The Children, Dante and Montessori

Paola Trabalzini gives an enlightening introduction to Maria Montessori’s Literary Experiment to introduce the poetry of Dante to children, initially to adolescents of 12-14, but later also 10-year olds embraced the study of Inferno [Hell]. Ms Trabalzini demonstrates that this lecture elucidates how the understanding of Dante's work follows a free and natural course, in which the children put forward proposals for new activities to answer their need to know; proposals which originate from the inner learning process experienced by the children with energy and enthusiasm. The essence is, as in all aspects of Montessori education, that this perfectly proves the case for auto-education.