Full Description
Montessori Principles Reexamined offers a critical yet committed re-reading of Montessori education. It begins with the relationship between adult and child, asking how preparation, guidance, freedom, risk and educational love shape every educational encounter. It then moves to Montessori's pedagogical grammar: the practices and arrangements through which order, work, play, progression, error, language and silence both enable children's activity and give it form.
From there, the book widens its focus to Montessori's social imagination, examining the child as a forgotten citizen, children's rights and education as a condition for peace. Its final movement turns towards the contemporary Montessori world, confronting privatisation, commodification, branding and credentialism.
Drawing closely on Montessori's writings and placing them in conversation with contemporary educational thought, the book treats Montessori neither as a fixed method nor as an untouchable legacy, but as a living, contested and unfinished practice. It speaks to readers concerned with childhood, education, social transformation and the possibility of creating a more democratic and peaceful common world.
Contents
About the Authors Acknowledgements List of Abbreviations Reading Montessori Methodological Note Primary Analytical Corpus Part 1. Maria Montessori's View of the Adult-Child Relationship Preparation of the Adult Guiding Presentation and Discovery Risk and Unpredictability Part 2. Pedagogical Grammar of Montessori Opening Remarks Order, Structure, Freedom & Chaos Play and Work Isolation Progression Error The Three-Period Lesson Silence Part 3. The Forgotten Citizen and the Promise of Peace: From Pedagogical Grammar to Social Imagination The Forgotten Citizen Children's Rights Peace and War Part 4. Montessori in the Contemporary World: The Neoliberal Capture of a Pedagogy for Social Transformation The Captured Promise Privatisation and Commodification Branding and Credentialism Our Bubble? A Prepared Environment for Organised Ignorance References
