Maria Montessori’s First International Training Course

Maria Montessori organized the 1913 training course in Rome in response to many requests, from all over the world, but particularly the United States. It is the first course specifically for international students to benefit from a bilingual curriculum. Whilst Montessori obviously delivered her lectures in Italian, simultaneous English translation was offered by two students: Zoe Bateman, who went on to become secretary of the Montessori Educational Association (USA), and Emily Greenman, who was one of the first to express interest in taking an English language course with Dr Montessori.

The lectures on this 1913 course chart Maria Montessori’s development as a thinker on human development. They show the depth of her background as a doctor of medicine, anthropologist, philosopher and pedagogue—giving an enthralling insight into how she was influenced by her time, where she adopted new and traditional ideas as an inspiration and where she went “against the grain”…

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