This literature review, a continuation of the first one published in "Montessori Life" (Bagby, 2007), identifies articles published in non-Montessori professional periodicals that included information about Maria Montessori and/or the Montessori method of education. While conducting the current search, the authors discovered 12 articles published…

These days, the word "green," and the more comprehensive term "sustainability," surface in numerous arenas, whether it be exhortations to recycle more, employ compact fluorescent lightbulbs, use less hot water, avoid products with excess packaging, adjust thermostats, plant trees, turn off electronic devices when not in use, or buy organic and…

This article discusses the Beyond the Walls outdoor education program at The Franklin Schools in Rockville, Maryland. Under the expert guidance of Maryland outdoor education specialist Amy Beam, Franklin's staff has been guided to reconnect to the landscape, understand native plants and animals, and reclaim a sense of gratitude for the environment…

Problem solving allows students to use what they know to achieve a goal when no solution is apparent. Traditional educational models evolved from an earlier system, based on rote memorization and designed to produce employees for industry. The workforce of tomorrow must move beyond rote learning by both applying current knowledge and using…

The aim of this article is to serve as a framework for lessons and experiences in grateful living. The objectives in teaching gratitude are to give children opportunities: (1) to create experiences that cultivate an awareness of abundance; (2) to experience and appreciate simple pleasures; (3) to understand how others contribute to a sense of…

Poetry enables teachers to connect with their students in new ways. Teachers can show students that "poetry is something people do to capture thoughts, feelings, and experience." When poetry is incorporated across the curriculum, students learn to make discoveries by looking at their environment in new ways. Poetry stands apart from storytelling…

The author could not contain herself one day at school recently when a parent of three children shared something she had heard from her eldest daughter. That morning, the eldest daughter was grumbling about the fact that she and her Lower Elementary brother had to go to school while her Preschool brother did not, and she announced to her mother,…

Maria Montessori understood that, innately, children feel connected to humanity, and recognized that children appreciate opportunities to serve others. This is an important connection that parents and teachers need to continue to nourish in students, providing opportunities for those meaningful connections. But what if, in addition to feeling good…

Despite the progress in technology since the time of Maria Montessori, the science curriculum has been pushed aside slowly as teachers' focus has shifted to literacy and mathematics. The Early Childhood classroom has grown complacent with miniature life cycle lessons and attractive puzzles; the time has come to return science to a critical…

In this article, the author profiles Dr. Elisabeth Caspari (1899-2002). As a teacher of teachers, Caspari traveled extensively for 50 years, sharing the wisdom she had gleaned from her training under Dr. Maria Montessori in Adyar, India, and from 4 years of frequent association with Montessori and her son, Mario, in Kodaikanal. The threads of…

Spiritual nurturing includes the recognition that children have valuable ways of knowing, such as pondering, sacred listening, intuition, and dreams and visions. Children nurtured in spiritual ways of being are supported through the traits of creativity, compassion, love, gratitude, affirmation, contemplation, and silence. These attributes are…

Speaking, listening, reading, and writing are all language activities. The human capacity for speaking and listening has a biological foundation: wherever there are people, there is spoken language. Acquiring spoken language is an unconscious activity, and, barring any physical deformity or language learning disability, like severe autism, all…

Montessori teachers know that no matter how many books they read on child development and brain research, there is no substitute for observing children, seeing them, noticing them, and especially, in the case of the adolescent, being quiet long enough for them to talk. Wanting to know more about the hidden depths of the adolescent soul, the author…

When Barack Obama announced his run for the presidency, he seemed an unlikely candidate. Against all odds, he was able to defeat an apparently overwhelming opposition by relating to the electorate in a more horizontal, collaborative manner. What Obama did differently was to empower the new, digitally active, younger political class by involving…

The "tabula rasa" of this article's title is a Latin term meaning "clean slate." For centuries before January 6, 1907, and continuing more than 100 years since, teachers have walked into classrooms of young children convinced they know full well what is good for them, and what should be poured into their minds and by what means. But on that day,…