Fantasy and Imagination
Creativity and imagination are “inborn powers in the child that develop as his mental capacities are established through his interaction with the environment” (Lillard, 1972, p. 45). Dr. Montessori believed in cultivating the qualities of creativity and imagination in the young child in a way that connected the child to reality. In the Montessori environment, “creation is in reality a composition, a construction raised upon a primitive material of the mind, which must be collected from the environment by means of the senses” (Montessori, 2016, p. 182).
There is a natural, instinctive desire in humans to create and transform the world, but this can only happen if imagination and reality work in cooperation with each other. Dr. Montessori believed that the young child, who often fantasizes, must be called out of his fantasy world and back into reality in order to use his creative energies purposefully. She wrote, “when imagination starts from contact with reality, thought begins to construct works by means of which the external world becomes transformed; almost as if the thought of man had assumed a marvelous power: the power to create” (2016, p. 179).
Dr. Montessori’s View of Imagination
Dr. Montessori viewed imagination in connection with reality as part of a positive science. She described this science as “a return to natural laws of psychical energy” (Montessori, 2016, p. 180). She believed that truth must be the foundation for creative energy because it constructs the mind and stimulates the imagination in a purposeful way. The product of interacting with reality in this purposeful way is intelligence based on observation, logical reasoning and artistic imagination (Montessori, 2016).
Dr. Montessori determined that imagination is constructed from external impressions that inform the mind of the concrete world. “Imagination can have only a sensory basis” (Montessori, 2016, p. 184). External impressions collect information through the sensory organs to inform the mind, which then stimulates creative thought. The more the senses are refined, the more accurate the impressions become, which gives the mind greater clarity and discernment.
