0:00

Welcome to the History Tricks, where

0:02

any resemblance to a boring old history lesson

0:05

is purely coincidental.

0:08

Hello and welcome to the show. This is the

0:10

second of our summer

0:13

Gone Fishing New to You episodes.

0:16

We decided to continue the back to

0:18

school theme with one of

0:21

my absolute favorites. This is

0:23

a person that I had wanted to cover

0:25

for years before we finally did it. Maria

0:28

Montessori is very important to my

0:31

own child's education. I'm

0:33

sure I talk about that a lot in

0:35

this episode, but she took

0:37

a new philosophy in education

0:40

and turned it into a global

0:42

phenomenon. And I just really

0:45

thank her. I think she has been

0:47

the reason that my son is such an open minded

0:50

and creative learner. I am

0:52

perhaps a member of a cult in

0:55

that regard. But

0:58

I really would like to say thank

1:00

you to her and thank you to you

1:02

for understanding about the need for a

1:04

summer vacation. And we're

1:07

so thankful for you

1:08

and your presence in our lives as well.

1:11

On with the show. And here's your 30

1:13

second summary. What

1:17

did Julia Child, John Cusack,

1:19

Anne Frank, Jackie Kennedy, Taylor

1:22

Swift, Yo-Yo Ma,

1:24

Beckett Graham and the founders of Google

1:27

all have in common? Each of them went

1:29

to a Montessori school, a child centered

1:31

educational system that was founded

1:33

by Maria Montessori, the first

1:36

woman doctor in Italy who hoped her

1:38

efforts with children would one day lead

1:40

to world peace. The

1:43

end. Let's talk about

1:45

Maria Montessori.

1:46

But first let's drop her into history. In 1870,

1:50

construction of the Brooklyn Bridge began

1:52

and the first section of Atlantic City's boardwalk

1:55

opened. The modern soda fountain and

1:57

asphalt were both patented. The

2:00

monkey was first used as a symbol of the U.S.

2:02

Democratic Party, the U.S. Army,

2:04

established the National Weather Service, the

2:06

U.S. government established the Department

2:08

of Justice, and the final Confederate

2:11

states were added back into the Union. Compulsory

2:14

education was first introduced into legislation

2:17

in England. Charles Dickens, Robert

2:19

E. Lee, and Alexandra Dumas

2:21

died, and in 1870, future doctor and education

2:26

pioneer Maria Montessori began

2:28

her own early childhood

2:29

education. Maria Montessori

2:32

was born on August 31, 1870, in Chiara Valle,

2:34

Italy, the only child of Alessandra

2:39

Montessori and Renilda Stopani

2:41

Montessori. Maria was born

2:43

the year before modern Italy was.

2:46

You know what Italy's shaped like? It's a

2:48

boot, kicking a thing. Probably

2:51

the easiest country to pick out on a map of

2:53

Europe, but it was not always that way, not always

2:55

the Italy that we think of. It

2:58

was a whole bunch of little states, Sicily,

3:01

Sardinia, Tuscany, the people states,

3:03

etc., etc. They just kept going

3:06

on and on. Well, the grand struggle

3:08

to unify Italy into one country was called

3:10

the Risorgimento, and over

3:13

decades of struggle, they were wriggling

3:15

out from the Austrian boot on

3:17

their neck, ironically, due to the

3:20

country's shape, that had resulted in the

3:22

new Kingdom of Italy with Rome as

3:24

the capital. Maria's father Alessandro

3:27

had been born into a middle-class family

3:29

just

3:29

north of Bologna. His father, Nicola,

3:33

had been middle management at a tobacco company,

3:35

so he was able to get Alessandro

3:37

educated. It wasn't rare at the time,

3:40

especially for men, but it also wasn't mandatory

3:43

while Alessandro was growing up. When

3:45

he was a teenager, that revolution

3:47

that Becca was just talking about began,

3:49

and he signed up. He was

3:51

on the front lines of some of the very earliest

3:54

battles and was even decorated for

3:56

his efforts, earning himself a position

3:58

in the government.

