Un Nuevo Mundo Y La Educación

Association Montessori Internationale

From Dr. Montessori’s “A New World and Education”
By Dr. Maria Montessori First published in 1947
Dr. Maria Montessori spent the years between 1939 and 1946 in the Indian SubContinent. During those seven years she gave a number of courses and public lectures, including a course in Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon) in 1944. Her lecture “A New World andEducation” was edited by A. Gnana Prakasam and published under the auspices of AMI, Ceylon in 1947. In his introduction, A. Gnana Prakasam said: ‘This address of Dr. Montessori contains fundamental ideas on education which may appear to be revolutionary but after careful study and consideration will, I am sure, be accepted as correct by thinking persons who have the interests of their own country and ofmankind at heart.’ From the extract chosen, it is evident that what Dr. Montessori had to say then is still relevant today; in fact, it is not only relevant - it has become imperative to heed her call to enlightened action if civilisation is to survive and flourish. ...Today the progress of civilisation has made formidable conquests of unlimited extensions, which no one can own and which,therefore, belong to all. It would be absurd for anyone to attempt to own the atmosphere, electricity, the cosmic rays, or the vibrations of the ether. Yet it is these powers that form the world of today. It is upon these powers that our civilisation, which tends to expand with vertiginous progress, is based. The danger is very real. It is not the energies of the new world that are dangerous. It is thelack of development in man. If there is one task which will make the new world a beneficial reality, that task is the help which has to be given for the development of man. For humanity must acquire a new consciousness and thus realise a psychic adaptation suited to the new world in which it lives. The tragic absurdity of old sentiment in these new conditions is revealed by those groups of men who,urged by anticipations of universal power, still clung to the illusion that they could act as men acted in the past. No matter what political ideology they held, (...) each wished to become master of the world. The powerful means which were within the grasp of man encouraged them to attempt to realise their illusion. But if each group were to seek to conquer the whole world and its supernaturalpowers for itself, there would result a general clash, a cyclone of universal destruction. This is the reality which threatens us in this epoch.

Copyright © 2001 Association Montessori Internationale. All rights reserved.

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The education for this new world must aim, first of all, at bringing help to the consciousness of humanity so that it may adapt itself to the present conditionswhich have been created through the progress of civilisation. A new education is necessary. Everyone agrees on this point. Though the necessity is universally recognised, there is as yet no guide for its realisation. How are we to proceed? What is the practical way to bring about this new education? At present, we have to battle with the hope of bringing happiness or joy to children, to men andwomen. For how can one inspire joy when a cataclysm is threatening the whole world? Many advocate the instilling of a spirit of optimism. But why advocate an illusion? Nor can the remedy be in freedom without law; for in a world where a vaster organisation is necessary, man must learn to obey laws which are as strict and as sure as those which govern the universe. Nor can the preaching of brotherhood,the insistent advice to love and understand one another bring a solution to the problem. Experience has shown that wars have grown ever more cruel during the tens of centuries which have elapsed since man first began to preach the great principles of fraternal love. The bitter reality is that events have overcome the sentiment and the will of man. Education cannot express itself in terms of any...