The Child and Childhood in the Pedagogical Thought of Maria Montessori

Abstract

Maria Montessori, an Italian physician and educator active at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, developed a pedagogical concept centered on a subjective understanding of the child. She pointed out that childhood is a crucial stage of human development, which deserves dedicated research to uncover its intrinsic value. Drawing from experiments conducted initially with children with developmental barriers, and later with preschool children in the so-called “Casa dei Bambini,” she devised an innovative method to support child development. Her views on the child and childhood are in line with the principles of the New Education movement that emerged in the early 20th century.

The purpose of this article is to reinterpret the significance of the categories “child” and “childhood” in the anthropological and philosophical discourse of Montessori’s pedagogical thought. The research questions are posed as follows: Who is the child, and what significance does Montessori attribute to childhood? The chosen research method involved a narrative review of the literature, specifically the works of Montessori. The findings reveal that, in Montessori’s view, the child is the “constructor” of their own existence, not merely the product of parental reproduction. Moreover, the child is not an empty vessel to be passively filled with knowledge. The Montessori method places the child at its core, and recognizes the unique ways in which children engage with and learn from their environments.