Talk:Maria Montessori

Semi-protected edit request on 20 June 2023

Hello, I would like to add the Portuguese titles and editions of Maria Montessori books (Works). I will use https://kirion.com.br/index.php?route=product/author&author_id=930 as a reference. Those are official translations approved by AMI (https://montessori-ami.org/). Kind regards. --Feliperoquette (talk) 16:47, 20 June 2023 (UTC) Feliperoquette (talk) 16:47, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

I was about to instinctively respond with "No, this is the English Wikipedia and we don't list extensive non-English translations". And then I checked the "Works" section myself and realised that there were quite a few non-English versions of works. As a long-term editor of this article, I've boldly removed them; we don't normally list other language versions like that in a bibliography. The list would probably become very unwieldy very quickly if it listed all translations. Graham87 03:48, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

Notice of Biased, Disparaging, and Grammatically Incorrect Section

Hello, it appears someone recently added 4 new sentences to the very end of the section titled "Italy (1922–1934)." Not only is there a grammatical error unbecoming of Wikipedia, but the additions violate Wikipedia's policy to include criticism and praise "so long as the material is presented responsibly, conservatively, and in a disinterested tone." Kind regards. ~2026-14444-44 (talk) 18:35, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

Get over it: she was a racist. That's an objective fact, see WP:YESPOV. I mean: she published a book she has never retracted. Scholars can read that book and establish for a fact that she was a racist. tgeorgescu (talk) 18:48, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

So what? We don't cover physicians for their progressive social ideas, but for whatever works and concepts they published and promoted. We have detailed articles on several quacks. Dimadick (talk) 19:32, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

The point is, however, that Montessori education is not based upon Maria Montessori's ideas. She was an expert in racial anthropology, not pedagogy. tgeorgescu (talk) 20:16, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

The issue here is not the exposure of her discriminatory beliefs, but rather the way they were incorporated in the article. It would be more appropriate to commit a section of the article to the book she wrote, the false ideology she espoused, and whether it affected her educational curricula. ~2026-14444-44 (talk) 00:59, 8 March 2026 (UTC)

NPOVN

See Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard#Maria Montessori. tgeorgescu (talk) 18:54, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

Verification

@SarekOfVulcan:

• She was a racist, an eugenist, and it is a myth that she distanced herself from Mussolini; she left Italy due to a lack of funds.
  • All WP:V to Schaaf
    • All except Mussolini and leaving Italy WP:V to Kreiskott

• Her main objective was avoiding "racial degeneration".
  • WP:V to Schaaf
    • WP:V to Kreiskott

• Her answer was a coherent book advocating racial anthropometry.
  • WP:V to Kreiskott, i.e. she followed the ideas of racial anthropometrists
    • Schaaf seems to imply it, also, but less overtly; translated quote "It contains much that so-called Montessori followers don't like to hear, let alone read."

• Maria Montessori did not seek to stimulate creativity and imagination, but blind obedience.
  • WP:V to Kreiskott (categorically)
    • WP:V to Schaaf (somewhat milder)

So, it's all WP:V in WP:RS. tgeorgescu (talk) 20:07, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

And people say much the same things about Margaret Sanger#Eugenics, all of which is carefully documented to published works with page numbers, not just handwaving to "somewhere in this article that most people here won't be able to read". I searched and found one article in English that seemed relevant to your proposed changes. I think we need a little more than that here. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 20:20, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

Again, the point is that her expertise wasn't in pedagogy, it was in racial anthropology. tgeorgescu (talk) 20:23, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

@SarekOfVulcan: I added an English language WP:RS. Verbatim quote: "Acknowledging Montessori’s racism does not discredit her pedagogical innovations and influence, nor does it taint Montessori schools and methods with racism in the present. Rather, it simply recognizes that the pioneering female educator was human and lived in time distant from our own and drew upon a set of assumptions we no longer hold." tgeorgescu (talk) 20:33, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

Ok, that sources 4 words in your proposed changes, and contradicts the next two. "Furthermore, when Montessori visited California, she befriended leading American eugenicist, David Starr Jordan (Montessori, 2015). Nevertheless, Montessori was not a eugenicist for three reasons." --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 20:48, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

Fallace's three points are rather weak especially points two and three, where they are both based on Montessori's racism being different to the racism many of the contemporaneous eugenicists held. Where while yes racial hygiene became a part of eugenics through the largest and most prominent examples of the implementations of eugenics, it was not a definer of what is or is not eugenics. Fallace's first point does stand up better as Darwinian and Mandelian heredity were the bases for eugenics, though even here there is the issue that we have examples of eugenic organisations and policies employed based on Lamarckian ideas of heredity, most prominently in central and south America. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 23:48, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

Also, you're dropping information relating to a book from 1910 into a section headed "(1922-1934)". SarekOfVulcan (talk) 20:51, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

Point granted about eugenist. tgeorgescu (talk)

