Montessori Education - A Conversation with Michele Dal Trozzo

Welcome to the Future Learning Design Podcast.

What is most amazing to me of her entire work is that she went beyond education. She was more than an educator, a pedagogue. She was a sort of philosopher because she had in mind the well-being of the entire mankind.

Hi everybody, thanks for joining me again for another episode of the Future Learning Design Podcast with me, Tim Logan. In this week's episode, I'm speaking with Michele Daltrozzo, who is an expert in the life and amazing achievements of Maria Montessori as part of his role in charge of the Montessori department of GAM, Gonzaga Redi Montessori. GAM is an Italian company based in Gonzaga, Mantua, well known worldwide for its unique history in the manufacturing and marketing of Montessori materials and furniture. Its origins in the early 20th century are strongly connected to the presence of Maria Montessori in Gonzaga as a friend of Maria Mareni Gherrieri Gonzaga, who started one of the first Casa dei Bambini in the world. Nowadays, GAM designs, manufactures, and markets furniture for nurseries, schools, libraries, and cultural centers. Michele started working for Gonzaga Redi in 1996, straight after graduating from the University of Parma. Across the 25 years, he's been involved in many different areas of the company: product development, classroom design, and including the design of the Montessori Museum located in the company's headquarters. Michele has also been attending conferences, trade shows, visiting schools, meeting teachers and customers in more than 30 countries.

Ciao Michele, how are you?

Ah yeah, fine, doing fine.

Brilliant. All right, well, thank you, Michele. It's just brilliant to be able to talk to you for the podcast today, and I am particularly interested in, in Maria Montessori myself. I have been for a long time because I think there are so many connections to all of the talk about putting the student at the center of learning and educational innovation and all of these things that we talk about. But obviously Maria Montessori was doing this in another century, right? She, you know, for 115 years ago she was starting this work and it's just incredible. So what is just fabulous to have you here. And then maybe we could just talk a bit about Maria's life as a kind of an example of all the amazing things she did educationally, but also in, in so many other areas as well. So welcome to the podcast, firstly.

Thank you, Tim, for inviting me to the podcast. Pleasure to be here.

Thank you so much. So, so maybe first, if you could just— because your role and your company is very much connected to Montessori, so perhaps if we just start there, if you could just, just give us a little bit of a description of who you are and what your company does and How is it connected with Maria's life?

Sure, I've been working for the company since 1996, so it's been quite a while. And even before that, my father had, before me, working in the company, parting from the end of the '60s, beginning of the '70s, was called Baroni and Marangon. And so he started because the company, you know, was a small company based in Italy, but they already had several contacts and relationships also abroad. Because, you know, there weren't many companies at that time that were making Montessori materials and Montessori furniture. Mainly two companies. One is the Italian company at that time called Dornimarangoni, and the other one was, and still is, the Dutch company, which is Nina House. And so in those years, the Montessori method in Italy was not so popular. So there weren't so many Montessori schools in Italy. The Montessori market was very— it's still small now, but it was even smaller at that time. So most of our customers in this business were from abroad.

Yeah, yeah, there is a really interesting connection between Maria Montessori and Gonzaga, right?

Yeah, the connection is related to the fact that Maria Montessori herself used to come to Gonzaga, to this place, several times. And the reason why she came here was due to a friendship she had with the Marchesa Maria Guerrieri Gonzaga, who was, you know, a descendant of the very famous and powerful family Gonzaga, which was the family who ruled the town and the area of Mantua for almost 4 centuries. And they were one of the most known families in the Italian Renaissance. So Maria Guerrieri Gonzaga, in particular, she was passionate about education. So as soon as she came to know about the new work, researches of Maria Montessori, she immediately went there to meet her in person. She visited the first Casa dei Bambini opened in Rome in 1907, and she immediately started to implement the first educational revolutionary principles in the Casa dei Bambini she set up here in Gonzaga. Ah, okay. And invited Maria Montessori several times to come to be her guest here in Gonzaga and to help her to develop and to organize this Casa dei Bambini. The two ladies got along together very well, and they established this very strong relationship who lasted for their entire lives. So thanks to this friendship that was also cooperation on the field, because Maria Guerrieri Gonzaga also was not just supporting Maria Montessori, sponsoring her and giving economical help, but was also deeply involved in the research that Maria Montessori was doing. There is a nice quote from one of Maria Montessori's books, his second book. In Italian it's called L'Autoeducazione nelle Scuole Elementari, that means in elementary schools, because the first one was focused on the 3 to 6, the second one was focused on the 6 to 10, 11, to the elementary schools. And one of these quotes says It was in 1911 that a friend of mine, María Guerrieri Gonzaga, wanted to put the first foundations for a private and completely free experiment in order to find out if it was possible to continue the educational approach that had had success with the small children using more advanced materials. So María Guerrieri Gonzaga started from the very beginning following Maria Montessori in her research, and then she tried to go ahead. And so that's why I also invited Maria Montessori to come here and discuss with her what was the, you know, best solution to do this, to do that.