3:59

clerk. He bounced around in jobs in his

4:02

20s like a lot of us do and

4:04

ended up in the same industry as his father

4:07

in the tobacco industry, which was run by

4:09

the state. It was a government run industry

4:11

in Italy. So by his middle

4:14

age, he was letting the youngins

4:16

continue the struggle and he

4:19

himself was prosperous and handsome,

4:22

a former revolutionary on the

4:24

inside, maybe, but

4:27

a model citizen on the outside. Let's call him

4:29

disciplined

4:29

and conservative at

4:32

this point, but wait, there's some

4:34

kind of rebel lurking within because during one

4:36

of his work assignments, he met Mama,

4:38

whose family was landed gentry,

4:41

but who had been educated

4:43

within an inch of her life

4:46

in a time when well over 75%

4:48

of Italy's population could not even sign

4:50

a document. And as a woman,

4:53

that is, that's like a unicorn. She

4:55

had an uncle who was a priest who was notable

4:58

for his scientific work, his

5:00

literary work. But of course, in

5:02

the world at large, there was no real

5:04

place for an educated woman to flex

5:07

her muscles or use her talent at

5:09

all. She was destined for marriage. Haven't

5:12

we heard that song before on this podcast? Yes,

5:14

we have. But

5:17

here's the thing. When she met this man,

5:19

they shared a common, I

5:21

guess, value. I don't know what the word is. I

5:23

hate the word value. What does that even mean? But they were

5:25

optimistic for the future of their new country. You

5:27

know, things are changing. Things are getting better.

5:30

And so Mama and

5:32

Papa were married. They spent

5:34

the next four years being an upwardly mobile

5:36

couple for Papa's job. They moved

5:39

around a lot. They went to Venice and

5:41

then back to Chiara Valle. And

5:43

four years after they were married, they became

5:46

united as a family when little Maria was

5:48

born. So Papa's job transferred

5:50

them a couple

5:51

more times. That's what happens to middle management

5:53

even today. Florence back to

5:55

Chiara Valle again and then hooray

5:58

at last off to the Grand

5:59

metropolis of Rome when

6:02

Maria was five. So what

6:04

that means to everyone is more

6:07

friends, more society, more museums,

6:09

things to do out of our small town. Hooray.

6:12

Well, a lot of the biographies

6:14

that you read of her say that she moved at 12 because

6:17

her parents wanted a better education

6:19

for her. And unfortunately, that's not the case.

6:21

She was five. She hadn't even begun school

6:23

yet. And they moved for his job. I

6:25

mean, yes, it's great to have all those things

6:28

available to them, including a good

6:30

education. But that's not the primary

6:32

reason why they moved to Rome. So Maria

6:34

went to the local public school at the age of

6:36

six on the Via de San Niccolò

6:39

de Talentino. First grade,

6:41

or the equivalent,

6:42

kindergarten had been introduced to Italy

6:44

a couple years before, but it was considered

6:47

wildly experimental and not at all

6:49

common. In fact, the whole educational

6:52

system in Italy, let's call

6:54

it a giant cock up. A

6:57

giant mess. Let's go with mess. In 40

7:00

years, there'd been over 30 ministers of education.

7:02

So you know how it is when a new boss comes to

7:04

your job, right? I mean, there's temporary chaos

7:06

for a year usually. And so in this case,

7:09

no one was able to settle before the next guy comes

7:11

on board. The

7:12

kids were taught by barely literate

7:15

teachers in enormously crowded

7:17

classrooms. Both schools didn't even

7:19

have basic supplies and were

7:21

taught by rote memorization. Maybe

7:24

reading, writing and math, if you were lucky,

7:27

children could work at the age of nine. That

7:29

was the legal age that they

7:31

could be employed. And a lot

7:33

of schools only went up to third grade if you

7:36

can believe that. And even that was difficult

7:38

for a lot of families because their kids had

7:41

been working in the fields.

