Imagination in Montessori

Thoughts & Reflections

We had a great conversation about imagination yesterday. We were discussing his new shirt, the one that he had painted himself, when we started to hone in on colors and what it means to imagine. What is imagination? How is imagination understood in Montessori? Let’s find out. Imagination is one of those terms that’s extremely hard to define, primarily because it comes with so much baggage.

Close your eyes. What do you think of when we say the word imagination? We stumbled upon a beautiful quote that we thought we would share. It comes from Lucian Freud, the grandson of Sigmund Freud, who was an admirer of the Montessori approach to education.

“A great deal of what is normally thought of as intelligence, he points out, is actually imagination – that is, an ability to see things as they truly are.” What better definition of imagination than that!

In Montessori, imagination is running wild with your thoughts. It’s not about creating things that don’t exist, but exploring possibilities that already exist, and pushing them to new limits. For children, nothing is impossible. They’re constantly asking and exploring the questions that start with, “What if…”In many respects, “what if…”, is the beginning of imagination. It’s not about coloring in lines in a coloring book, (how could we ever find the right lines to express imagination) rather it’s about creating your own lines, taking charge of creating your own world.

Imagination in Montessori.