Amazing. I'd love to hear if there's reflections on what, you know, the success of that experiment, because that's That's really fascinating. And I mean, this is, as you said, very early days. And so the Casa dei Bambini was set up in 1907. So this is 4 years later, she's experimenting with taking it onto the next level. But could we just go back a step now to just the beginning of Maria Montessori's life? Just everybody's heard of Montessori, Maria Montessori, of course. But I think there are aspects of her life perhaps that people aren't aware of. And I, for me, she's an incredible human being, right? She, she was working in all sorts of areas, as I understand, kind of innovating and breaking new ground in all sorts of ways in Italy in the, you know, late 19th century, early 20th century, right? So maybe could you just give it a little bit of a kind of background of briefly of her early years and the medical school and anthropology and these things?

Yeah, Maria Montessori was definitely an extraordinary woman. She— well, to start from the beginning, just briefly, she was born in 1870 in the town of Chiaravalle, and she spent there just a few years, and then she moved to Rome. So Rome has been her hometown, I would say, you know, at least as far as her education and her professional career is concerned. She proved to be a very different person from the average An outstanding one considering the fact that she was a woman at that time, I mean, 150 years ago. In those times, women were— had very limited access to important careers that were normally reserved for men. But she showed to be a very determined person. Right from the beginning, since she was very young. And she showed particular interest for science and technology. So she wanted to attend a technical school, right, you know, Liceo Leonardo da Vinci in Rome, which was attended mostly by boys. And she had, of course, to fight for this decision against her family, especially her father, who, as most of the men, you know, thought that women should do— if they wanted to study, should do the teachers. And against, you know, all the other persons who were telling her to do something different, that was not a school for women. But she insisted, and so after the high school, she decided to go to the university. At the beginning, she chose the natural science So for a couple of years he did that, but then probably, you know, thinking about her future and her interest, she was probably more interested, okay, in science, in nature, but probably more interested in the human beings, in the mankind. And so she switched from natural science to the Faculty of Medicine. And that was probably the most difficult decision and step that she had to take at that time, because that was even more difficult for a woman to enter. But still, with her strong character and determination, she kept doing what she wanted to do. And then she proved to be one of the most clever students, much better in some cases than her male colleagues. Then she graduated with a very high level, and she was the— not the first, as someone says, but the third woman to graduate in medicine in Italy, but she was the first to actually practice. Because the two previous ones, they just studied, but they, they didn't follow up with the medical career. Maria Montessori, after finishing, she immediately started working and started her career with a specialization in psychiatry. So And for this reason, she went to work in the hospital in Rome. Yeah. And she studied a lot, all the main studies related to the brain, how the brain works, and how this affected the behaviors of the people. Amazing.

As I understand it, she then went back to do another degree in anthropology on top of medical anthropology. Yeah, it was a sort of, yeah, specialization of sort of, I don't know, master we would say, or a doctorate maybe we would say Yes, yeah, but, but she was also very interested in, obviously, the formative experience in, in the psychiatry department, but also she was very interested in women's rights and peace and the labor movement and, you know, campaigning against young children who were being put to work in the mines. So she was quite politically active as well.

