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Welcome to the Website of Cathleen Haskins Teaching For Peace |
| Promoting & Supporting Maria Montessori's Vision, Philosophy, and Pedagogy as the Transformative Agent for Revealing the Potential of the Child and Creating a Peace-Based Society. |
| Montessori's Vision For Humanity During the 1930’s against the backdrop of an impending world war, Maria Montessori delivered a series of prophetic lectures in Europe that chronicled her growing understanding and beliefs about war, peace, and a new way of being in the world. Her call was deliberate, passionate, and unapologetic: humankind must find a higher level of existence in which unity, harmony, and love are the cornerstones of the individual and society, originating from a childhood environment that fosters spiritual growth and leads to realized human potential. On this point she rested all of her efforts: We change the world by changing how we educate children. The hope for a new world lies with the child. |
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- Maria Montessori was born in Italy, in 1870
conservative, traditional-thinking father.
- She was a compassionate, courageous, and
independent thinking child.
- Education minded and determined, as a
teenager she insisted on getting the
education she desired in order to follow her
academic interests, even though it meant
attending schools which enrolled only boys.
- She was the first female to enroll in The
University of Rome’s medical program.
- Overcoming all of the hardships and
challenges at the university, Montessori
received awards, scholarships, and earned
the respect and admiration of her colleagues
and teaching faculty.
- Montessori became renown and respected
as the first woman in Italy to receive a
medical degree and developed a respected
reputation for her medical work and as an
eloquent speaker for the rights of women’s
and children.
- One of her earliest jobs was to choose child
patients from (what were then called)
“insane asylums” to be treated at a
psychiatric clinic at which she worked. These
child patients evoked her first interest in how
children learn.
- A champion for children with special needs,
she advocated for courses to better train
teachers to work with these children, and
was appointed director of a training school
which offered teachers courses in this topic.
- Determined to understand why the children
she worked with at the asylum were
performing as well as “normal” children in
state schools, Montessori began her quest to
unravel the mystery of the child’s true
potential.
- A period of economic decline followed the
catastrophic crash of a housing boom in
Rome in the late 1800’s; credit became
unavailable and housing projects were
dropped abruptly, many left in unfinished
conditions.
- In the crime-ridden district of San Lorenzo,
- a foreboding failed housing project was
overtaken by beggars, prostitutes, and
criminals, until a group of realtors and
bankers intervened, renovating the slums
buildings into modest apartments for low
income families.
- Because the new inhabitants were poor,
both parents worked leaving children too
young to attend state school, unattended in
the building. These children were costing the
investors a fair amount of money in damage
repairs, as they dirtied the hallways and
caused minor acts of damage and
destruction.
- The landlords decided that the money being
spent on repairs, could be more wisely spent
by establishing a preschool for the young
children in one of the apartments rooms.
- Maria Montessori who was earning a well-
regarded reputation as a faculty member at
The University of Rome, and as an advocate
for women and children’s rights, was sought
out as a possible director.
- Despite the reaction of shock and disbelief
expressed by her friends and colleagues, Dr.
Montessori resigned her prestigious faculty
position to accept the directorship of a
preschool in a poor district of Rome.
- In 1907, the first Casa dei Bambini opened
its doors to more than fifty children of
uneducated and poor parents.
- This was the beginning of the quest that
would be Maria Montessori’s life work: a
passionate commitment to understanding
how to educate children in order that each
child’s full potential be unveiled.
The Big Questions Are:
Click here to learn how Montessori's philosophy and method work: Explaining the Extraordinary Montessori made a profound discovery: the child was capable of much more than anyone, including herself, had suspected. She was astounded! In the beginning, she was a disbeliever; the findings were too unexpected and radically unlike anything she had read about or experienced. She was indeed an academic and practitioner of scientific leanings, a skeptic at heart. It was a spiritual and scientific revelation which confronted Montessori in the early 1900’s. She was shocked. This was far beyond her wildest expectations, and when she was finally able to accept the truth, she was amazed and inspired. The little children loved to work, had a passion for it, in fact; they could concentrate for extended periods of time, loved silence, appreciated simple beauty, were joyful, full of wonder, and appeared to experience inner peace. This realization was akin to a spiritual awakening in Montessori to the true nature of the child, and from that day forward she looked upon the child with awe and respect. A secret, a special knowing had been revealed to her which would guide her work for the rest of her life and cause her to become the most respected and passionate advocate the world has ever known for the rights of children. |
| This I Believe That the path to peace leads directly through the early childhood & elementary classroom, That we change the world when we change how we think about and educate children, and That hidden possibilities and potential will awaken and humanity will rise up in all its Creativity, wisdom, beauty, love, and kindness, when we Teach to the spirit of the child and educate young hearts and minds for peace. |
Education for A New World "Constructive education for peace –it must aim to reform humanity so as to permit the inner development of human personality and to develop a more conscious vision of the mission of mankind." Maria Montessori |
| Maria Montessori Visionary, Humanitarian, & History's Greatest Advocate for Children & The Human Potential |