Although Montessori education is often considered a form of playful learning, Maria Montessori herself spoke negatively about a major component of playful learning—pretend play, or fantasy—for young children. In this essay, the author discusses this apparent contradiction: how and why Montessori education includes elements of playful learning while simultaneously eschewing fantasy. She conclude...

Research on the outcomes of Montessori education is scarce and results are inconsistent. One possible reason for the inconsistency is variations in Montessori implementation fidelity. To test whether outcomes vary according to implementation fidelity, we examined preschool children enrolled in high fidelity classic Montessori programs, lower fidelity Montessori programs that supplemented the pr...

Quality preschool programs that develop the whole child through age-appropriate socioemotional and cognitive skill-building hold promise for significantly improving child outcomes. However, preschool programs tend to either be teacher-led and didactic, or else to lack academic content. One preschool model that involves both child-directed, freely chosen activity and academic content is Montesso...

Maria Montessori is one of the most well-known women in Italian history. Although she was the first woman who graduated in medicine in Italy, she is mostly known as an educator. Her teaching method--the Montessori Method- is still used worldwide--Because she could not speak English during the imprisonment in India, there was a big obstacle for her communication with children. However, the need ...

There are 25 million displaced children worldwide, and those receiving schooling are often educated in overcrowded classrooms. Montessori is a child-centred educational method that provides an alternative model to traditional educational approaches. In this model, students are able to direct their own learning and develop at their own pace, working with materials rather than in supervised group...

Italians have always revered the arts and promoted the infusion of beauty and fi ne design into the quality of everyday life. Perhaps it is this distinctive cultural fl air, revealed in fi elds such as architecture, painting, interior design, graphics, fashion, and cuisine, that has infl uenced Italy also to become a giant in the fi eld of early childhood education. In the 20th century, Italy h...