Yeah, yeah, she was very active, probably moved by this nature. She wanted to help the weakest member of the community. And so she spent, yes, a lot of energy, yeah, in the feminist movement. She took part to two very important international congress for women's rights, the one in Berlin and the other one in London, where she went in representation of all Italian women of the whole country, explaining to the world that they needed more Rights. But then after a few years, she decided that her main interest were the children, and so she focused on that. Going back to the, the experience she had at the hospital, that was the beginning also of her idea that then she pursued for her entire life. When she started studying the children, after some research and after some exercises that she did with the children, she started realizing that in most cases the problems they had were not real medical problems but educational problems. So that's when, in her mind, she started thinking that she needed to be involved in education, because since then she was a medic, doctor. But then when she discovered that the cure for most of these diseases were not just, you know, medical cure, clinic cure, hospital cures, but a different educational environment. Then she started thinking that she had to do something with education. And so she started a sort of kindergarten in the same building or next to the building where she was working with the children at the hospital. And she started working there since 7 in the morning till night for 2 or 3 years, and that is when she first became an educator.

Amazing. So she was— I mean, this is— this was 1907?

Yeah, this was before 1907. Then in 1907 Something very important to her, the most important event of her life happened when she was offered by the engineer Talamo in Rome to coordinate and to organize the rooms for children in the Quartiere San Lorenzo, in an area that was going to be restored, restyled, or rebuilt. It was a very, you know, poor area of Rome. And in this big project of remaking the entire area, this person who was in charge for the whole project said, we need to create special places also for children. Since he knew about, you know, Maria Montessori's studies and research there in Rome. And she, in this way, she has received the offer that she was waiting for. Because she was waiting to prove that the, what she has already experimented with, uh, uh, special need children would work also with all children. She was saying, if I was able to improve a lot the performance of children with this very difficult problems, and she got this opportunity at that time. And it was immediately a success because, you know, she immediately proved that her new approach was a revolutionary approach and that was very effective and was able to give the children a much higher level of education even in these early years. Because, you know, up to 6 years old, at that time children started school at 6, 7 years old. Before then, until the 6 years of age, they were not taught basically, but just, you know, gather in a place and, you know, just supervised the play, but without thinking that that was an extremely important period of life where the children is in need to, to learn, not just to play. Yeah.

They're critical years, aren't they, in those early years? Yeah, absolutely. And what I find interesting, particularly about it, is, as you say, she was trying to prove something, that it was relevant and effective for all children, ever, depending on whatever their needs were, and whatever their background, etc. But also, it seems like it really took off very, very quickly. So you went from 1907 with the first Casa dei Bambini in Rome to houses of children all over the world within 5 or 6 years?

Yes, it was an extremely big success.

And why do you think there was such an amazingly quick reception, and why did that move so fast?

Because it was, you know, it was a revolution. It was— her approach was completely different from the traditional approach. I think that, you know, what was extraordinary was the different idea of the child. Her approach was, I would say today, a child-centered approach. That was the opposite of the approach that there used to be at that time, that was, you know, the teacher approach. There's the teacher who tried to transfer knowledge from his or her head into the head of the children. Maria Montessori said no, the children have already in themselves the ability of learning from the surrounding environment. You don't need to pour knowledge into their head. They are able to get this knowledge from the environment, from the stimuli, from the input that they receive from the world. And then, of course, you need— starting from this idea, you need to allow them to be in a proper and suitable environment.

Absolutely.

So that's why the environment became so important, you know, the prepared environment became the pillar of her approach.

Yeah.

And so he started since then to study and to structure a very complex, I mean, very comprehensive methodology to help the children, not just to, um, learn different subjects. Yeah. But what is most amazing to me of her entire work is that she went, I think, beyond education, I would say, because her idea was to help the, the human being to grow up healthy and in balance with himself and with the environment as an individual, as a social being, social part of a community. So she was more than, to me, than an educator, a pedagogue. She was a sort of philosopher because she had in mind the well-being of the entire mankind. Yeah, absolutely.

Can I ask you then, exactly on that, she, I mean, she traveled hugely, right? After that, she then went all over the world traveling to train different people, to set up, help people set up schools. But she also spent, I think because of the Second World War, was then stranded in India, right? So she was in India and then was put under house arrest in India. And one of the things I find interesting about that, when she was in Kodi Kanal and Chennai, I think, where she came up with these ideas about cosmic education, which I mean, it sounds crazy, right? But it sounds great, but it sounds exactly as you're saying about her being a philosopher and her have this consideration of the well-being of humankind. And then, yeah, these perhaps the influence of being in India. Could you talk a little bit about that, the idea of cosmic education?

