Creativity today is not just about art, originality, inventiveness—if we look deeper into the Montessori literature it is about the formation of the entire developmental continuum and the whole child.

This article is a result of a review of the literature around a changing Montessori perspective due to the recent revelations of the powers of the adolescent and the creative leap into social ideals of the amazing human being entering adulthood.

Clara Tornar introduces the key writings of Maria Montessori, citing the famous line, ‘human consciousness comes into the world as a flaming ball of imagination’. She defines what Montessori meant by this term: distinguishing imagination from fantasy, which does not attach to any reality, while emphasizing that reality is essential to the grounding of imagination.

An unpublished 1939 lecture by Maria Montessori puts imagination right at the core of the human great work on the planet.

In Montessori’s book To Educate the Human Potential, imagination provides the
underpinnings of Montessori cosmic education—a metaphysical, moral, and philosophic view of existence and the human ability to mobilize destiny for the well-being of the universe, humankind, and the self: ‘Everything invented by man, physical or mental, is the fruit of someone’s imagination.’ This article is the definitive framer of the role of imagination for the six-year-old.

Carla Foster shows how the imagination facilitates
evolutionary humour, which enriches language, and how linguistic humour introduces cognitive fluency—another
characteristic of imagination, referring to the movement of the mind in all directions through space and time.

Ryan Katz speaks of dance as movement arising out of imagination—sometimes natural, interpretive, behavioural, or even spiritual. Katz shows the connection of imagination to the art of storytelling, as an expression of culture, responding to audiences, and a means of imparting oneself through literacy to the next generation. Again, storytelling attaches knowledge to personal experience, brings the listener to the spiritual dimensions of history, and gives an
anthropomorphic understanding of the natural world. Imagination works! It unifies life.

The stunning arousal of imagination and the sterling creativity of imagination is the enthusiastic message presented in Phyllis Pottish-Lewis’ comprehensive orientation to the “phenomenon” of creativity—an act of creation in which an original thought is born, which is the same across the disciplines.

Arriving at the threshold of adolescence—in the state of becoming adult—Laurie Ewert-Krocker puts into personal terms what it means to express aspects of personality that answer a need for self-expression at this age. Montessori introduces this need by observing adolescents’ thinking about themselves. In the case of adolescents growing up Montessori, they are aware of the need to express oneself as part of the human condition.

Storytelling is a powerful and creative backdrop for all Montessori disciplines. Carla Foster inspires elementary teachers by contrasting factual storytelling with impressionistic stories that inspire the child ‘with a burning desire to know more’.

Federico Gobbo reports on a project carried out at the Scuola Montessori Milano by nineyear-
old pupils as they grew interested in languages and linguistics, particularly in how languages function and behave in particular.

In these pages you will read of the great importance that Maria Montessori and her collaborators in the area of music ascribed to the cultivation of the musical sense from the very earliest years. Dr Montessori saw musical education and musical self-expression as the birthright of all. Music is as essential for a cultivated humanity as numbers, geometry, and cosmology, the other components of the classical quadrivium.

The cultivation of a musical environment from birth, indeed from before birth, is a first necessity. Montessori understood that the child listens through movement, so to speak. Thus, with the aid of collaborators such as Elise Braun Barnett, the ‘daily concerts for listening-moving’ were developed experimentally over several decades.

This article follows Viennese teacher Lisl Braun and Trude Hammerschlag's contribution to the development of Montessori music pedagogy.

This article describes how important music is to us at every time in our life, from birth to death.

Rita Schaefer Zener studies the passage through the Montessori materials with their increase in difficulty, complexity, and challenge as children develop skills. The reduction of difficulties (deviations) in development as a result of repeated concentration “normalizing” events arises from freely chosen work resulting in creative self-discipline at its best.

Trude Hammerschlag provides many examples of children’s self-expression including art.

Mario Montessori ponders the profound sketches of children under six, their uncanny likeness to impressionist and cubist art, recognizing that freehand expression goes to the emotional essences of children’s understanding of reality.

Sofia Cavalletti viewed children’s drawings as a window into the core of their beings and therefore recognized that they represent much more than literal understanding.

Another spontaneous form of expression is interpretive drama, where the child shows his self-expression through acting out meaning, history, readings, and human emotions as argued by Shyama Jain, who published in Around the Child, a journal of the Indian Montessorians, in 1969.