7:42

They had been working in factories at a

7:44

very early age. And suddenly there's compulsory

7:47

education in Italy and they have to

7:49

make sacrifices for their families.

7:51

So even everything, there was nothing

7:53

that was easy about the school system at all. I

7:55

know. I guess when you have problems

7:58

not being able to send your six.

7:59

year old to work, there are darker

8:02

forces. Uh, yes. In most

8:04

cases. Economically. So, um,

8:06

so yes. So these kids for the most

8:08

part came from very economically

8:10

disadvantaged backgrounds, probably not in Maria's

8:13

neighborhood. Let's just be honest that she

8:15

came from an upper middle-class family. So her

8:17

compatriots were likely not in that

8:19

situation. No. And her family

8:21

life was vastly different. And Rinalda

8:24

was very much hands-on. She

8:26

was very liberal. She was an involved

8:28

parent right from the very beginning

8:29

of Maria's life. She didn't send her

8:32

off with nannies and nursemaids

8:34

or anything. She wanted to raise her own daughter.

8:37

So she made sure that Maria did

8:39

her chores. I mean, at a very, very young

8:41

age, she had her knitting things for

8:44

poor people in the community. So Maria

8:46

always had chores and she willingly

8:49

did them. That's the part that gets me as a parent.

8:51

Like, can you imagine your four-year-old going, oh,

8:53

I need to scrub the floor today. Let me do

8:56

all these floor tiles. Well, okay.

8:58

Spoiler alert. My

8:59

child went to Montessori school. So yes, in

9:02

fact, my four-year-old. Yes. I'm

9:05

sorry to spoil the arc of your story. No,

9:08

each one of them likes certain things. Like the Swiffer,

9:12

my youngest son was big on Swiffering, so

9:14

the wood floors were always clean and

9:16

my middle son loved to vacuum. So

9:18

those floors were always clean. But

9:21

other than that, you know, the things that also

9:23

needed to be done, they weren't so fast on doing.

9:26

I mean, they do now, obviously, but they're so much

9:28

older. Oh, I was going to say

9:29

it really fell off at about age 12. Oh,

9:32

okay. That's interesting

9:35

because that's when mine picked up. They

9:37

like do laundry. They see all of them. They

9:40

see laundry in the hamper. They'll do a load. Okay,

9:42

so

9:43

I will not allow people to do laundry in this

9:45

house, not even the grown up other people

9:47

because I have had too many

9:50

red tickets. You get red tickets if

9:52

you can have free dress at school. I have washed

9:54

red tickets and that does not end well. I have

9:56

washed upwards of 30 black

9:59

Sharpies.

9:59

because the chef coats have a hidden pocket. Oh.

10:02

You know what? And if I miss

10:04

them with all my pocket checking, no.

10:07

Nobody does laundry by me. And that is just,

10:10

and I don't even necessarily care

10:12

how it's done. I just don't want red streaks

10:15

on things. That seems like an easy bottom line

10:17

to have. Just no red streaks,

10:19

but nevertheless. Anyway. That's

10:21

funny. So Maria got her first award,

10:24

not for academics, in first grade for,

10:26

quote, good behavior. Night girls

10:29

are valued in a crowded

10:29

classroom. I'm telling you right now. Her

10:33

second award was for

10:35

women's work. So they were also taught

10:37

knitting. She had so much practice at it. So

10:40

the quality of her needlework, all to say she

10:42

was maybe not so academic.

10:44

No. At the time she wanted to be an actress.

10:47

That's what she said she wanted to be when she was younger. Okay.

