SAGGI

The Intelligent Search: Some Considerations on the Mon-

tessori Method
Rossella Certini

“Within the child is the man he will become”

The Montessori “method” still today arouses much debate. And for the
complexity of the figure of the Italian scientist both for the presence, still large
at the international level, of its schools (Cives, 2001).
The educational contents of the method, such as freedom of inquiry and the
scientific mind of the child have found many supporters among educators and
students of all ages as well as detractors, as Kilpatrick and his supporters (R.
H. Beck, 1920; W. Kilpatrick, 1914).
In her travels in the U.S. A and many other countries, such as India and
the Netherlands, the Italian doctor had exposed her theories on the child’s
ability to self-manage his educational process, and she had focused on the
concept of schools of kids friendly. “An evidence of the correctness of our
educational work is the happiness of the child” and also “Never help a child
while he is performing a task in which he feels he can succeed” (Montesso-
ri, 1909). Montessori pointed primarily on scientific pedagogy, arguing that
this would require a new scientific approach in education. She argued that
“Children work on their own conquering the active discipline, such as the
independence the actual daily life, such as the progressive development of in-
telligence” (Montessori, 1970, p. 346).
Maria Montessori, as a doctor, holds in great esteem the senses, motor
skills of the child, the body united to the mind and, ultimately, intelligence.
She has an idea of education that concerns man in his entirety and complexity,
and this above all thanks to her studies, including positivism, anthropology
and medical science. Due to this, she develops a strong dislike for the verbali-
sm and traditional school systems that limit and condition the natural intel-
ligent search of child. In the method of Maria Montessori there was no space
for any kind of a priori reflection but she believed in the development of a real
observation for each action carried out by children.

Studi sulla formazione, 2-2012, pag. 7-12

ISSN 2036-6981 (online)
© Firenze University Press
 ROSSELLA CERTINI

The idea of ​​“whole man” is bound to be a “citizen of the world”. Her educa-
tional and scientific theories have been consolidated through cultural exchan-
ge, the encounter with other cultures and other ways of life. Through her many
trips she understood the needs of different cultures and especially the suprana-
tional contents of the “method” that she was experiencing and in which much
she believed. A method, that had placed at the center of its theory, the libera-
tion of childhood and had actually shown the means and tools to achieve this.
Within the child is the man he will become, Maria Montessori argued and the
school’s task is to encourage children to grow into responsible adults.
All this is not to forget because it is the basis of lasting success, even today,
of the Montessori educational lesson (Cives, 1994).

The World at Hand

Montessori, as already said, believed in the scientific approach in educa-

tion. One of the most important strategies of work, described in detail from her
earliest works dedicated to the educational method, is scientific observation.
This should not simply look at the child, but all the dynamics that lead him
to make discoveries and are based on his spontaneity. To be able to discover
things, and learn, the child must have a world at hand. An environment more
friendly would certainly facilitated the learning and development of personal
attitudes, and this was the first step towards the emancipation of children.
The environment in the Montessori method plays a fundamental part. First of
all, it must allow free development of the child, allowing him to express itself
freely and to perform spontaneous activities.
There are two important elements that are worth sounding better and have
been valued by many scholars of Montessori: scientific observation and envi-
ronment friendly. The Montessori has his theories on the importance of scien-
tific observation to the two scientists Itard and Séguin, and in their studies she
finds the foundations of his educational thought. Any type of measurement
can reveal the complexity of human beings, therefore, the scientific observa-
tion is “human relationship”. Human beings are transformed through a cali-
brated relationship between material, mental and environmental objects. This
transformation requires study and research.
The object to be observed is complex because each child is characterized by
unique aspects. Montessori states the observation, to be scientific, not on an
artificial context but in a situation as familiar as that of your own home. She
expresses disappointment on traditional school environments which repress
every aspect of the child’s spontaneous. With Montessori emerge the image of
the natural child: he is the expression of creative energy and the future world.
Due to this, the school must change its appearance and get rid of coercive ide-
ologies which have homologated the action of teachers. “Ordinarily, even with
the best of parents and the best of teachers, the notion still seems to linger that
in every child there is a trace of the old Adam which at times must be sternly
repressed, even occasionally by corporal punishment. Dr. Montessori’s method

