Maria Montessori’s Cosmic Education: The origins of a still-relevant project
Rossella Raimondo
As is well known, Maria Montessori’s pedagogy, at the beginning of the last century, brought about a radical change in the teacher’s relationship with her pupils: educating means to provide the tools for the child to develop his or her personality to the full in self-fulfilment with others. This article therefore focuses on the Cosmic Education project that Maria Montessori elaborated and experimented with during the period she lived in India, and which was aimed at children aged 6 to 12. Some derivations of Montessori’s reflections are then traced in the 2012 National Directions for the Curriculum for Preschool and First Cycle Education. In fact, the latter take up what Montessori has always maintained, namely the importance of not separating basic cultural literacy from education to the principles of civil coexistence, providing the necessary tools for autonomous, conscious and responsible thinking and acting with regard to the entire cosmos.
Keywords
Cosmic Education, Training of Teachers, Cosmic Task, Active Citizenship.
