Montessori: origen y razones de las críticas a una de las pedagogas más controvertidas de la historia.

Catherine L'Ecuyer

doi:10.22550/REP81-2-2023-01

Authors

Catherine L'Ecuyer Universidad de Navarra.

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.22550/REP81-2-2023-01

Keywords:

Montessori education, John Dewey, antimodernism, progressive education, unity of knowledge, Freemasonry, theosophy, positivism, evidence-based education

Abstract

Montessori is one of the most fascinating and controversial pedagogues of all time. On the one hand, the naturalists reproached her for the rigidity and artificiality of her method, as well as her rejection of productive imagination and fantasy. On the other hand, progressive educators reproached the individualist and prescriptive character of her method. The modernists reproached her for her religiosity. Some criticized her for accelerating learning or for not respecting the freedom of the child, others for the contrary. Christians branded her a secularist, positivist, naturalist, and theosophist, while theosophists defined her as Catholic. These paradoxical criticisms are due, among other reasons, to the context of the antimodernist frenzy in which she developed her method, to her network of friends in Freema-son circles, to the numerous nuances of her method, to her resistance to fitting in with existing educational currents, to the instrumentalization of her method by third party interests, to her sometimes entangled and not very clear language and to the lack of knowledge of her method in action.

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Author Biography

Catherine L'Ecuyer, Universidad de Navarra.

Doctor of Education and Psychology at the University of Navarra and bestselling author of The Wonder Approach, It Looks Better in 3D, Montessori ante el legado pedagógico de Rousseau [Montessori in the face of Rousseau’s pedagogical legacy] and Conversaciones con mí maestra [Conversations with my teacher], among others. She currently collaborates with the Mind-Brain Group, a research group of the Institute of Culture and Society (ICS) of the Universidad de Navarra. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1485-6849

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