THE HUNGRY MIND: FROM THE

CASA DEI BAMBINI TO COSMIC EDUCATION

by Baiba Krumins Grazzini

Baiba Krumins Grazzini has generously transformed her lecture, delivered

at the AMI-USA Refresher Course in 2014, into a legacy article. This article
establishes the role of storytelling in Cosmic Education while capturing
both the whole and the detailed parts of Montessori Cosmic Education.
Working from the early childhood transition into the elementary years, she
frames the second plane as more than a successive stage of development
but, more importantly, as a continuation of growth through the work of
imagination. She has given the presentation “life, not theories” by adding
her authentic perspective to the dynamics of the crowning movement of
stages that is the first to second plane.

When it comes to development, Dr Montessori says that life

can be regarded as a series of rebirths and that is really what we
are seeing illustrated in this chart taken from “The Four Planes of
Development” by Camillo Grazzini.

Baiba Krumins Grazzini is director of training at the International Centre

for Montessori Studies Foundation in Bergamo, Italy. She has been involved
with Bergamo’s AMI elementary training course since 1975, became an AMI
elementary trainer in 1986, and joined Camillo Grazzini as co-director in
1992. Baiba Krumins Grazzini holds both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree
in economics from the University of London (London School of Economics
and Political Science) as well as the AMI 3-6 Diploma (London) and the AMI
6-12 Diploma (Bergamo). As the late Camillo Grazzini’s closest collaborator,
Baiba Krumins Grazzini co-researched, and sometimes co-authored, papers
and projects with respect to many aspects of Montessori elementary work;
she has continued to publish in her own name. She became a member of the
AMI Pedagogical Committee in 2004 and served until 2013 by which time it
was the AMI Scientific Pedagogy Group. Today she is a leading Montessori
expert on Montessori elementary education in the world as she continues the
Bergamo research and elementary courses of study and implementation.
This talk was presented at the NAMTA adolescent workshop titled From
Childhood to Adolescence: Keys, Disciplines, Social Organization,
and Life-Long Impact, at the AMI/USA Refresher Course, Houston,
TX, February 14-17, 2014. © Baiba Krumins Grazzini 2016

Krumins Grazzini • The Hungry Mind 91

 The individual’s actual birth as an infant is represented by the
red flame around the zero and, after that, we see the individual’s
rebirths: around the age of six for the “birth” of the older child;
around the age of twelve for the “birth” of the adolescent (who
is nothing less than the newborn adult); and around the age of
eighteen for the “birth” of the mature adult. Since each life, so to
speak, lasts for a period of approximately six years, the construc-
tive rhythm of the life of a human being leads to four planes or
stages of development: infancy; childhood; adolescence; maturity.
Each “life” must be lived to the full if Nature’s goal of a healthy
and happy mature adult is to be reached. This is an adult who can
function independently in the context of an interdependent adult
society based on reciprocal relations of exchange and interchange
of many different kinds.

The rebirth that we are interested in now is the one around the
age of six; the passage, in other words, from the plane of infancy to
that of childhood. A rebirth always signals change, and the changes
will be both physical and psychological at this new time of life. There

92 The NAMTA Journal • Vol. 41, No. 1 • Winter 2016

will be changes involving the mind or the intellect and, in corre-
spondence with these changes, the child will also change from the
social, moral and, indeed, emotional points of view. To appreciate
what this first rebirth means, we need to consider the child before
the age of six as well as the child after the age of six.

As we know, the first plane, that of infancy, has to do with psy-

chic creation: the creation of the individual human being who also
belongs to a particular human group (and to understand this work
of creation it is enough to compare the apparent psychic nothingness
of a newborn baby to the child of five or six years of age). However
the first plane, infancy, also involves a physical transformation: the
dramatic transformation of the body. The body of a child of six is
different from that of the newborn or young infant, and the most
striking difference has to do with the proportions of the body. Whilst
the young child’s head is enormous in relation to the body and the
legs seem quite short, the six-year-old child’s body has not only
lengthened but also the bodily proportions have changed to ones
that are much more familiar to us, since they resemble those of the
adult more closely. I like to think of this physical transformation
as symbolizing the change that has taken place on the spiritual or
psychic plane: from the very special mental powers of the little
child (the absorbent mind), at work in the reality of the immediate
environment, to the very different mentality of the older child, at
work in what Maria Montessori calls the open environment.