The writing of Dorothy Heathcote, a creative drama teacher, comes very close to Montessori’s ideas about interpretive reading.

Montessori designed the colour tablets, not with paint and varnish, but with silk thread wound on a tablet with handles on each end. Yet in her essay on colour she describes in detail the scientific rationale for and method of presenting all three colour boxes.

Annette Haines provides a historical and cross-cultural survey of research showing that people representing twenty different languages share the same perceptions about the basic colours that we find in Montessori’s colour boxes.

Also coming from Dr. Scoppola inspired by Leonardo da Vinci’s drawings in the Codex Atlanticus, Daniele Pasquazi article describes a learning activity for lower secondary school students.

Benedetto Scoppola demonstrates interdisciplinary skills can enrich easily and document that
“Maria Montessori really knew” the recent discoveries of neuroscience.”

Bruner assumes a reconciliatory position between structure and creativity, suggesting that ordered sequences can lead to discovery

Csikszentmihaly observed intense engagement (flow) in artists, leading to their creative success and argues that flow is a basic ingredient of the artistic personality. Flow is kindred to the process of “normalization” which Montessori cites as ‘the most important single result of our whole work’.

Lillard explores Montessori on its own terms using a variety of research to define creativity qualitatively and quantitatively.

The authors project hopes to demonstrate the high Impact of Montessori on academic, economic, and social outcomes and how various educational interventions promote the growth of creativity.

Kevin Rathunde maintains that the success of those creating “optimal” learning environments is more likely when adults working with children understand flow as a result of experiencing it in their own lives. This perspective is consistent with Montessori’s views on normalization and deep concentration of the child.

When paying tribute to the memory and legacy of Renilde Montessori, the youngest grandchild of Maria Montessori who died recently, the most fitting way to honour her is to celebrate her vision of Educateurs sans Frontières. This most inspired of Renilde’s initiatives gave new meaning to Montessori’s vision bringing us back to the ideals of San Lorenzo. Renilde stressed the importance of placing that inheritance in a contemporary context. She saw the Educateurs as educators without boundaries, ‘able and willing to go where their presence is required. Never to intrude, not to indoctrinate, but to help and encourage others to learn, to rediscover the wise and ancient plan for wholesome growth with which all humans are endowed.’

In light of the fact that Maria Montessori had just had her two major books on the Psico approach published (Psicogeometria and Psicoaritmetica) and also completed her manuscript on a psychological approach to language (Psicogrammatica), this particular lecture on language is a powerful testimony to the psychological workings and how interest in language is sparked and developed. Montessori includes samples from very young children (1-2 years) to children of six to seven years, who traditionally were viewed as being “ready” to engage with language at an abstract level, via reading and writing. Again, in this lecture Montessori shows that it is the interest in letters, and hence writing, that precedes reading.

Paola Trabalzini gives an enlightening introduction to Maria Montessori’s Literary Experiment to introduce the poetry of Dante to children, initially to adolescents of 12-14, but later also 10-year olds embraced the study of Inferno [Hell]. Ms Trabalzini demonstrates that this lecture elucidates how the understanding of Dante's work follows a free and natural course, in which the children put forward proposals for new activities to answer their need to know; proposals which originate from the inner learning process experienced by the children with energy and enthusiasm. The essence is, as in all aspects of Montessori education, that this perfectly proves the case for auto-education.

Maria Montessori describes to her students on this London course how she worked with young adolescents and 10-year-olds on a poem of Italy’s greatest poet Dante. The children became fascinated with the Divine Comedy in which the poet relates of his journey through the regions of the dead—Inferno, Purgatory and Paradise. Such high and intricate literature is usually considered as far beyond young children. This poem of Dante is full of philosophy, full of references to historical events, but what the children felt was an utter communion with the spirit of the poem and the poet.

Mario Federici was a well-known Italian critic and playwright, and married to Maria Agamben—a graduate in literature, teacher and journalist. During the fascist years, the couple went abroad where Maria Agamben continued to teach at Italian cultural institutes which included Montessori schools. It was that circumstance that allowed them to see from up close the exciting initiative in Barcelona: when they saw children embrace Dante in their own manner. As Trabalzini reports in her article, Agamben wrote several articles on this phenomenon. In this instance, Federici writes with absolute delight on what he and his wife had witnessed, seeing the children perform Dante, which also gave him reason to voice his utter disapproval of the old-fashioned ways of the theatre.

