Educating human potential

Who am I? What is my role in the universe? Do we live only for ourselves? What is the meaning of our daily struggle? The answer constitutes the program of education for human potential that Maria Montessori proposes in this work, published in 1948, to help teachers understand the needs of children aged 6 to 12. Here she reveals the secret of the success of her method: intelligently stimulating the child's creative imagination to awaken their interest, then making the seeds of science germinate in their minds, always relating to a central and inspiring idea: the cosmic plan. Everything and everyone recognizes themselves and joins in it, serving the great objective of Life: working together for the common good.

While retracing the fascinating story of the evolution of our planet, the appearance of the first humans and the most ancient civilizations, the author underlines the importance of the preparation of teachers, a central theme in Montessorian thought: these, she says, must be at the exclusive service of the whole human being, that is to say, of a man capable of freely and responsibly exercising his will and his critical spirit, without prejudice or fear of any kind. This is where the relevance and modernity of Maria Montessori's thought lies.

Italy's first female physician, Maria Montessori, is the heir to the pedagogical ideas of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. She invites us to consider the child as a complex and fragile individual, endowed with unsuspected knowledge. Her views are astonishing in their freshness and their power to awaken in each of us the child they once were.