As a child, I probably didn't grow up in a Montessori pedagogy as we understand it today: with all the material proposed and the idea that pedagogy should be like she said it should be. However, my teachers at the time were open to the values conveyed by this doctor, namely that "The child is not a vase that is filled but a spring that is let out"^[1]. The time of the "maison d'asile" was already long gone, fortunately, Pauline Kergomard^[2] had been there. The pupils of nursery school already had the right to learn. But my teachers had these values of freedom for them as well.

So they let me, and my other classmates as well, discover the world and learn at our own pace. So they never had a problem with me experimenting and learning faster than the school program decided. Until the school program became a limit, I had to "skip a class". It's quite common, in the end, to move the most intellectually precocious pupils to a higher grade to quench their thirst for learning.

Unfortunately, such pedagogy knows its limits. And the first one raises the question of what learning is. Should it be only intellectual? What about social learning and emotional learning? And how do we evaluate them?

So yes, I was one of those pupils who, intellectually, were more than nourished by their own curiosity, but I missed other learning that is not thought of by Montessori pedagogy. Probably the reason why I found the didactic pedagogy that was later proposed to me comfortable, because I didn't have to commit myself to it personally, only my intellect.

It is, in fact, once again a question of balance. For Montessori, "discipline must come through liberty"^[3], but discipline also creates an emotional security that helps other forms of development.