10:50

And you and I both know Papa would never have allowed

10:52

that. Oh, no, no, no, not

10:54

at all. But she was also remembered as being very

10:57

sweet. You know, she was quiet and sweet and she

10:59

did all her chores. There's one story

11:01

that is told very often, and I

11:03

really hope it's true, that her parents were

11:05

squabbling one day. So Maria dragged

11:07

a little chair over and stood in between them

11:10

and put all their hands together kind of like

11:12

a family hug to get their parents to

11:14

stop fighting. I love that. She

11:18

okay. So she may have been sweet in the classroom

11:20

and in fact in the household, but

11:22

she was definitely the queen bee among her

11:24

friends. People looked to Maria

11:26

for, you know, what are we going to play today? And

11:29

her punishments for the violators

11:31

of her policies were extreme. She

11:34

would look at them coldly and say, remind

11:36

me that I've decided never to speak to you again.

11:41

One time her teacher, and this is a

11:44

second grade teacher, objected to

11:46

a defiant

11:46

look in her eye like wipe that face

11:48

off your head, you know, this Montessori

11:51

or whatever. And she never once

11:54

during the rest of the year, looked directly at that teacher

11:56

again for any reason. So as

11:58

she got older and

11:59

and encouraged by her mama. She began

12:02

to take her education more seriously.

12:04

At fourth grade, girls and boys were

12:06

split up in classes, so you couldn't go to school with boys

12:09

anymore as of that age, but

12:11

she was able to study geometry and

12:14

science, geography, a little history.

12:17

There is an irony here in that

12:19

the teacher had the girls memorize stories

12:22

of famous women in history. You should all

12:24

strive for such greatness. Ha,

12:27

said Maria, I care too much for

12:29

the children in the future to burden them with one more

12:32

boring story. Ouch,

12:35

way to insult our whole deal. You

12:37

know? And how ironic we're talking

12:39

about her right now. We're telling that story.

12:42

That's funny, yes. Kind of meta. I

12:44

love though that about this time, she realized

12:47

that learning was easy for her, and

12:49

it was easier for her than it was for her classmates.

12:52

You know, classmates were very upset when they didn't get

12:55

graduated to the next level, and

12:57

she's

12:57

like, why? One classroom

12:59

is the same as another. It just wasn't

13:01

hard for her. There was no struggle involved.

13:04

So that's why it was kind of a cool

13:06

thing at this point. I imagine for

13:08

her mother, who had been encouraging

13:11

her education her whole life,

13:13

you know, Renaldo wanted to do more

13:15

with her education, and she couldn't. So to

13:17

see her little girl suddenly clicking

13:20

with learning must have been a high.

13:22

Do you want to say though, it wasn't a dysfunctional

13:25

situation? Like we've seen with Louise

13:27

Brooks, where the mom wants to live

13:29

vicariously through the child. Oh, right.

13:31

Oh

13:31

yes. I didn't want to say she was a helicopter

13:34

parent because she was, yes,

13:37

technically, but in the best way possible.

13:39

Just super encouraging and making sure

13:41

that Maria had things that she needed. Yeah.

13:44

I thought she was a really good parent. Very unusual

13:46

for the parents that we read about. You know, we read about

13:48

a lot of dads who let their kids read whatever

13:50

they wanted, but in this situation, it's

13:53

Renaldo that's saying, yes, read everything.

13:55

It is a lot easier to focus

13:57

on the child when you only have the one too. So

13:59

I'm just saying.

13:59

Oh, absolutely. You know,

14:02

and I keep debating like, why was she like

14:04

this? Was she like this because of who she was or

14:06

how much of it had to do with her nurturing? She

14:09

had so much privilege and she had parents

14:11

that let her do things and encouraged

14:13

her. So yeah, I'm with you. She

14:16

started to see these examinations

14:18

that were given at the end of every school year as

14:20

a personal challenge. And I do

14:23

think

14:24

maybe it was an interesting papa's work. Maybe

14:26

it's a little more of a I

14:29

don't know, but Maria became all caught up in the study of math,

14:31

a concept completely foreign to

14:33

me, but to the point where she took

14:36

her math book to the theater and studied

14:38

it by the stage lights one night during

14:41

the performance. Rude, I say

14:43

as the child of performers, huh?