Yeah, particularly it was India, you know, the time when she deepened this concept of cosmic education. Probably she had, I don't know, maybe even more time to concentrate. She has been, as a matter of fact, a sort of prisoner, you know, in India, because India was under the British administration and, you know, Italy was fighting against England, the UK. And so she was forced to stay there for 5, 6 years, years of the Second World War. But probably, yeah, it was surely an experience and was good to her because she didn't stop working, she didn't stop doing what she was doing, and she had the opportunity probably to focus even more on some ideas that she had together with her son and assistant Mario, no, because Mario dedicated also his entire life in studying and helping her mother in improving the theories that she had studied so far. Cosmic Education was, yes, the part of the maturity, I would say, of her entire work, because she was able to, in a way, establish all the connections among all the different areas of the knowledge that she had deepened in the previous years. And she developed this theory for which everything that is part of this universe is in a way interconnected. And so there is a relationship of cause and effect on everything that is part of the world. So if we change something in the nature, then this would have a number of effects. And so she tried to set up this theory for which everything is interconnected. And so also the child needs to understand this concept. So even when you teach children specific subjects that must always, or as much as possible, come in relationship to the other sphere of knowledge. So when you, for example, teach geography, you should always make a reference to the people who live in the area, to the animals who are living there, or so as to make the, the child aware of this interconnection that there are in the world. Yeah, of course, then it comes by itself, the fact that you need to be careful on every act that you do, because this might, you know, create effects on other people, other living beings on Earth.

Yeah, for me it's another example of just how incredibly ahead of her time she was, right? As a thinker, as a philosopher, as an educator, as a medic, as an anthropologist, all of those things. I mean, as a women's rights campaigner, children's rights campaigner, there were so many ways that she was just way ahead of her time. It's incredible. And now we talk about ecosystem approaches and complexity and the interconnection. I mean, it's really amazing.

Well, she was— I mean, she was a genius. I have to say, in her field. Because yes, you're saying she was able to understand things that only years or decades or even a century later then were actually discovered and proved by other people.

Amazing.

So that was, you know, the most extraordinary thing about her, that she was, as you said, yes, ahead of her time. But due to to the, the fact that she was a scientist. I mean, she started as a medical doctor, but her approach was a scientist approach she had used, and that is why I think her approach and method is still effective today after 100 years or more.

Amazing. Maybe if we could just bring it back to where we began in Gonzaga in a moment, but just by way of Italy generally, because one of the things you said at the beginning was that now, or even for quite a long time, Montessori schools are not so popular in Italy. And I think, you know, they exist in France where I live, or, you know, they exist in every country, but they're not hugely popular. I know that there are more of them, for example, in the Netherlands where she ended her life right after the war, where she lived. I wondered, do you think that's a historical factor related to Mussolini and the fact that they, in, during the war, they closed a lot of the, the Casa dei Bambini because of you know, political agendas? Why do you think that it's not such a strong tradition in Italy particularly now?

Yeah, of course, you know, the history has an important role in this. The fact that Maria Montessori was forced to leave the country and that all schools were closed by the regime in 1936 in Italy and in Germany, so they almost, you know, decided to close everything and almost everything, almost all schools, because the school here in Gonzaga remained open. Oh wow. Thanks to the Marchesa Guerrieri Gonzaga.

She had the right connections.

It was, yeah, true, true. He was, you know, of course, a wealthy lady, but then father was a member of the parliament and her brother-in-law was another member of the parliament. Yeah, she had good connections. But even when Maria Montessori was came back to Italy in 1947, invited by the Italian government and parliament. She had also a nice speech at the new parliament, because everything was new after the war here in Italy, talking about her approach. Even after being invited by the parliament, her method never took off because it never really entered into the public school system. And, you know, in Italy, especially, you know, years ago, almost all the educational system was public. The schools that grew up after the war in Italy were almost all private schools, and mostly kindergartens, because it was in the kindergarten age group that there were more private schools. While, you know, when you talk about elementary schools, so from 6 up, almost all schools were public. And that was a political problem, I think, that never really committed to take a serious step into introducing the Montessori approach into the public school system that was 95% of the educational system in Italy. Interesting.

