Maria Montessori’s 'Psychogeometry' Published

Finally English speaking people will be able to read this book which has been edited by Professor Benedetto Scoppola, Associate Professor in Mathematical Physics at ‘Universita’ degli studi ‘tor Vergata’ in Rome.

David Kahn reviews this long-awaited publication:

The arrival of ‘Psychogeometry’ should occasion a champagne toast to Montessori-Pierson Publishing Company (under the direction of Alexander Henny) and the team that produced it, including the staff of the Association Montessori Internationale and Kay Baker as associate editor. Most of all, Professor Benedetto Scoppola should receive high praise in his own right for the balance of concrete teaching experience and scholarly approach he brings to the book in the form of insightful commentary and editorial perfection, making the book equally useful to educationaltheorists and practitioners.

‘Psychogeometry’ reads like a contemporary text thanks to Scoppola’s critical editing, which brings out the genius of Montessori through astute annotation, footnotes, and geometry exercises with refined colour illustrations. Bringing this work to the English-speaking world for the first time, this translation sets the standard of excellence needed for all Montessori books. ‘Psychogeometry’ is an invaluable Montessori perspective, first published in Spanish in Barcelona in 1934 and until now missing from the Montessori canon for English speakers. At 256 pages with more than 200 full-colour illustrations, ‘Psychogeometry’ uniquely introduces the way in which a discipline, when appropriately materialised, can emerge from the child’s very psychology. It is a comprehensive demonstration of what constitutes a psychodiscipline: the overview of the discipline, the study of the whole discipline and its parts, the parts constituting developmental keys in the form of materials for development through exploration, clear correlations to the developmental psychology of the child, and pathways to other disciplines, which are also materialised and shaped by developmental psychology.

This book is essential to understanding Montessori’s curriculum revolution across the planes of development through its consistent theme of how knowledge is acquired through the senses and processed through reasoning steps. Montessori makes her clearest case for the recursive connection of the centre (the central processing of the child’s mental life) to the periphery (the sensorial manipulations of the hand).There is a new level of awareness implicit in Montessori’s writing itself. We see her at the midpoint of her career, with twenty years of insight garnered from worldwide implementation, offering experienced reflection on her initial understandings.