beautiful, or hideous, or strange, or funny (2007:56). Adults can think of ways to change it and remember what they have seen around them but they do not absorb it. It does not shape the soul of the adult, it does not have great impact on the adults personality and spirit as it does on the young child (2007:56). The child’s mind is like a sponge. We start our lives by learning and storing knowledge about our surroundings unconsciously. We learn through our spirits before learning in any other way. This absorbent sponge of a mind is according to her miraculous (2007:26) and she had her theory’s of how it could work. She mentions three words to describe the function of the absorbent mind. 

The first question to ask is; why does the mind of the young child absorb all this information from the environment? Answering this takes us to the first of the three words Montessori would use in her explanation of the absorbent mind. She believed that every human being is born with a life force that is called “horme" which is Greek for ‘urge’. This life force keeps the unconscious mind growing and absorbing. The child is born with an urge in the unconscious mind, telling him to look around, move the body, use his voice, reach for that object. This urge is curtail in order for the child to absorb and adapt to his environment (2007:74).

The following question we then have to ask is; how does the mind absorb? The answer lies within our second key word. In the mind of the child, there is a kind of absorbent cloud which is placed in the spirit of the child. Montessori believed in the theory that human beings were not born with natural instincts, like animals are, but with an unconscious impulse and power to create these instincts. She referred to the word nebulae which is Latin for cloud;

“… these will have the duty of directing and incarnating in him, the form of human conduct which he finds in his surroundings. We have called these formless urges, “nebulae”. - 2007:65. 

This word was originally used by astronomers to describe clouds in space made out of gas, dust and other materials. These clouds develop and grow massive by taking in, one could say absorbing, different matter from it’s surroundings. Eventually these clouds grow into stars and planets. How beautiful is the process of creation!

So we have a life force, horme, which is the baby’s unconscious urge to develop, and we have the absorbent cloud, nebulae, which takes in all the information that the life force is reaching for. That leaves us with a final question; how does the child keep and remember all of this information from the environment? The answer leads us to our final key word to describe the function of the absorbent mind, and the word is mneme. Montessori talks of mneme as a kind of unconscious memory very different from the memory of the adult. Mneme stores the experiences of the young child in the unconscious mind and this greatly effects the persons personality and character.

“The “Mneme” not only creates the individual’s special characteristics, but keeps them alive in him.” - 2007:60.

The mind absorbs it’s surroundings in order to become man, a human being with a unique personality. This short period of life, the early years of childhood, is indeed one a natures many miracles and I would like to finish this essay by quoting Montessori in her own fascination of the absorbent mind:

“Though it is true, is it not, that all the works of nature are, perhaps, magical..” - 2007:26.

Montessori, M       2007   The absorbent mind, Montessori-Pierson Publishing company, Amsterdam, Netherlands.