Thinking of his own physical growth and that of other children,

a young boy once said to me that children seem to stretch like a wire
spring that you can pull out and lengthen. How true this is! Thus
the body becomes thin-
ner and less rounded,
and the legs become We do not speak of a sensitive period
long and strong when for order for the older child; but the
compared to those of older children discover universal laws
the little child. The six- and a cosmic order. The little child looks
year-old child has lost for relationships between things whilst
his baby fat and where the older child finds relationships and
the dimples of the hand interrelatedness, interconnectedness and
used to be, only knuck- interdependence of how things function.
les can now be seen.

Krumins Grazzini • The Hungry Mind 93

 Then there are the changes in the teeth, as Montessori points
out. At around the age of six years, the pearly little milk teeth start
to fall out and it will take about another six years for the permanent
set of teeth to completely replace the first set. When the permanent
teeth start to come in they look really large in relation to the face and
this, Montessori says, makes the boy or girl look more like a horse
than a child (Creative Development in the Child). And what about the
hair? If before it was soft and curly, now it is coarser, darker, thicker
and straighter. If we interpret this in a symbolic way, the coarser
hair and the big strong teeth indicate a new toughness, not to say
roughness, in this new individual. This is so true that one of the
nicknames Dr Montessori gives to the second plane of development
is “the age of rudeness”.

The second plane of development is not a creative plane and

the physical growth that takes place during this plane is not one
of transformation. Indeed, Maria Montessori describes the second
plane as a calm phase of uniform growth. Thus, for example, the
teeth will keep growing in during the whole of the plane, and the
body will gradually lengthen without any great change in bodily
proportions. The second plane is a time of health, strength and
stability; unlike the little child on the one hand or the adolescent
on the other hand, this child is not prone to illness.

The second plane, in other words, is usually a very happy and

healthy period of developing life and, for that very reason, consti-
tutes an ideal time for “the acquisition of culture”, an ideal time for
the acquisition of knowledge and the kind of understanding that
genuine knowledge brings. This is what Dr Montessori says:

Our experience with children in elementary schools has

shown us that the age between 6 and 12 years is a period
of life during which the elements of all sciences should be
given. It is a period which psychologically is especially
sensitive and might be called the “sensitive period of cul-
ture” during which the abstract plane of the human mind
is organized (From Childhood to Adolescence).

And she also says this:

At this age it is possible for the child to take in an enor-

mous amount of culture. (…) We have found by experience

94 The NAMTA Journal • Vol. 41, No. 1 • Winter 2016

 that, during this period, the syllabus must be enlarged,
containing not only things taught in the primary period,
but many things taught in the succeeding secondary school
period” (Creative Development in the Child).

Perhaps the most interesting physical change of all, from the

symbolic point of view, is the change in the legs and feet, a change
which indicates the need to go out, to move out into, and to ex-
plore, the wider environment. These big feet and long legs can also
symbolize the need for the mind to go out: Montessori says that the
intelligence now becomes extroverted; it is thrown outward to the
world, outward to the universe. Thus we can think of those long
strong legs as representing the child’s newfound desire and drive
to explore a very new and even a vast environment.

The little child’s environment is a limited one: for a newborn

baby we can think of it as starting with the mother ’s arms, arms
that represent safety, security, the warmth of love; and the little
child is happy in the closed environment of his home. Montessori
symbolizes all of this with a particular painting, Raphael’s Madonna
of the Chair.

Krumins Grazzini • The Hungry Mind 95

 The environment that the older child seeks could not be more
different: he seeks the open environment, the wide environment,
an environment as vast as the world, the universe, the cosmos.
To symbolize this, I want to show you a picture which a student
made in order to represent Cosmic Education (Bo Mynett, 2011/12
Bergamo Course).