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 THE INTELLIGENT SEARCH: SOME CONSIDERATION ON THE MONTESSORI METHOD

is the exact antithesis of this. Help the child to manifest the good in itself rather
than presuppose the evil in its nature” (Burrows, 1912, p. 331). The romantic
idea that we had of the child is replaced by a new image of him: he has a rational
mind, he is calm, focused in his work and, if the environment helps him, he is
responsible for every action he takes and all objects with which he works.
This brings us to another important concept: self-education. Giacomo Cives,
in his studies dedicated to the great Italian scholar, looks carefully at this issue
and considers it one of the most current elements of the Montessori method.
The child is the protagonist of the educational process, and he is capable of
the highest constructive engagement and re-elaborating. This is carried out not
only at the sensory level but also moral, spiritual and intellectual. That ‘s why
we can say that Montessori had very complex idea of human nature. Never help
a child while he is performing a task in which he feels he can succeed: these activi-
ties can facilitate the development of scientific attitude in children (Cives, 1994).
The environment and the objects in it play a key role in the scientific de-
velopment of the attitude of the child because the self-education can only be
realized with the encounter with the environment. A messy and confusing
environment creates chaos in the mind of the child, an environment prepa-
red and organized helps to develop sensitivity, to heal the moral and social
aspects of personality, support the intelligence of the child until reaching the
early acquisition of writing, which is a process that requires especially clari-
ty and simplicity. Idea is to create an environment suitable for the freedom
of the child and this requires structured and diversified materials which al-
low children to act freely and freely build their own educational path. Always
subject to the same objects and other people.
The thought of Montessori is very complex and articulated. The idea of
education is linked to that of emancipation, growth, freedom, and, not least,
of democracy. We must always remember that behind her proceed super-
vises a thought that has been formed over time by the exchange between
different sciences and this wealth of values ​​and approaches is crucial to give
substance to his educational ideal, more and more focused on the ability to
self -learning of children.
What role do the adults in this method? “With my method the teacher tea-
ches little, observes a lot, and especially has the function of directing the psy-
chical activities of children and their physiological development. So I changed
the name of a teacher in one of director” (Montessori, 1970, p. 179). Teacher
must be humble in the sense that he must not substitute to the nature of child,
but only remove the barriers that prevent his full and complete unfolding.
The teacher does not teach to the child his truth; he does not try to transfer to
him his knowledge but he directed the child’s activities. Activities that allow
child to develop his spirit so free; to free his immense energies and poten-
tials that society and the traditional school instead compress relentlessly. “The
teacher attitudes toward children’s capabilities did not grow from a philoso-
phical view point imposed on a classroom situation; rather it grew from his
close observation of children over a period of years, in which he discovered

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that even the very youngest among them were capable of forming an embryo-
nic society. Teacher determinate that democracy would be not forced on the
children, any more than it should be taken from them. The only way in which
it should encouraged would be to prepare the environment in such a way that
the democracy would being to evolve naturally” (Lowell Krogh, p. 178). The
figure of the teacher is elevated to the level of scientist who observes and in-
terprets the levels of growth and maturation and which is able to structure the
environment in such a way as to achieve the first step for the construction of a
democratic society (as Dewey had already said).

The Child Bearer of Freedom and Builder of Democracy

In an article of 1964 Martin Mayer strongly criticized the American scho-

ol because it does not helped the children of the poorer classes on their path
of growth and empowerment. Especially the children of the slums that were
usually considered as unintelligent and misfits. “Since the Second World War,
the gap has steadily widened between the educational accomplishments of
middle-class children and of working-class children (particularly of Negro
working-class children). Insensibly, our methods of instruction and our cur-
riculum have come to assume greater and greater contribution by the home of
education of the child; and where these contributions are lacking, the school
are simply ineffective” (Mayer, p. 33). The contributions, he says, are usually
distributed in many more schools of the upper classes and is thus creating a
vicious circle; “because the school is ineffective, it is assumed that the child is
no good, a preposition which is then verified by the class-biased IQ test; and
because the child is no good, his teachers must not try to teach him much, for
fear damaging his mental health, until he finally emerges from the descen-
ding spiral, into the gutter, barely literate and thoroughly incompetent. This
procedures is called democratic, because teachers are always telling the child
about democracy, and supervisors are always telling teachers about democra-
cy, and the supervisors of the supervisors are always telling the public about
democracy” (Id.). These are just pretexts to continue to discriminate against
the poor, leaving them on the margins of society, says the author who wrote
the introduction to the volume of Maria Montessori The Montessori Method
republished many times and in many different versions in the U.S.A. “But
all will agree, with varying enthusiasm, that extensive and intelligent pre-
kindergarten and kindergarten programs would be a help, and in this context
there is no escaping the work of Maria Montessori” (Id.). Montessori was in-
terested not merely in a better system of education but in human regeneration
and this is a process that is only possible if the school system changes. The
scholastic method should serve as an instrument of education for democra-
cy. Between the 20s and the 50s of the last century Montessori offered to the
world a new movement of active education that placed at the center the child
builder of democracy and freedom because the children of Montessori schools
could experience firsthand what it means to behave in a democratic manner

