Education & Peace

I have been reading Education and Peace, a book of writings and speeches of Dr. Montessori's about Education and Peace. It has amazed me just how relevant her writings are today 80 years later. She wrote about war and the importance of reframing education to serve the humanity of our world so that we can become a people of peace at a time when the world was grappling with the effects of World War I and in the throes of World War II. And here we are in 2022 struggling to understand the motivations and repercussions of the war in Ukraine.  

I love that this piece of building humanity is built into the Montessori pedagogy and our daily Grace and Courtesy. I love that we have the chance to build a foundation of peace with our young children. I love that we have the opportunity to support, practice, and foster tolerance, collaboration, conflict resolution, and peace in the most everyday way of guiding them through social relationships. 

In reading Dr. Montessori's speech, Education for Peace, given in Copenhagen on May 22, 1937, I am struck by this statement:
 

War is clearly a complex phenomenon that we must investigate and understand, especially in our time. Humanity today is overwhelmed by events affecting the entire world with which education has not yet come to grips. Mankind today is like a small child who finds himself alone and lost in a forest, at the mercy of any shadow that falls across his path and of any mysterious noise heard in the dark...

Education points the way to a new world to conquer: the world of the human spirit.

Dr. Maria Montessori Education and Peace