Bo Mynett, 2011/12 Bergamo Course

Going out in this vast environment means going out with the
mind, with the eyes of the mind; that is to say, with the imagination,
the one and only vehicle available for travelling through infinite
space and endless time. Only the power of imagination can help this
child break the barriers of distance and time in order to develop the
knowledge and understanding that he desires, needs and seeks.

All the human faculties and powers that the young child cre-
ated, integrated and perfected during the years from birth to six,
can now be used to satisfy the older child’s developmental needs.
But how can we help this child to satisfy his hunger for knowledge,
his need to understand both the world and humanity? How does the

96 The NAMTA Journal • Vol. 41, No. 1 • Winter 2016

world function in all its various aspects? And what about human
society, how does that function?

The child himself develops the ability to see a world that the eyes
of the body cannot see; he develops the ability to picture a reality
that is out of his physical reach; he develops the ability to experi-
ence what is inaccessible to the senses. It is always reality that the
child seeks but the only way to see, picture and experience reality
on the grand scale of the world and the universe, is through the
imagination. If before, when he was little, the child could explore
his immediate environment through movement and the senses; now
he has to explore through imagination and a more abstract kind of
reasoning. Only in this way can he develop a sense of belonging to
the universe and thus become a citizen of the world; only in this way
can he develop a sense of belonging to one great nation or society
of humanity and thus become a citizen of La Nazione Unica, to use
Montessori’s own expression.

This is a very different kind of environment, a very different

kind of reality, from the one that the young child absorbed, but it is a
reality nonetheless. It is a reality that the child pictures in the mind;
one that he creates in the mind; a reality that the child experiences
on a mental plane; one to which he adapts. Mario Montessori calls
this kind of adaptation, the second phase of adaptation. He says:

What gave great joy to the children was to realise clearly

how the world functioned in its physical phenomena
(distribution of heat, air currents, sea currents, rain, ero-
sion, deposition, etc.); how different plants and animals
distributed themselves according to conditions and how
humanity fitted in this complex. The vision on a higher
level of this far larger environment and the possibility,
following their present tendencies, to absorb it – as in the
previous years, 0-6, when they had been able to absorb
the more restricted and immediate environment – formed
a second phase in the process the human individual un-
dergoes to achieve adaptation

Here we have the miracle of the second plane of development:

the miracle of the child who assimilates and adapts to an environ-
ment and a reality that he can only imagine. Although the second
plane is not a plane of creation, the knowledge and understanding

Krumins Grazzini • The Hungry Mind 97

acquired during this plane can change and transform the individual.
We can recognize the people that have successfully lived through
the second phase of adaptation, to use Mario Montessori’s expres-
sion, and the ones that have not. Those who remain within the first
phase of adaptation have a closed kind of mentality that corresponds
to the closed environment of the first plane; those who achieve the
second phase of adaptation have a broader outlook and a more
open kind of mentality that corresponds to the open environment
of the second plane.

It is interesting, indeed fascinating, to find parallels between the

first and the second plane of development; in other words, between
the two planes of childhood. Let us take order as an example. The
little child has, as we know, a sensitive period for order and it is
this that gives us the saying: “A place for everything and every-
thing in its place”. An external order of this kind helped the little
child to orientate himself and gave him a sense of inner security
thereby freeing him to explore with confidence and courage. We
do not speak of a sensitive period for order for the older child; but
the older children discover universal laws and a cosmic order. The
little child looks for relationships between things whilst the older
child finds relationships and interrelatedness, interconnectedness
and interdependence of how things function.

As long as order is maintained in the immediate environment,

the little child finds his orientation and can explore that environ-
ment. The older child, on the other hand, has to look for order on a
grander scale and also on a more hidden level, and he needs help
to find his orientation in a world that is so huge and that, so often,
can only be grasped mentally. Cosmic Education provides that
help. When it comes to orientation, above all it is the cosmic fables
or cosmic tales that help the child to find his way in the vast and
grand reality of the whole world.