Mr Quade, AMI trainer at the primary level, gives a very concise and enlightening overview of how Executive Functions relate and respond to the Montessori prepared environment. He takes in all aspects and of fers insightful observations on the recognition of sensitive periods—for order, movement, language, sensory refinement, sensitivity for small objects, and social behaviour. All these enable Montessori teachers to provide opportunities for learning at the optimal moment of receptivity.

Ms Awes, AMI trainer at the elementary level, carefully explains how children inherit the potential for language and how its acquisition is virtually guaranteed. All typical children, regardless of culture, will at a given moment come to speak their native language. Montessori found that the absorbent mind, sensitive periods, and human tendencies assist in this acquisition. In contrast, written language does not come naturally to human beings. Children will not develop writing and reading without some degree of direct experience, preparation, and instruction—and this is where obstacles experienced may manifest themselves as dyslexia.

In conclusion, Hope Leyson brings together many of the aspects that were described and highlighted in the articles selected for this particular issue of our Journal. Language, pertinent theories, and new discoveries into how the language areas in the brain function will continue to evolve. Language development provides an ine xhaustible and joy ful source of observation and learning. And in our Montessori environments language is vibrant, innovative and it encourages creativity. Ms Leyson revels in the miracle of all that human language is, signifies and brings to our world. She of fers the reader a very well-researched overview of a host of aspects connected with the phenomenon and study of human language.

This letter appears to be the first document on adolescent education that has survived; it shows the origins of Montessori’s ideas on this area.

A report by Countess Lubienska on the preparations and curriculum of the XX International Montessori Course, Nice, 1934. We have chosen this document to substitute for a missing original text on this theme by Montessori herself.

This lecture delivered at the Institute of Medical Psychology, London, 10 November 1936 calls for a plan of education which ‘strikes at the very roots of the nobler human feelings’, warning of the deviations or ‘complexes’ that function as masks of the human personality. The sciences of psychology and education must be applied so that education may be based on the human personality.

Dated around the mid 1930s, and edited by Greg J. MacDonald, this document quietly describes ‘social orientation’ in terms of the great sense of calling adolescents experience.

In the 34th lecture given at the 23rd International Course Amsterdam, 1938, Montessori uses the term ‘psychic confusion’ to describe the unrest of adolescence, and suggests the adolescent’s courage as the means for finding the right path. As in the previous article, Montessori mentions sub-planes or stages of adolescent development.

In this 37th lecture of the 23rd International Course Amsterdam 1938, Montessori seeks to educate the emergent personality, the personality that finds its roots in nature’s norms evolving in an optimally prepared environment. When unobstructed, adolescent flow finds normality joyful and freeing; the resulting power and focus in life’s pursuits brings a high degree of self-realization at the end of adolescence, as contrasted with melancholy and death wish.

This address was delivered to the Educational Committee of the Association of Head Mistresses on May 12, 1939 by Miss Phoebe Child on behalf of Dr Maria Montessori. Clearly written to be easily read aloud, to a small and knowledgeable audience, the speech centres on the functional independence of a farmstead, emphasizing the occupations leading to economic independence.

Against the backdrop of a cosmic vision inspired by the beauty of the Kodaikanal lakes and mountains, and in the context of a period spent intensely studying the elementary years, Dr Montessori discusses rapid adolescent physical and psychical change, including new emotions and inner agitation, as the young adult seeks something more than study.

As a member of the founding team of the Hershey Montessori Farm School in Huntsburg, OH, Mr Barker is heavily interested in the origins of Erdkinder and presents us with a well-researched article. The background into the history of reform pedagogy’s concepts for the secondary school around the 1900s inspired by the Landerziehungsheime is thorough, clear, and enlightening.

Professor Tornar provides a framework in which we can clearly see how Montessori’s ideas on adolescence developed, and how they progress naturally from her thoughts on early childhood.

This article describes the synthesis of some of the work that has been the natural outcome of the collaboration of Montessorians working and communicating through conferences, journals, shared programme development, and particularly through the summer work of the Orientation to Adolescent Studies.