Yeah, I mean, it's the same here in France. And with the Montessori schools, around 2,000 of them, which are, you know, are all private. It's interesting that it has never quite made that jump into the political sphere of public education. It's always been slightly outside. Yeah, very interesting.

Yeah, now in the recent years there's much more talking about Montessori, a lot of interest in this approach, and it's an interest that is coming mostly by the parents. Though, I mean, from the base, because, you know, parents most of the time, I mean, parents are trying to look for something better than what they find in the normal public schools. So they try to look around and to get information on that, and soon then they discover Maria Montessori.

So then if we bring it right back to you in Gonzaga and, you know, at GAM and, you know, with the company building furniture and making materials for Montessori. So right back to where we started in the local place of Gonzaga with you and your father. So firstly, I'd love if you could say a little bit more about the idea of why furniture and why the prepared environment is so important. I mean, you mentioned it earlier, but, you know, Obviously when you're designing the furniture, you're designing spaces for learning for Montessori classrooms. Why is that philosophically such an important part of the Montessori method?

Yes, of course, you know, as we said, you know, Maria Montessori's idea was that the child has already in himself the ability of learning from the environment. One of the main concepts in this regard is the so-called absorbent mind. Maria Montessori said that the child has an absorbent mind. That means that the child is able to absorb from what he sees, what he hears, what he feels, huge amount of information and of data from outside, especially in the first plane of education, as she said. You know, she has defined 4 planes of education. The first one is from 0 to 6, and then from 6 to 12, and 12 to 18, and 18 to 24. In the first stage, from 0 to 3, it's called an unconscious absorbent mind because the Children just, you know, takes in whatever he sees, he hears, and there is no intervention of his will. Whatever you show him, whatever experience he has, he or she absorbs it. And that is also a very delicate time, very good, because, you know, if the experiences are good, that's fine. But if you expose him or her to experiences that are not good, not healthy, they remain in the brain and it will be more difficult then to cure them or to change them when he or she is older. Then from 3 to 6, the observer mind becomes more conscious. So the child starts having the ability to take some decisions. And so that is when it is probably more important to set up the environment in the best way so as to offer a big variety of different stimuli, of different activities, and to give him the possibility to choose and to gain self-confidence to master the environment to master the objects that she has in environment. And so it is, you know, the development of the brain and the prepared environment are very deeply, strictly connected. The experiences that you get in the environment at that stage are the ones that then you will remember forever, and they are the foundation upon which you build your future knowledge, because if you, you know, build the right proper foundation, then you can build a big house or even a skyscraper. If the foundations are not good, then the house can wobble, pieces can fall apart, exactly, and you might have problems.

Yeah, it's really interesting to me because a lot of people talk about Montessori education, as you said, about this kind of developing self-confidence and autonomy and agency that young people develop But I think that is done within a very structured environment. So the idea that it's a prepared environment, they're not, they're not developing this agency and autonomy in a completely free and unknown environment. It's incredibly well thought through, well structured. And then obviously you then provide the furniture for that, as you know, in contribution to that. Right. But I think that structure is a really important constraint within which these young people are working.

Yeah, well, of course, then we could go even further deep into the details of the structure of the environment. You know, it's really, yeah, very structured, very organized. And I mean, in every single detail, I mean, Maria Montessori never left anything too random. She went so deep in defining every single little thing that is a part of the environment that is really amazing. If you don't know a bit the approach, you might think that, that it is even too much. But if you know how the children's brain works, then you understand why every single detail is important. I remember, for example, when I visit schools, very often you see Montessori schools, you see when they set up the tables, for example, for lunch, everything is in perfect order, you know, the fork, the knife, different objects that are on the table. Very often there's the vase with the flowers, little flowers on the table. There are, I mean, some little objects that you would say, okay, but they're just a matter of aesthetics and they're not necessary for that. But to the mind of children at that age, everything is important because it helps to have a mindset, you know, the mindset of the, the order, the environment. Everything must be also pleasant, inviting him, the respect of the things, taking care of things, taking care of the people. I don't know, grace and courtesy, for example, is another thing that is very popular in Montessori school because there are also a way that you relate to people or to the way to you handle things that is very important. And everything is important, okay, because it sets up a rule of behavior, you know, in a social community. Yeah, but also because it makes it easier in such an environment to concentrate, to focus. And then here we might get into the relationship with the, the theory of the flow that you mentioned.

