One of the great parenting debates of the Montessori community has to do with imagination, fantasy, and imaginative play. Montessori often gets a bad rap among parents as being “anti-imagination,” when that couldn’t be further from the truth. Here’s a quote from The Absorbent Mind:
“We often forget that imagination is a force for the discovery of truth. The mind is not a passive thing, but a devouring flame, never in repose, always in action.”(p.177)
Maria Montessori didn’t look down on imagination, she saw it as being right at the heart of her work. But let me break down a bit some of the distinctions that she makes.
So, what is the Montessori stance on Imagination and Fantasy?
Here’s the thing, my friends. To really understand where Montessori stood on imagination, fantasy, and play, you have to start by talking about the way she used the terms in her lectures and writings.
Montessori considered imagination to be the power to form a mental image of something you’ve never encountered in reality. She utilized it SO OFTEN in her Casa. The geography area is actually a super great example of this: children may not have seen a lake or an island before at 3. HOWEVER, Montessori made land and water forms and used them to provide the child with enough information to really conjure up an image of what Lake and Island were. The geography folders are the same: a child cannot go and see the people, food, homes, culture in every country in the world up close and personal. But Montessori knew we could offer them key information and then let their mind build the world around them. She said:
“He has a type of mind that goes beyond the concrete. He has the great power of imagination.
The picturing, or conjuring up, of things not physically present depends on a special mental ability of high order. If man’s mind were limited to what he actually saw, his outlook would be dreary indeed. We do not see only with our eyes, and culture is not made up of what we see alone. Take our knowledge of the world, for example, if, within sight, there are no lakes and no snow, we can nevertheless bring them into our ‘mind’s eye.’ Only the possession of a certain kind of mental activity enables us to do this.” p. 176, The Absorbent Mind
She believed firmly in providing a realistic foundation for children to use to build their own world.
When she spoke about fantasy, what she was talking about was adult invented worlds, with adult dictated boundaries, and adult-led play. She believed firmly that they stifled the child’s ability to use their mind to imagine because they were adult imposed. Frankly, more often, when she used the word fantasy, she was talking about children who disappeared into these adult led worlds to avoid engagement with the real world because of trauma–but that is a different conversation entirely. For the purposes of this conversation, you should just know: Imagination and Fantasy are not synonyms. Here’s a quote I love about imagination and “fantasy” (of the gnome/wizard/fairy variety):
“The child is usually considered as a receptive being instead of as an active being, and this happens in every department of his life. Even imagination is so treated; fairy tales and stories of enchanted princesses are told with a view to encouraging the child’s imagination. But when he listens to these and other kinds of story, he is only receiving impressions. He is not developing his own powers to imagine constructively. That creative imagination which has so high a place among man’s mental powers, is not at work in him……
Meanwhile, the principle of educating by example causes the teacher–apart from her story telling–to offer herself as the model to be copied, so that imagination and will both remain idle, and the children are reduced to watching what the teacher does and listening to her words.” p. 254-255
But Kari, I heard Montessori doesn’t encourage imaginative play!? What’s the deal with that?
This is so wrong! Montessori was not into adult-led imaginative and fantasy play. So: if your child is sitting on the floor and has turned the remote control into a school bus that is driving around picking up students on their way to school, you let that child be! I would never stop a child from their own world building. Montessori WOULD take issue with you getting on the floor and showing the child how to play. Sometimes as adults we get caught up in the way we loved to play as a child, and we try to share that with our children; and the thing is, when we do that, when we lead them instead of letting them lead us, we are asking them to copy OUR imagination…not to build their own world. We aren’t giving them a framework. We are taking the brush and painting the scene, allowing them to hang it on the wall and then pretending that it is their art.
I know you want to scoff when I say that fantasy worlds are limiting but it is true! I think of it as disobeying the dramatic improvisational rule “Yes, and…”. When a child imagines a world on their own, they can agree to the current situation they’ve built and expand. It always obeys the “Yes, and” rule. “It’s a village that I built with legos AND it has lots of different vehicles that drive through it AND the garbage truck runs every day!” When a child is working in the framework of an adult’s pre-laid fantasy, there isn’t a lot of room to push the boundaries. This is a fairy and fairies are magical and they play in the woods. You play with them that way because that is how it has already been dictated. The world is created. The legos can be a village OR a forest. The fairy is always a fairy. ‘
As a guide I saw it in action all the time. As an example: if you watch children play on the Primary playground, you may see two different types of “imaginary” games. One may be focused on a story or movie children love. The other is usually based on some sort of relationship: family OR animals OR teammates OR careers. The movie based game comes with preset parameters: there are certain characters. They have to behave certain ways. If you are pretending to play “Beauty and the Beast,” only one person can be the princess, right? And in order for the game to work, SOMEONE has to be the bad guy. There is already a right or wrong way to play, and there is only so much space.”I want to be the magical princess!” “no, because Acacia is already the princess.”
The alternative, the child-invented, child-led play, allows the children to invent their own script. “Let’s play family!” “Yes, AND we can pretend we are all going to the grocery store!” “Yes, AND we can be buying ingredients to take a picnic!”
There will be disagreements sometimes; and the way children play changes massively as they transition into the second plane—but one of these two types of play is more inclusive, more harmonious, and more imaginative. One allows children to tell their own story instead of regurgitating someone else’s.
Here’s a place for me to plug open-ended toys, too. The child can imagine a wooden block is a hammer or a boat, a person or a tower or an animal, a dish or a milk jug or a shoe. A toy apple can mostly only be a toy apple. When we give the child pretend food, we dictate their play. MM would advocate for real experiences and child-led play; show them how to slice REAL apples and let them incorporate that into their imagination however they find a way.
Does this mean I can NEVER read my kid “The Hobbit?” Because that’s a dealbreaker.
If you look at the themes of much of High Fantasy (like The Hobbit and Harry Potter) I think you’ll find the content more appropriate for elementary age children. This works out well, because the Elementary child, with lots of experience and a firm foundation in the real world, is interested and able to detect truth from fiction. When I suggest waiting to share Star Wars with your child, I am not suggesting you wait forever—merely saying that you should teach them about the world and space first, and let them come to it in their own time. My husband and I are both huge nerds and anxiously await the day our children are ready for this. In the meantime, we lay the foundation, provide fuel for that devouring flame, and encourage their imagination to flourish. It’ll be here before we know it.
Want to read more about imagination, fantasy, and the Montessori method? Here are a few of my favorite blog articles on the topic:
The Montessori Notebook: Montessori and Pretend Play
The Kavanaugh Report: Imagination and Montessori
Montessori Miscellany 
Great article!:) Hope it spreads a lot so people stop having so many negative prejudice about Montessori 🙂
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