Sich selbst als heilbringende Erlöserfigur stilisierend, kämpfte Montessori an allen ihr zugänglichen Fronten für die Höherentwicklung des Menschen und für die Ausmerzung des Bösen, Kriminellen und »Minderwertigen«. Pathologische, moralische und intellektuelle Normabweichungen diagnostizierte Montessoristets in enger Anbindung an die führenden Wissenschaftler ihrer Zeit – in allem »Anormalen«. Die von der gesellschaftlichen und eugenischen Norm Abweichenden betitelte Montessori kurzerhand als »Schädlinge der Gesellschaft«[citing Schulen der Erlösung 1899],die es als solche zu bekämpfen und zu entfernen gelte. Der »neue« Mensch dagegen ist für Montessori Inbegriff des reinen, perfekten, schönen, gesunden Menschen und entspricht dem – im Kontext vorherrschender Rassen- und Evolutionstheorien ausfigurierten – künftigen »Idealmenschen«.

— Seichter, Sabine (2024). Der lange Schatten Maria Montessoris: Der Traum vom perfekten Kind. Beltz. p. 9-10.

I can pull quotes from Seichter, and near as i can tell there's more along these lines, but no way i can read and understand. Really hate it when other editors do that tho. fiveby(zero) 21:31, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

Maria was a racist, but moderately so. She wasn't a Nazi. tgeorgescu (talk) 23:07, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

And I really find it hard to believe that "Maria Montessori did not seek to stimulate creativity and imagination" is an actual fact that deserves to be listed in the article. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 14:13, 9 March 2026 (UTC)

I don't think there is anything to be done here until there is a German speaker willing to take this on, or sources in English become available. We could piece something together from auto-translating the German but don't think that would be a very good idea. It would be good to include Seichter's work i think, just can't do it right now. Maybe if there were a comprehensive article reviewing Der lange Schatten Maria Montessoris we could use that in combination with auto-translate to do something. fiveby(zero) 14:28, 9 March 2026 (UTC)

I can help here if people need some comments. While I am not familiar with Montessori herself, I have some grasp of German, I have read German sources in relation to early 20th century anthropology and eugenics, and I have access to the book. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 18:39, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

I looked for reviews, all i found was in German tho. Seems like there was some kerfuffle when she published—the Montessori educators taking some exception. It kind of seems to me when going thru the book that her primary criticism was the religious nature of her writings which then became the basis of the secular pedagogy? tgeorgescu's the one who knows the subject. fiveby(zero) 02:08, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

I know what I have read about it in FAZ. My German is not brilliant. tgeorgescu (talk) 05:05, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

I assume it is this article. As an outsider to this, Seichter has the education and experience to provide a critical analysis of pedagogical methods. From the FAZ article, none of the claims she makes in regards to Montessori are exceptional in sense that many people across all sorts of disciplines held the views that Seichter claims Montessori held, of particular comparison would be Steiner (who is brought up by the interviewer).

A quick search for scholarship shows multiple articles published in reputable journals prior to Seichter's book from other scholars (in English, Italian, and German) who point out racism and the like in Montessori's work, so it would indicate that the claims by Seichter in the FAZ article aren't wildly exceptional.

I've only worked through the first chapter of Seichter's book so far (Die Glaubenswelten der Maria Montessori (The 'worlds of beliefs' of Maria Montessori)), so it doesn't go into great analytical detail, but it is saying that Montessori had eugenic beliefs. As an additional note, in the search for scholarship, there looks to be a couple that might analyse Montessori as a eugenicist, but there are a lot that look at how her work and ideas were supported and used by eugenicists in multiple countries outside of Italy. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 23:36, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

Proposed text

She was a racist, and it is a myth that she distanced herself from Mussolini; she left Italy due to a lack of funds. Her main objective was avoiding "racial degeneration". Her answer was a coherent book advocating racial anthropometry.

Maria Montessori did not seek to stimulate creativity and imagination, but blind obedience.

Rewritten text. tgeorgescu (talk) 20:53, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

She was obviously a racist and a eugenicist. You need only look at https://www.gutenberg.org/files/46643/46643-h/46643-h.htm to get a sense of this. Nor did she change her views. In The Absorbent Mind, published 1949 she wrote the following "Today much time is spent in studying what are thecircumstances which will make the better characters comeforth ; a new science has arisen, Eugenics, which showshow man has by his intelligence succeeded in acquiringinfluence even over heredity. Human intelligence hasunderstood that heredity can be influenced only at thestage when the primitive cell is formed and changes canbe made. Thus man becomes a sort of god who takes in hand the powers of life and orients the path it will take" p. 62.

Let's ignore the blind obedience claim for now. Why has this page not been updated? If I was to add a section about her views on Eugenics under 'Educational philosophy and pedagogy' would this be resisted by other editors? On what grounds? It is notable, pertinent to understanding her views, and true. 3D Gaius (talk) 00:04, 12 April 2026 (UTC)

References