Exactly. No, I think that's so interesting that there's a quality to the experience, and even the flowers on the table or the way things are set up Yes, it's aesthetic, but aesthetic is about the quality of your experience and valuing everything in that experience. As you say, it's formative for the children and it sets these kinds of habits and understandings that life is precious and we, you know, that there's a quality that we should respect and respect each other and value. Interesting. But yeah, as you said, just very briefly on that point about the absorbent mind getting lost, if you like, in flow, in focus, in that ability to Explore the environment and then find something that you are particularly interested in, in that, in that moment, at that time, and then allow yourself to get really lost in that and feel what that kind of participatory knowing of, of being involved with your environment doesn't often happen in traditional schooling.

Mm-hmm.

Because everything's very much to the bell, you move, you know, it doesn't matter if you're, if you really into this thing right now, you've gotta move on cuz it's the next lesson. So there's, And that's something I really think is an interesting part of the Montessori experience. And as you said, the environment is, is an important part of that.

Yeah, well, I think that Maria Montessori understood very well right from the beginning how important is concentration. She talked several times about that, even if in the book that I just mentioned, which in English I think it's also called Spontaneous Activity in Education. So there's a a chapter about the attention. I mean, attention meaning the concentration that the child needs to have. I think that she built her entire theory and her entire environment in trying to help the child to concentrate, to focus on the work that they were doing. Because if the child is concentrated, her or his ability to learn are in a way enhanced. You know, if you are in focus, your potential of learning is much bigger than if you are distracted by other things around you, or even distracted by things of the materials. She always, you know, tried to, for example, isolate one single quality for each material. That is one of the typical features of Montessori materials. Isolate one quality because the child needs to focus on that quality. That is the purpose that the materials is designed for. If you put together more inputs, more features, the children might be distracted because there are other things to take care and he or she doesn't know exactly on what to focus. If there is only one thing that is the purpose of the materials, it's much easier for him or her to reach the target and to win the challenge, you know, because materials are also must challenging the child. Of course, it must be a challenge that needs to be in line with the child's skills.

Of course, yeah.

Not too easy because otherwise he would get bored, and not too difficult otherwise he would abandon the task and lose self-confidence. And so this is, was, you know, has always been one of the main points of Maria Montessori. That is also what the, you know, flow theory is saying, you know, if you are the right, good set of skills and with a good level of difficulty, but something that anyway you can do it, you can get, then you get into this flow of concentration that that can help you to reach performance that otherwise you weren't able to.

And I think for me, those experiences are really important for children to have, because if we don't set up environments where they can get into that flow state, they never really experience it, and they, they don't really know what that is like. And then when they're an adult, perhaps they're still not experiencing it. So, and I think there's something addictive about it. We see that with, with extreme sports and surfers and rock climbers, you know, they get into this flow state where they're really in the zone. But you've also got this kind of cascade of insights, I think, in, in your brain when this is happening. And there's so many amazing things happening in that state that I think we are doing our children a disservice if we don't allow them those experiences to get into those states on their own, right, through their own choice.

Yeah, right.

And yeah, there's another important, uh, chapter that we would have to talk about maybe next time, because in this approach, in this environment, then the role of the teacher is completely different.

Exactly.

Yeah, absolutely. Is a guide. She or he has to guide the children into their own self-education, let's say. And so, but it's interesting also.

Absolutely. Wow. No, I mean, Michele, I could talk to you all day about this. This is amazing. Maybe we'll have to do a part 2 on the role of the teacher, because I think, I think it is absolutely fascinating and how relevant this is now, even though, as we said, we're talking about 150 years ago when she was born, 115 years ago when she set up the first Casa dei Bambini. It's just absolutely amazing. So yeah, thank you, Michele. Grazie mille.

Thank you, Tim Logan. Thank you.

Really, really amazing.

Okay, have a nice day.

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