The little child with his acute senses loves his world, a visible,
audible, tangible world. The world provides him with the most
vivid sensations and he loves his immediate environment whether
it is the natural environment or the human environment. Given the
opportunity and the right conditions, he will love all that nature
offers: sun, land, sea and sky, wind and rain, snow and ice, sunrise

98 The NAMTA Journal • Vol. 41, No. 1 • Winter 2016

and sunset, moon and stars; the world by day and the world by night,
the heat of summer and the cold of winter, the majesty of mountains,
the smooth feel of water, the ever-changing clouds, the greenness
of the living world, the movements and sounds of animals. Given
the opportunity and the right conditions, the little child will love
the world that his human group provides: a warm house, lighted
windows, delicious smells of cooking, the vivid taste sensation of
each kind of food whether cooked or raw, but also poetry, music and
dance and all the special seasonal celebrations with their associated
traditions (special food and drink, special songs, etc.). When the
little child experiences all of this, that love of his world will forever
fuel all those interests in the second plane. Thus we pass from the
feel of a breeze or the wind, be it warm, cool or biting, to thinking
about what causes the wind. Where does it comes from? Where
does it go? What work does it do? It is the love the child feels and
experiences during the first plane that underlies and drives interest
during the second plane. If the world and the life of the first plane
have been lived well, the child feels that love and interest for the
environment that provides such a strong foundation for the child’s
exploration and work during the second plane.

We can also compare what happens with language during the

two planes. As we know, during the years three to six, language
development continues such that the child accumulates a wealth
of words whilst enhancing his understanding through exactness
of meaning. The child will gradually pass from a literal under-
standing to a more metaphorical understanding of language and
this will ultimately lead to the possibility of a sense of humour
and word play with language. I do not have the time to consider
all the important aspects of language during the second plane of
development and will limit myself to mentioning storytelling. The
stories that we tell the second plane children open up new worlds
of reality for their exploration because now language allies itself
with the creative imagination.

Montessori’s approach for the second plane child is called

Cosmic Education and it answers the sensitivities of the second
plane child. These are: the sensitivity for culture, which is always
a quest for knowledge and understanding; the sensitivity for the
imagination, which permits the child to explore and conquer the

Krumins Grazzini • The Hungry Mind 99

new realities that he is interested in, from the vast environment of
the cosmos to the invisible cells of life; and the sensitivity for mo-
rality, which outwardly reveals itself in his social relationships and
interactions, and inwardly reveals itself as the voice of conscience.
Cosmic Education constitutes a guide and orientation for the child
from every point of view and in various ways. With this approach,
we start from the whole because this permits all knowledge to find
its place and interconnections. The child can find intellectual and
emotional satisfaction through the order and clarity that is reached;
every detail, every tiniest fragment of knowledge, can find its place
and can contribute to the understanding of the whole.

With the approach of Cosmic Education the children are also

helped from the moral point of view. The children are helped to
become consciously aware of the value and importance of all the
different forms of work undertaken by all the forces of nature, by
all forms of life, by mankind past and present. The children are
helped to become consciously aware of the value and importance
of collaboration in work. The children are helped to become con-
sciously aware of the value and importance of work undertaken for
the greater good, that is, cosmic work. In this way, the elementary
children can develop what I would call a cosmic morality which
involves respect for, and gratitude to, nature, life, mankind; respect
and gratitude which are most certainly needed at the present time.
(See also Krumins Grazzini.)

Children who develop a cosmic morality will come to feel that

deeper responsibility that Montessori speaks about when she says:

[Man] is conscious of his own intellectual and physical

needs, and of the claims on him of society and civilization.
He believes in fighting for himself, his family and nation,
but has yet to become conscious of his far deeper respon-
sibilities to a cosmic task, his collaboration with others
and work for his environment, for the whole universe. (To
Educate the Human Potential)

But each child also lives each day as part of a community of

children who learn through daily concrete experiences to live and
work together in new relationships of sharing work and ideas. Dr
Montessori points out how association of this kind brings new

100 The NAMTA Journal • Vol. 41, No. 1 • Winter 2016

strength and stimulates new energies; and it helps with the process
of thinking and understanding as well as with action and physical
work. In this way children educate themselves not only intellectu-
ally but also morally and socially. The children of the second plane
build what we can call a “practice” society because the children
bond not only through affection and respect but also through shared
work and shared rules for communal living (for living together).
Obviously this is not an adult society, which is something that the
adolescents want to experience.