Ms Salassa presents an account of data in order to reconstruct some significant experiences carried out in Italy in the late 1950s up to today, giving a brief outline from both a historical and a didactic-pedagogical point of view.

In his speech delivered in 1970 in Paris at the Montessori Congress held in occasion of UNESCO’s centenary celebration of Dr Montessori’s birth, Herman J. Jordan describes the early stages in the establishment of a new Montessori lyceum, its development and the principles guiding the work of the founders.

The Montessori Lyceum of Amsterdam (MLA) is the oldest Montessori secondary school in the world. Although Maria Montessori had obviously started thinking about adolescent education long before its establishment in 1930, no other organization, or association of parents, had taken concrete steps towards the realization of an adolescent environment along Montessori principles. This account offers some interesting historical insights in how the Dutch communicated with Dr Montessori on the establishment of such a school.

‘The first duty of the educator, whether he is working with the newborn infant or an older child, is to recognize the human personality of the young being and respect it’. This quotation by Maria Montessori is leading in Ms Hoglund’s expose on the significance of valorization, and what elements are the most important contributory factors.

Based on a talk delivered at the AMI International Study Conference "The Child, the Family, the Future", July 19-24, 1994, Washington, DC.

Based on a talk delivered at the AMI International Study Conference "The Child, the Family, the Future", July 19-24, 1994, Washington, DC.

A talk given at the 19th International Montessori Congress, "Help the Child to Shape Man's Future", Amsterdam, 1979.

A lecture delivered at the 24th International Montessori Congress, "Education as an Aid to Life", Paris, 2001.

This article is based on a paper delivered at the AMI International Study Conference "The Child, The Family, The Future", July 19-24, 1994, Washington, DC.

This article illustrates the sixth Cosmic Fable discussed in "Cosmic Education at the Elementary Level and the Role of the Materials".

A paper presented at the 18th International Montessori Congress, "The Montessori Method and the Handicapped Child", Munich, July, 1977.

Presented at the First Montessori Adolescent Colloquium, Cleveland, OH, 1996, and at the AMI/USA National Conference "Grace and Courtesy: A Human Responsibility," Oak Brook, IL, 1998

Montessori argues here that movements considered solely from the point of view of a physiological fact do not really exist in life; all our movements have a purpose. The characteristics of the child, when he is left free to his own spontaneity, show that he is led by an inner force, which is an intellectual force, to perform various actions.

Prof. Diamond is a neuropsychologist and this lecture was delivered as the keynote address following AMI's Annual General Meeting on April 10, 2010, Amsterdam. Her presentation focused on early development of the cognitive control functions - collectively called Executive Functions - dependent on prefrontal cortex. She touched upon many aspects that are controlled from prefrontal cortex, such as planning and problem solving, self-control, creativity, inhibiting impulsive actions, etc. She also discusses at length The Tools of the Mind Programme which she has assessed.

Joen Bettmann's depiction of Practical Life exercises as character-building reveals how caring, careful, and independent work leads to higher self-esteem, more concern for others, better understanding for academic learning, and a self-nurturing, respectful classroom community.

Montessori saw two major processes that appear opposites in children's development. The process of normalization was considered the 'most important single result of our whole work'. It occurs when love of work, concentration, self-discipline, and sociability all appear. The other process, deviations in development, results from obstacles in the developmental process and occurs frequently in normal children. Dr Zener interviewed 165 Montessori teachers and tabulated in how far and what way the interviewees followed Montessori's recommendations on how best to approach and deal with deviations. Her statistics extrapolating theoretical questions with the current practice have been combined in a refreshing and illuminating article.

One of the questions AMI asked itself a few years ago was 'how can we reach scientists, researchers and universities throughout the world to establish Montessori scientific pedagogy as an integral of education departments? How can we be heard louder in the field of education?' The start of the answer has come with the establishment of the AMI Global Research Committee. Here Steve Hughes explains the committee's spheres of activity.

The young child who arrives at the conscious phase of the Absorbent Mind is primed to be an active participant in exploring the physical world. He has already created the foundations for functional human existence, and he can move and thus explore his world. He can already speak. We see his skills grow, which help him reach ever greater independence.

Free choice of activity is a cornerstone of a Montessori environment. From the very first days, the child experiences choice - in greeting, activity, conversation, companionship. Her choices and decisions contribute to her formation as a human being in the Montessori environment and lay the foundation for self-discovery and formation.