14:45

I say as a person who does not love

14:47

the mathematics. Oh yes. And how

14:49

interesting is a person who's read at

14:52

her child's sporting events. So

14:55

there are many facets to taking a book to places

14:57

where you ought to be paying attention. And

15:00

I did take

15:01

books to baseball practice,

15:03

but never to a game. Oh, okay.

15:05

I have taken them to games, but I

15:08

just read them like at the downtime because there's a lot

15:10

of downtime in sports, especially football.

15:13

That's all I'm going to say about that. Football

15:15

time is a whole other kind of scale. Oh my

15:18

gosh. My youngest son just told me he doesn't want

15:20

to play football anymore. Hooray! I

15:22

know the angels are singing.

15:25

So Papa did not really

15:28

love the academic daughter

15:30

situation. Can we not get back

15:33

to those awards for needlework?

15:35

Yes. When Maria was

15:37

about 10, he was knighted,

15:41

I guess I would say. It's a title that

15:43

doesn't exist in English, but it functionally, he

15:46

was surmontesory now, but he

15:48

had new status in a new

15:50

country. And what will the neighbors think?

15:53

Kind of, you know, I have a position to maintain

15:55

and this

15:55

sort of unicorn as a daughter is

15:57

not polished.

15:59

my halo, kind of. But

16:02

it didn't come to a head until Maria was 12.

16:04

When she told her father about her

16:06

plans for her further education, most

16:09

girls honestly stopped going to school at 12. And

16:11

those that went on really settled

16:14

on what was called the classical track in

16:16

education where you studied a lot of literature,

16:19

you went into Latin, you went into Greek, and

16:22

you know, I'm sure needlework and advanced

16:24

needlework and needlework 3 and

16:26

you know, and of course they do like

16:28

pursuits of music,

16:29

etc. Well, Maria decided

16:32

that she wanted to follow the technical

16:35

branch of higher education. What

16:37

you had there was three years of math,

16:40

bookkeeping, history, science,

16:43

geometry, geology. It's like modern junior

16:45

high or middle school. And then you had four years,

16:48

this is where the technical part comes in, of math,

16:50

science, physics, chemistry, and

16:52

then what was called modern languages,

16:54

i.e. things people still spoke,

16:57

like English and French. They were

16:59

allowed to take technical

16:59

drawing. A dark cloud

17:02

emerged over Papa's head. He was

17:06

not on board for this plan at all.

17:08

It was one thing for his daughter to continue her education.

17:11

It was another to continue down this,

17:13

you know, male dominated path. He

17:15

wanted no part of it.

17:17

Well, there was no winning over

17:19

the female pressure at home. He

17:23

let her go reluctantly. In

17:25

the particular track that she took, academics

17:28

were super important passing those exams.

17:30

Failure was not an option at this

17:33

point, although the learning system

17:35

was very similar to the younger grades.

17:37

You know, they had books that they read, they did

17:39

no work in class, there were lectures,

17:42

they did any work at home, and then there

17:44

were these tests where they just, you know, regurgitated

17:46

the information that they

17:47

just memorized. Yes, the master talks,

17:49

you listen, sit in your assigned seat, no discussion,

17:52

there's no theory, only this syllabus to

17:54

get through for the test. The test, which

17:57

is what school is all about, you know what I mean?

17:59

So, Maria was not the only girl

18:02

there, but the female students were

18:04

not allowed out at recess, lest

18:06

they be teased or lest

18:09

they act immodestly. They were

18:11

also required to have an escort home. Respectable

18:13

lady persons did not walk unaccompanied

18:15

in the streets of Rome at all. So,

18:18

junior high was the Regia Scuola Technica

18:20

Michelangelo Buonarotti. And

18:23

that name, of course, should be famous. That's Michelangelo,

18:25

but I didn't know his last name until I read

18:27

the mixed-up files of Mrs. Basil

18:30

E. Frankweiler. I didn't

18:32

know it until like two weeks ago. Oh,

18:35

well, I highly recommend this book about two

18:37

kids. They run away from home and

18:39

they live in the Metropolitan Museum of Art for

18:41

a week. And I really, really like it. And that's where

18:43

I learned his last name. So that made me smile

18:46

just reading that name. But she did great.

