The importance of the chrysalis for the butterfly

" A man observes a caterpillar in its cocoon.  He sees that it is working hard to break the walls of the envelope that holds it. Seeing the insect making so much effort, the man decides to help it. He takes his knife and opens the chrysalis. The butterfly leaves the cocoon and falls on the ground where it dies. It is the effort it would have had to put into breaking the cocoon in which it was found that would have allowed it to develop the necessary strength to fly away. Without this effort, the insect will never become a butterfly."

This metaphor invites us to think about the effort made by the child to develop : The adult should refrain from helping him, thus leaving him the physical and mental space to allow him to reach his full potential.
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"Any unnecessary help given to a child is a hindrance to development". Maria Montessori

In her book" From childhood to adolescence, 1949, Chapter 1: The successive levels of education", Doctor Maria Montessori makes a connection between the child and the insect :

“Successive levels of education must correspond to the successive personalities of the child.

Our methods are oriented not to any pre-established principles but rather to the inherentcharacteristics of the different ages. It follows that these characteristics themselves include several levels. The changes from one level to the other atthese different ages could be compared to the metamorphoses of insects. Wien an insect comes out of the egg, it is very small and has a particular form andcolouring. Then, little by little, it is transformed even though it remains an animal of the same species having the same needs and habits. It is an individual that evolves. Then one day something new happens. The insect spins his cocoon and becomes a chrysalis. The chrysalis in turn undergoes another slow evolution. Finally the insect comes out of the cocoon in the form of a butterfly. We can establish a parallel between the life of the insect and that of the child. But the changing traits are not so clearly defined in the child as in the insect. It would be more exact to speak rather of “rebirths” of the child.
In effect, we have before us at each new stage a different child who presents characteristics different from those he exhibited during preceding years.[…]

In each period we rediscover a growing being, but one who is a quite different person every time.”