- Now Available: Three Volumes of Maria Montessori's Collected Works in German
- Montessori Digital Library Now Online
- Psychogeometry in English out in 2011

In the early months of 1939, Maria Montessori spent most of her time in the Netherlands. She had commissioned the manufacture of especially designed child-size furniture, and an Amsterdam store hosted the exhibition of this special furniture for a number of weeks. To help explain the philosophy behind the furniture Maria Montessori gave a talk at the store. Dr Montessori made a strong plea for family and school to truly and effectively collaborate, ensuring that both environments are complementary.

In the early months of 1939, Maria Montessori spent most of her time in the Netherlands. She had commissioned the manufacture of especially designed child-size furniture, and an Amsterdam store hosted the exhibition of this special furniture for a number of weeks. To help explain the philosophy behind the furniture Maria Montessori gave a talk at the store. Dr Montessori made a strong plea for family and school to truly and effectively collaborate, ensuring that both environments are complementary.

This lecture was given at the 26th International Montessori Congress, held at Chennai, India, in January 2009 where Sadhana—Reflective Practice, Spontaneous Living—was the overall theme. Judi carefully guided the audience step by step through the stages of early child development, to conclude that Sadhana is part of our lives from birth; it is our conquest of independence, our joy of life.

In 2006 and 2008, as a guest of the Bhutanese government and friends, Susan Mayclin Stephenson began to research Bhutanese family life and culture in preparation for Montessori education in Bhutan. This article highlights some of the similarities and differences between traditional practices in Bhutan and the Montessori Assistants to Infancy (A to I), birth to three.

In this Cosmic Lecture, Montessori continues her previous lecture on supra-nature, and how that connects to human growth. In a way this lecture also reverberates the specific theme of this issue, when Montessori writes that in the first year of the child's life he has already seen everything, and has started to order all sorts of things in his mind, through an inner, directed effort. This is not happening haphazardly. Montessori points out that 'in the second year of his life the child is observing the tiniest possible things; almost invisible things are seen by him. Just as if he had already seen enough of the larger things of life, and they no longer held any interest for him.'

The author argues convincingly that to help comprehend our world, our minds benefit also from a visual, perceptual language, such as the pictorial arts. The verbal and the visual, working together, can enhance the way we interpret and appreciate our world. Therefore, both are deserving of our keen attention; if not, we allow a deficit or an imbalance between the two realms. And whether a Pablo Picasso in the making, or not at all, we all benefit from sharpening our observation skills, so necessary in practising and appreciating art, and our knowledge of the world.

Steven Hughes shares his dismay that for most children, education still looks more or less the way it did around the beginning of the 1900s. Technology has fostered false hope; but this is not the key to solving the problems of education. Traditional education is content- centred, involving direct instruction from the teacher—an authority figure. Dr Hughes shares his enthusiasm for the Montessori's accurate observations on human learning, and argues that possibly for the first time the wider world is ready for Montessori.

Ms Vaz, AMI trainer and member of the AMI Special Needs ad hoc committee, talks about the challenges and opportunities of receiving children with special needs, whatever they be into the Montessori classroom. She recognizes that there are many special programmes with fancy names that are put together to help special children. Ms Vaz argues that it is, however, the Montessori school by definition which is best equipped to assist special needs children in their development.

Dr Montanaro expounds on the possible averse effects of giving children pacifiers. She makes a strong plea for withholding pacifiers from the child, as they are impediments "in disguise", hindering a healthy development, also of language.

Paola Trabalzini is Professor of Aspects of Education at Rome's La Sapienza University, and a wellrespected scholar on placing Montessori's writings in a historical and sociological context. Ms Trabalzini has written this article especially to mark the hundredth anniversary of Montessori's first account of the history and development of her ideas on education. The Montessori Method, as this title became known, was the book that would accompany Montessori throughout her life. In forty years five different editions were published, and Montessori revised, edited, deleted and added to each and every one edition. Trabalzini provides many interesting details to help explain the underlying motives.

