A Montessori Mother
A Parent's Guide to the Montessori Method, Child Observation, and Self-Directed LearningBy Dorothy Canfield Fisher
Length7h 7m
About this audiobook
In A Montessori Mother (1912), Dorothy Canfield Fisher presents an informed, practical account of Maria Montessori's educational principles as they might be understood and practiced within the household. Combining personal observation, explanatory argument, and episodes drawn from domestic life, the book emphasizes the child's independence, purposeful activity, sensory development, and need for an ordered environment rather than coercive discipline or premature academic pressure. Its lucid, conversational prose occupies a significant place in the progressive-education literature of the early twentieth century: it translates Montessori's scientific and philosophical vocabulary into accessible guidance for English-speaking parents while retaining the movement's challenge to conventional authority. The result is neither a technical manual nor a sentimental memoir, but a persuasive work of educational interpretation. Fisher wrote from unusual firsthand experience. She encountered Montessori education in Italy, studied its methods closely, and applied them in raising her own children, making her an important early American advocate of Montessori's ideas. Her background as a novelist, essayist, and reform-minded intellectual enabled her to unite literary sensitivity with close attention to childhood behavior. The book also reflects the period's wider interest in child-centered education, developmental psychology, and the reform of rigid Victorian domestic practices. A Montessori Mother remains valuable for readers interested in Montessori history, progressive pedagogy, parenting, and the cultural formation of modern childhood. It is especially recommended to educators and parents seeking to understand how Montessori principles were first adapted for ordinary family life, as well as to readers attentive to the relationship between educational theory and lived experience.
Audiobook details
Rating★★★★ 3.5 (19)
Includes Goodreads
GenreEducation and Learning
Length7 hrs 7 mins
Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices
FormateBook with Audio
Publish dateDec 9, 2023
LanguageEnglish
Table of contents
1UNDERSTOOD BETSY (Illustrated Edition)
2PREFACE
3ILLUSTRATIONS
4CHAPTER I SOME INTRODUCTORY REMARKS ABOUT PARENTS
5CHAPTER II A DAY IN A CASA DEI BAMBINI
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6CHAPTER III MORE ABOUT WHAT HAPPENS IN A CASA DEI BAMBINI
7CHAPTER IV SOMETHING ABOUT THE APPARATUS AND ABOUT THE THEORY UNDERLYING IT
8CHAPTER V DESCRIPTION OF THE REST OF THE APPARATUS AND THE METHOD FOR WRITING AND READING
9CHAPTER VI SOME GENERAL REMARKS ABOUT THE MONTESSORI APPARATUS IN THE AMERICAN HOME
10CHAPTER VII THE POSSIBILITY OF AMERICAN ADAPTATIONS OF, OR ADDITIONS TO, THE MONTESSORI APPARATUS
11CHAPTER VIII SOME REMARKS ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE SYSTEM
12CHAPTER IX APPLICATION OF THIS PHILOSOPHY TO AMERICAN HOME LIFE
13CHAPTER X SOME CONSIDERATIONS ON THE NATURE OF “DISCIPLINE”
14CHAPTER XI MORE ABOUT DISCIPLINE, WITH SPECIAL REGARD TO OBEDIENCE
15CHAPTER XII DIFFICULTIES IN THE WAY OF A UNIVERSAL ADOPTION OF THE MONTESSORI IDEAS
16CHAPTER XIII IS THERE ANY REAL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE MONTESSORI SYSTEM AND THE KINDERGARTEN?
17CHAPTER XIV MORAL TRAINING
18CHAPTER XV DR. MONTESSORI’S LIFE AND THE ORIGIN OF THE CASA DEI BAMBINI
19CHAPTER XVI SOME LAST REMARKS
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