I said earlier that with Cosmic Education we present the whole,

and the way we do this is through the cosmic tales, fables, great
stories, call them what you will. These grand stories of truth are just
as fantastic and magical as fairy tales, but being stories of truth they
illuminate reality. How did the universe begin? How did life begin
and evolve? What about human beings? The alphabet? Numbers?
Everything that comes into existence has a story to tell. These stories
appeal to the children, both to the imagination and emotions; they
help children who are so eager to know about the how and the why
of the world in which they live. These stories provide the seeds of
great living truths that grow within and with the children, and that
help them in their mental and moral development.

If the children lived the world of the first plane of development

well and then live the second plane of development well, they will
become learners for life, learners who will never tire of the infinite
things to be discovered in this wonderful cosmos. They will never
be limited to what one person, the teacher, knows; they will never be
imprisoned by curricula or a few textbooks; and the second plane will
give a fundamental and essential contribution to creating an adult
who is fully alive mentally, sensitive and open morally and socially,
responsible in his relationships with the Earth and mankind.

The role of the adult in this second plane is very different to that
of the traditional teacher. In Dr Montessori’s own words:

The secret of good teaching is to regard the child’s intelli-

gence as a fertile field in which seeds may be sown, to grow
under the heat of flaming imagination. Our aim therefore
is not merely to make the child understand, and still less
to force him to memorise, but so to touch his imagina-

Krumins Grazzini • The Hungry Mind 101

 tion as to enthuse him to his inmost core. We do not want
complacent pupils, but eager ones; we seek to sow life in
the child rather than theories, to help him in his growth,
mental and emotional as well as physical, and for that we
must offer grand and lofty ideas to the human mind, which
we find ever ready to receive them … (To Educate the Hu-
man Potential 11)

To be able to do all of this, the teacher has to find the world

fascinating. As Maria Montessori tells us, now it is not enough to
love the child, the teacher must also love the world, the same world
that the elementary child longs to understand. And in connection
with this, the teacher has to become a storyteller of the truth, not
only the truth of the great and grand stories that are the cosmic
tales but also the truth of lesser stories that nonetheless inspire and
plant their own seeds. (For example: the story of the star, the story
of three relationships of lines, the story of the ropestretcher ’s tri-
angle, the story of the noble family of the quadrilaterals, the story
of pi, the story of the multitude, the story of the piece of paper that
sees and speaks, the story of a race, the stories of the symbols, the
story of spoken language, the story of powers, the story of the three
kings, the story of the fraction line, the story of Egyptian numbers
or any other historical number system, the stories of functions for
the parts of plants. And what about all the stories for geography
and history?)

In this way and, of course, in other ways as well, the Montes-

sori teacher of the elementary child gives her own contribution to
helping children in their individual and social development such
that they can become adults who work for the good of humanity
and can participate in humanity’s cosmic mission on this Earth.

B IBLIOGRAPHY

Grazzini, Camillo. “The Four Planes of Development.” AMI

Communications Special Edition (2010): 123-125.

Krumins Grazzini, Baiba. “Work: A Vital Instinct.” AMI

Communications 4 (2005): 23-31.

Montessori, Maria. Creative Development in the Child. 1939.

Vol 1. Chennai, India: Kalakshetra, 2007.

102 The NAMTA Journal • Vol. 41, No. 1 • Winter 2016

---. From Childhood to Adolescence. Appendix C. 1948. Ox-
ford: Clio, 2004.

---. To Educate the Human Potential. 1948. Oxford: Clio,

1989.

Montessori, Mario. “Keys to the World.” AMI Communica-

tions 4 (1998): 6-14.

Krumins Grazzini • The Hungry Mind 103