The first volume in the academic series is to be launched in the Spring of 2010. For over ten years, the teaching and research centre for Montessori Pedagogy of the University of Muenster has been working on this academic edition of Maria Montessori's collected works in German under the guidance of Prof. Dr Harald Ludwig in cooperation with the publishing house Herder and the Association Montessori Internationale (AMI). In twenty-three volumes, the German reader will have access to virtually the whole of Montessori's published work, as well as portions of her extensive previously unpublished writings.

Language is the vehicle that communicates most of the knowledge that a human being acquires about human life in its many aspects. Each one of us creates our own language (or languages) from our environment in order to be able to communicate. It is not merely the use of our vocal organs that is so instrumental in getting messages across. In fact, non-verbal communication in the human world is often seen as more communicative than mere words. Our body language and our tone of voice add meaning to reveal what we have to say. Even animals have a level of language to get messages across. It could be signalling vocally, or signalling with tails, wings or feet.

One of Maria Montessori’s main themes, a conception that profoundly characterizes her thinking is the Absorbent Mind, a mind that can absorb knowledge without effort. It is a mind that reaches out to incorporate and assimilate the environment. It is a mind that particularly is manifest and active during the first six years of life.

One of the aspects most associated with the Absorbent Mind is the development of language. However, when Montessori talks of language and language development, she usually talks about how language is acquired, how language development takes place, how it is fostered and stimulated. Language is both a route to stimulate a thirst for knowledge and the very tool that can and will quench it. It opens up the world.

The acquisition of language by the human child comes naturally and without fail. Yet if we look upon the learning of a language as adults, we consider the child’s language acquisition as a truly heroic achievement.

In Mario Montessori’s words the Absorbent Mind displays ‘the unique mental powers of the young child which enable him to construct and firmly establish within a few years only, without teachers, without any of the usual aids of education, nay, almost abandoned and often obstructed, all the characteristics of the human personality.’ (…) ‘[Education as an aid to Life] transcends the narrow limits of teaching and direct transmission of knowledge or ideals from one mind to another. It is all taken from the environment.’ (Introduction to the Absorbent Mind)

We think our readership, particularly parents, will be delighted with a Maria Montessori lecture from the Montessori Archives on the Absorbent Mind and Language. It was given half way through the course in Poona, India, which ran from November 8, 1948 to January 17, 1949. It offers many central ideas of her theory.

Everyone will like Mario Montessori’s article on “The Absorbent Mind.” It gives some of the history of how Montessori developed the notion of the Absorbent Mind, stressing the importance of the environment in language acquisition. He also argues that the Absorbent Mind does not disappear with childhood, ‘[I]t is not possible that consciousness, though limiting its powers and changing its forms, can become completely detached from the creative source welling out of the unconscious.’

Teachers will find validation for what they do when they read Susan Feez in her article “Learning to Read through Grammar.” She promotes the Montessori approach to language, since it is so beautifully connected to real language use, something which traditional education in English speaking countries is often unable to offer. She elucidates how the dynamic grammar symbols and language aids are unique and how they stimulate language development. Feez also explains how Montessori came to understand the Absorbent Mind during her thorough study of the works of Itard and Séguin.

Maria Montessori is back on one of her favourite subjects with the Cosmic Education lecture, the fifth in the series of six we are bringing from the archives. This series is quite unique in that Montessori devoted no less than six lectures in a row to the subject, which gives us a fascinating insight into how she built up the momentum with her students, and draws them into the subject. This lecture’s focus is on supra natura, a notion close to Montessori’s heart. Elementary teachers especially are enjoying this series.

The title “Montessori and the Uncited Influence of Hegel” might seem a bit daunting, as it touches upon aspects not usually explored by traditional Montessorians. The authors Steven Gimbel and Anne Emerson have written a fascinating article in accessible language. It is beneficial for all of us to take in another viewpoint. These authors demonstrate, sharing an increasing awareness from outside the educational world, that Montessori occupies her own place in a philosophical tradition, and that her learning and reading included much philosophy.

The Question and Answer section, in line with the overall theme, focuses on language. Kay Baker pays particular attention to the enrichment of language in the elementary years. Her contribution combines both the theory with practice and gives us a succinct and clear overview.

The final “slots” in this issue of Communications are given to Kay Grosso and Eva Shaw, who tell the moving story of how a simple request for mosquito nets evolved into a serious commitment to bring education to Nawantale, a village far away from Kampala, the capital of Uganda. Kay and Eva, mother and daughter, have written companion articles: one on a personal level, the other providing all the objective statistics. This article will particularly interest those interested in social reform in the Montessori movement.