18:49

Absolutely stellar in middle

18:51

school. Awesome. Then

18:53

she moved on to the Regio Technico

18:55

Leonardo da Vinci. That's high school. She

18:59

horrified her father here

19:01

at the end by saying she felt inspired

19:04

to become an engineer like a lot of people

19:06

at her school, boys at her

19:08

school. Both Mama and Papa

19:11

urged her, please do not take such

19:13

a ladylike step. Please become a teacher

19:15

if you have to have a profession. She categorically

19:18

and ironically, given her future,

19:21

refused to consider becoming a teacher.

19:23

Nope. How funny is that?

19:25

All right. All right. I'm

19:28

going to be an engineer, Papa. How about this? I'll

19:30

be a doctor. Oh, oh, oh, like,

19:33

oh, my gosh. Some of Ma takes to bed with

19:35

a wet rag on her forehead and Papa,

19:38

I don't know, starts smoking. I don't

19:40

know what he does. There are no women doctors in

19:43

Italy. Maria, don't be ridiculous. Okay.

19:45

Okay. Be an engineer. Too

19:48

late. Papa, I've made my decision. I'm going to be

19:50

a doctor. So why did she take this

19:52

turn from engineering to doctoring?

19:55

What happened to her? Well, both Becca

19:57

and I don't quite understand it, but

19:59

that's okay.

19:59

because Maria understood it. It's

20:02

a story that it's told a lot about her. One

20:05

day, she was walking down the street. She

20:07

saw a woman begging and at her feet

20:09

was her child, just a little toddler. The

20:11

woman was asking people for money and food

20:13

and just doing what

20:15

beggars do, but the child was holding

20:18

a tiny strip of red paper. He

20:20

was moving it around in his hands and it

20:22

held all of his attention. Nothing

20:24

that was going on in the street could break

20:26

his concentration on this little piece of

20:28

paper. And Maria was

20:29

just watching it and she had an epiphany

20:32

that I can't connect the dots,

20:35

but that's okay because she could. And she said, I

20:37

want to be a doctor.

20:38

So to me, I don't understand that because that

20:40

story actually seems to pertain

20:43

to a later part of her life

20:45

where that would be applicable to

20:48

her Montessori method of education.

20:51

So to me, I don't even know what this has to

20:53

do with becoming a doctor. So I

20:55

was all for leaving that story out because I fully didn't

20:58

understand it, but there you go. It's

21:00

out there. I have another theory too that

21:02

it was put in there, that maybe it did happen,

21:04

but it happened at another point.

21:06

And it was put in that particular part

21:09

of the timeline. So that in

21:11

the future we go, oh, that was one of the

21:13

steps that she needed to make to get to her

21:15

end career. Well, and I think there was

21:17

a giant element of since

21:20

manic panic was not available to

21:22

dye one's hair blue. And

21:26

the punk rock scene had not yet ramped

21:28

up to its fullest potential. This

21:31

was a very, very good way to show

21:33

your defiance and

21:36

your

21:36

determination to run your own life. Oh

21:39

yeah, that's a valid point. Maybe

21:43

I'm cynical. No, you're not. You're actually

21:45

very unconventional. And maybe you relate

21:47

to her on that level. Cause that would have been

21:49

you, right? Yes, I approve

21:53

of you telling me not to do something because now

21:55

I'm gonna do it. Watch this.

21:59

University of Rome himself. Why not

22:02

go to the top? And while their conversation

22:04

was well bred and pleasant

22:07

and he was perfectly chivalrous, he made

22:09

it clear that over his own

22:11

personal dead body, would any female

22:14

be admitted to his medical school, Miss

22:16

Montessori. She shook his hand and she

22:18

promised to be back. She did enroll

22:20

at the University of Rome because that was open to

22:22

her as a woman and she decided she was going

22:24

to major in physics. Technically, like

22:27

now, she was going to have to get her undergraduate degree

22:29

before she

22:29

went to medical school anyway.

