Educateurs sans Frontieres

In 1999 the Association Montessori Internationale (AMI) established the Educateurs sans Frontières (Educators without Borders) to champion the cause of all children and to revisit Montessori principles and practices from the perspective of society at large.

When using the term Educateurs sans Frontières, we refer to borders which transcend the obvious ones to do with nation states. The truly important ones are the psychological and spiritual frontiers - the ideological, religious, racial, social and economic, cultural and linguistic boundaries which artificially divide a humanity as yet largely unaware of its intrinsic unity and its interconnectedness with the earth that brought it forth.

Dr Montessori's work can be applied in a wide variety of ways which can benefit the cause of the child beyond the school and the home. Her own term for the pedagogy she created was 'Education as an Aid to Life', and education as an aid to life is applicable at any time, in any place, within all social strata, through public or private agencies, in settings rural, urban and remote.

When Montessori principles are applied in the wider context of society, their possibilities are vast and all-encompassing. They can be of incalculable help to parents, social workers, child-care workers, family counsellors, in short, to any person involved with the developing human being; they can be, and have been applied with children undergoing lengthy hospitalisation, maladjusted children, physically impaired children, children victims of violence, children abandoned, children at risk.

For further information visit the EsF website http://montessori-esf.org