We hope you will appreciate the diversity of articles and that the summer months will provide you with just that bit of extra time to take a nice firm “bite” off these wonderful reading delicacies.

Montessori describes the child’s inner urges and his sensorial powers to go from big to minute, from large to the finest detail. Seeing the invisible, love and enthusiasm are the key words of this lecture.

Mario Montessori makes a firm plea for the timelessness of the Montessori approach to education and devotes a sizeable section to the child’s mental powers and the development of language. He also argues that the Absorbent Mind does not disappear with the early childhood years.

Few teachers of English in English-speaking countries have learnt another language consciously; subsequently, their knowledge of grammar is often disconnected from real language use. Traditional education is now calling for a return to teaching knowledge about language. Feez argues that Montessori educators have much to contribute as this shift in emphasis gains ground in English language and literacy education around the world.

In this Cosmic Lecture, Montessori talks at length about supra natura, ‘Man's needs become more and more refined as his progress goes on, so that it is inevitable that this environment has been developed. We may call this a supra nature because it is above nature, but it is the nature of man.’

Steven Gimbel, Associate Professor of Philosophy, together with Anne Emerson, an educational researcher, argue that Montessori follows lines of reasoning that reverberate in philosophy.‘[I]nherent in the structure and content of Montessori's view of mind as she sets it out in great detail in her book The Absorbent Mind and in her pedagogical method as she sets it out in The Montessori Method, philosophy is there, specifically the historical dialectical approach of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel.’

This story goes back to an email in 2006 that Eva Shaw, a former HIV/AIDS volunteer in Uganda sent to her mother Kay Grosso, shortly after some 50 mud huts were destroyed in a flood in the village of Nawantale, far away from Uganda's capital, Kampala. Shaw asked her mother to help in organizing mosquito netting and tents. Kay Grosso and Eva Shaw have written companion articles on both a personal and academic level how extreme poverty, minimal healthcare, and missing intergenerational educational contexts cry out for successful Montessori intervention.

To Maria Montessori it was self-evident that her approach to education had a scientific base: it clearly shows from the title of her first book on pedagogy (1909), which termed her work as Pedagogia Scientifica*; moreover, if we realize that she had been trained for many years as a physician, scientist and anthropologist, we will know that she “grew up” on empirical methods. Empirical research bases its findings on direct or indirect observation to help describe and interpret reality.

Methodical observation is the pivotal element, and the key to science—the gathering of empirical knowledge. The researcher and scientist attempt to describe as faithfully as possible what interactions, what behaviours, what phenomena are being observed. Montessori always argued that she did not test preconceived ideas, but rather deducted her ideas from what was observed again and again. On the other hand, she emphasized that she would not have been able to understand the observed phenomena without her theoretical training**. In her early years she preferred the classical methods of exact measuring. Later she more and more turned to methods of understanding observation. She would encourage the new teachers to be scientists: the teacher should not lay a matrix over a classroom and expect the children to fit snugly into a mould. Instead, observation and interpretation of the individual child should always be the basis for the teacher’s work with the children, and they should be guided by practical experience on the basis of a theoretical training.

Empirical methods, observation and research are the main themes that run through this issue of Communications. The various articles provide insightful arguments concerning their importance, tell of research past and present, and make a connection to Montessori practice historical and topical.

Our first theme article “Montessori and Empirical Research—an Introduction” details how Maria Montessori set up an early research project at three Roman schools which was mainly anthropologically driven— it includes vivid descriptions of how Montessori implemented the methodology learnt from her anthropological studies, and demonstrates how she applied her training in the science of observation, measuring and noting facts and how this basic attitude continued to impact and direct her further thinking. The article also shows the change in Montessori’s way of thinking after her experiences in the Children’s House in San Lorenzo. She more and more recognized that pedagogy cannot be built on empirical research alone, but also needs other ways of obtaining knowledge as it is done in the wide field of humanities especially by hermeneutic methods.

In “Some Suggestions and Remarks upon Observing Children” Montessori provides the “proof” of her guiding principle. The article is the synthesis of two lectures that she gave on observation during her 1921 London course. It combines profound philosophical reflections on the value of observation, the fundamental points underlying it, whilst also giving some very concrete and practical examples.

