Montessori Erdkinder: The Social Evolution of the Little Community

currently Program Director at the Hershey Montessori Farm School, Huntsburg, Ohio where he has developed an internationally acclaimed Montessori model for adolescent education with an outstanding team of teachers. He is in his 27th year as Executive Director of the North American Montessori Teachers ’ Association. After nearly ten years of working intensively with the land school concept, I can report that our findings today are true to the expectations of Montessori theory and practice. Our youth are encountering a society, to use Maria Montessori’s words, “whose complications and contradictions are reaching the bursting point, ” a society that “finds itself having to face a crisis that menaces the peace of the world and civilization itself ” (From Childhood to Adolescence 95). Being not only a realist but also an optimist, however, Montessori expressed certainty that strong community settings bring adolescents the vision and positive conviction to live their lives fully devoted to creating a better social organization and a better individual. We have found that adolescents, parents, and teachers alike can recognize that it is belonging to what Robert Redfield calls a “Little Community ” and the consequent strengthening of the adolescent personality that forms the true basis for learning and future adaptation to the demands of society