In the Montessori classroom children and adolescents develop within an evolving framework of freedom and limits (0 to 3), freedom and self-discipline (3 to 6), freedom and responsibility (6 to 12) and freedom and contribution (12 to 18). They are free to choose their own work according to their inner needs, rhythm, and tempo; the result observed was self-discipline, deep and prolonged concentration, the repletion of exercises for their own sake, and urge to make a maximum effort, control of movement, a sense of order, and other phenomena. This discipline was not coerced but appeared spontaneously from freedom to work in a prepared environment that met the child’s inner needs. (Montessori, Mario Jr,)

“It was the arrival of discipline which sprang up spontaneously… discipline in freedom seemed to solve a problem, which hitherto seemed insoluble. The answer lay in obtaining discipline by giving freedom. This change to discipline … follows invariably upon a spell of deep concentration on some activity” (Montessori, Maria, The Absorbent Mind p. 182) “We do not believe that one is disciplined only when he is artificially made as silent as a mute and as motionless as a paralytic. Such a one is not disciplined but annihilated. We claim that an individual is disciplined when he is the master of himself, and when he can, as a consequence, control himself when he must follow a rule of life. Such a concept of active discipline is not easy to understand or to attain. But it certainly embodies a lofty principle of education that is quite different from the absolute and undiscussed coercion that produces immobility.” (Montessori, Maria, The Discovery of the Child, p.50)