“Researching Montessori: What Matters and Why” perceptively outlines how Montessori and her co-workers passed on her findings mainly through an oral tradition: by giving courses and public lectures. Jacqueline Cossentino traces some key trends in the history of research on Montessori and reviews two recent studies, advocating rigorous Montessori research across various disciplines. Clara Tornar argues along the same lines in her “Report on Recent Empirical Research on Montessori Education in Italy.” The author observes that after many years of neglect by Italian universities, the academic research of Montessori pedagogy has in recent years made a healthy come-back. The article pays particular attention to some pilot projects that have been concluded, and makes a vigorous plea for broadening the horizons of exploration.

Similarly “Recent Empirical Research on Montessori Education in Germany” sketches quite comprehensively the current “state” of Montessori research, whilst making some useful links to history. The main research project discussed here is VERA 2004, a comparative research project that tested the levels of 9 to 10-year-olds in the fields of Mathematics and German. The article also includes a summary of a recent empirical study carried out on furthering creativity through Montessori education.

The second contribution by Clara Tornar is “The Scientific Topicality of the Montessori Model” a lecture she gave last year at a Centenary Conference in Stockholm. She offers a precise description on the how’s and why’s of the Montessori model, and provides four main charts that show how—at various levels—input generates output in a Montessori setting.

In our Question and Answer Section, Kay Baker joins the ranks of the authors in this issue who address the importance of observation, and discusses how to use this tool in the Elementary classroom. Taking a very broad outlook, outlining the purpose of observation, she asks many pertinent questions and provides clear answers. The article offers a helpful and detailed insight into the practice of observation, and shows the teacher how she can observe her own role and self-monitor her work.

In our series “Cosmic Education lectures from the archives,” we are bringing you the fourth lecture that Maria Montessori gave in the winter extension of the 21st training course. She continues her descriptions of the interconnectedness of all organisms on earth, however small, and revels in the wonder of coral reefs and their creation.

In “Montessori and Tools for Life” the reader will meet Dutch mathematical logician Henk Barendregt, who from 4-17 attended Montessori schools. In this interview he shares his deep appreciation of Montessori education, and links some of the crucial “conquests” in Montessori to his love of Mathematics and Buddhism.

In conclusion, in “The Absorbent Mind” Paul Pillai sketches some of the cosmic elements of Montessori’s achievements. Similarly to her argument that all is connected and everything works in the service of our world, Pillai writes that Montessori’s ideas, methods and philosophy were fed by the society in which she grew up, and by the scholars and scientists that went before her. His argument culminates in his description of the power of the human mind.

We hope you will enjoy this issue and would be very glad of your feedback. You can contact the editorial board via info@montessori-ami.org.

* Il metodo della pedagogia scientifica applicato all’educazione infantile nelle Case dei Bambini (Città di Castello, 1909)
** Cf. Montessori, Maria, “The Two Natures of the Child” (1933) in Communications 4 (1995) pp. 4-9

The author details how Maria Montessori set up an early research project at three Roman schools that was mainly anthropologically driven. It includes vivid descriptions of how Montessori implements anthropological methodologies. Observation also plays an important role.

Montessori elaborates on the crucial role of Observation. The article is the synthesis of two lectures on the 1921 London course.

Focusing on the United States, the article discusses two recent influential studies. The author makes a strong plea for new and broad research across various disciplines.

Some recent pilot projects in Italy are discussed, among which “The Identity of the Montessori School” and “Learning to Learn in Montessori Schools.”

With an introduction to VERA 2004, a comparative research project in German. The article also includes a summary of a study into furthering creativity through Montessori education.

This article offers a precise description on the how’s and why’s of the Montessori model.

Montessori talks extensively about sea life, continuing her descriptions of the interconnectedness of all organisms on earth, however small, and revels in the wonder of coral reefs and their creation.

An article filled with suggestions on how to develop observation habits in the elementary classroom.

An Interview with Henk Barendregt, chair of chair of Foundations of Mathematics and Computer Science at Nijmegen University – and Montessori student from 4-17.

The author shares with use the cosmic elements of Montessori’s achievements, and tells an inviting story on man’s reasoning power, and the intelligence of the mind.