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 THE INTELLIGENT SEARCH: SOME CONSIDERATION ON THE MONTESSORI METHOD

within their spaces. The Montessori child is responsible for his actions and be-
cause of this he experiences what true democracy: it is what to do with others
and for others without losing sight of his individual growth.
The greatness of Montessori method is the earliness with which they develop
certain human feelings and attitudes such as generosity, availability and empathy.
These attitudes are crucial for building democracy and learn to live in it. But the
Montessori school offers children the opportunity to develop them, thanks to
the method it offers: freedom of action, but a responsible choice of actions to be
taken to avoid damaging the things other children, and to achieve a positive end
of the projected. This is not just a practical exercise but it is the result of a free and
critical thinking which grows and asserts itself through experience.
“It is not considered that there are two forces in human life: the one on
the training period of man (the child) and the one on the social activities of
construction (the adult) and that they are so highly integrated that if we do
we can’t neglect the first to reach the other, we do not consider that to get the
rights of the adult we have to go through the child. [..] The first human right, a
fundamental right, it must recognize the right of children to be helped to sur-
pass the obstacles that may hinder, suppress, divert his construction energies,
removing the security, of one day, becoming man, efficient and balanced. [..]
The child has a fundamental role in the human construction. If we recogni-
zed the dignity and rights of the workers, must recognize the dignity of the
worker who produces the man. Based on this assertion of dignity we must en-
sure the child has the right and freedom to grow and develop into full bloom,
because he can, with all his faculties contribute to human progress, and thus
fulfilled the task that nature has entrusted to him” (Montessori, 1952, p. 13).
Montessori recognizes in the child the first manufacturer of democracy
because in him is the future of society and society should offer more facilities
to help him carry out his task. The school should therefore cultivate the cre-
ative energies of child raising his spirit above the brutal human disputes. The
scientific pedagogy can help build the most suitable routes to achieving this
goal and Montessori worked all her life so that her theories would become
instruments of human emancipation.

Educating for Democracy: Final Considerations

The theme of education for democracy lends itself to many different tre-
atments according to the point of view used or spectrum of phenomena un-
der consideration. The concept of education can refer to learning activities
or educational training activities extended in time and space, or to specific
training techniques and to more general processes of socialization. The con-
cept of democracy can relate to the life of the institutions, the many forms of
civic engagement, to the sharing of knowledge and the complexity of human
relationships. According to some, democracy itself can be defined as a place of
learning and from this point of view, democracy acquires a general meaning:
to educate for democracy is democracy itself.

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Through civic and cultural activism, the school could become the place to
experience the democratic attitude. Montessori thought of a specific action
for the construction of shared democratic ideals, to promote a common un-
derstanding and to change the conditions of marginalization of the weakest.
Have the kids to do these things and that is why that Montessori called them
democracy builders. Children want to know the reality “live”, without media-
tion. Children want to be protagonists of their life and this is a natural instinct
that they possess. For Montessori is important to invest energy to train this
democratic instinct for the creation of a new humanity and complete men and
this is the primary task of the school. The project Montessori was an innova-
tive project, a project which supported good educational practices. Children
have never been passive in this educational dimension but “main actors” and
it was perhaps the newest element, which gave democracy a form entirely new.
Is this method still actual today? I think it would be wrong to underestimate
the contribution that it could be yet to come.

Bibliography

R. Beck., Kilpatrick’s Critique of Montessori’s Method and Theory, Studies in

Philosophy of Education.
M. Bloom, Primary Prevention and Early Childhood Education: An Historical
Note, The Journal of Primary Prevention, Vol. 24, No. 3, Spring 2004.
H., Burrows, Spontaneous Education: The Montessori Method, Contemporary
Review, 102, July/Dec., 1912.
G. Cives, . Cives, La pedagogia scomoda. Da Pasquale Villari a Maria Montes-
sori, Firenze, La Nuova Italia, 1994.
G. Cives, MariaMontessori. Pedagogista complessa, Pisa, ETS, 2001.
J. Cossentino, Ritualizing Expertise: A Non-Montessorian View of the Montes-
sori Method, American Journal of Education, vol. 111, n° 2, february, 2005,
pp. 211-244.
W. Kilpatrick, What America Thinks of Montessori’s Educational Crusade,
Current Opinion, 56, February, 1914, 127-129.
S. Lowell Krogh, Preschool Democracy – Ideas from Montessori, Social Studies,
n° 75, July/Aug., 1984, pp. 178-181.
M. Martin, Schools, slums, and Montessory, 37, 6 (1964), pp. 33-39.
M. Montessori, Il Metodo della Pedagogia Scientifica applicato all’educazione
infantile nelle Case dei Bambini, Città di Castello, Casa Editrice S. Lapi,
1909, second expanded edition, Loescher & C., Roma 1913.
M. Montessori, Il cittadino dimenticato, in “Vita dell’infanzia”, 1, 1952.
M. Montessori, Il bambino in famiglia, Milano, Garzanti, 1970 (I ed. 1936).

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