Education as Social Reform

Montessori saw the child as a veritable world power, able to reconstruct society. The impact that parenting and education could have on society was profound for her. She embraced education as an instrument for world peace. She envisioned an approach to education for the development of each individual’s human potential and as service to humanity. She saw the child as he constructor of a better world, of a harmonious society, and as a result eliminate war altogether.

How is it that the child could be considered as a change agent of society on a magnitude that the adult could never attain? The capacity for learning in the youngest of our species is so unique, so grand in scale, that the sheer scope is undefinable. Modern brain research has confirmed Dr. Montessori’s earliest theory of subconscious learning and the capacity of the child to take in the whole as well as all the details in a way no adult can learn.

That education could be the instrument of social reform was not lost on Dr. Montessori, and through years of observation and the implementation of her approach in experimental schools she was led to discover that the child, in particular the youngest of children, possessed a unique capacity to learn through activity, much of which was guided by the child’s innate interest, and the capacity of absorbing a rich and varied knowledge based on discovery exceeded the conventional approach of school’s and educators of the day.