22:32

So get into the college that she wants to go to

22:34

medical school, study zoology

22:36

and botany and physics and chemistry

22:38

for two years. Take your final exams

22:41

and earn that degree and then address

22:43

the next step. So here is

22:45

where I wish someone would have kept better

22:47

records of this because against

22:50

the wishes of the actual head of

22:52

the medical faculty, Maria Montessori,

22:54

age 22, was admitted to

22:57

the medical school at the University of Rome.

22:59

She

22:59

is the only woman student

23:02

in that department. Now how many strings were pulled?

23:04

Who pulled them? Maria later credited

23:07

the Pope, Pope Leo XIII.

23:09

You know what? That's perfectly possible

23:12

because did we forget? She

23:14

has a famous uncle, a famous

23:16

priest uncle who had

23:19

recently published a work in which he

23:21

expressed that science and religion

23:23

were partners, not opponents. And

23:26

Pope Leo is kind to that guy too.

23:28

He reopened the Vatican's

23:29

observatory and I quote,

23:32

so that everyone might see that the church

23:34

is not opposed to true science but

23:36

embraces it with the fullest possible

23:38

devotion. Pope Leo advocated for

23:40

trade unions, for safe working conditions, for

23:43

fair wages. A Pope like this

23:45

with a relative like that might

23:47

be true. That the order to let her in

23:49

came from the top. Like who else

23:52

is going to override the boss at the university? But

23:54

the Pope, who's the authority? She

23:57

thought she was going to the highest collar with the

23:59

head.

23:59

of the school, but oh no, no, she went above his

24:02

head. Pope Leo also said that the

24:04

best occupation for a woman is medicine.

24:06

So did he say that because Maria had

24:09

come to him pleading her case, or

24:11

is it the other around? He said it and she

24:13

said, okay. Well, the Pope said it and argued

24:16

behind closed doors. Or the third

24:18

thing. Oh, what is it? What people

24:21

are kind of thinking it was a backdated

24:23

scenario. She had already become such,

24:25

and then that was almost like praise. Like, see,

24:28

this must be the best profession

24:29

for a woman. Look how well it worked out.

24:32

So there it is. It is nothing but a tantalizing

24:34

question mark. However, it does have some

24:36

bases. It's not as far-fetched as

24:38

if I said I called the Pope. She actually

24:41

did have some street cred connections,

24:43

you know. So there you go. That's

24:46

out there. So things were tough

24:48

for the new student, not so much from the

24:50

teachers exactly who might have

24:52

been told by the Pope to let her in. And

24:55

therefore, we're out of that business of objecting.

24:57

But her fellow students were horrible.

25:00

That's a nice way to put it. I

25:02

mean, they were basically irritated

25:04

that a woman had infiltrated

25:06

their boys club. And part of me is

25:08

thinking, they're thinking, oh my gosh,

25:11

what if she does better than me? Just like

25:13

earlier, Papa had to walk her to all of

25:15

her classes. She was a single woman. She could

25:17

not be walking the streets by herself. So

25:19

he had to bring her to school every day.

25:22

However, he stopped speaking to her.

25:24

So I'll walk you. But I'm not authorizing

25:27

this by humor or whatever. He

25:29

was so seethingly angry about

25:31

this whole thing. I mean, really, I guess 10

25:34

points for walking her to class because he

25:36

could have easily said I'm not doing that. And

25:38

then what? Like, what would she have done? She probably

25:40

would have just asked someone else to walk her.

25:43

You would have got the Pope to walk her.

25:45

Maybe the bishop. She would have got

25:47

the Pope to walk her.

25:50

Oh my gosh. Can

25:52

you imagine? Yes, actually. Yeah,

25:55

me too. That would actually take a long time. I think

25:57

people would have things to ask or say to the Pope.

25:59

She might have to.

25:59

it more time for the commute. Yeah, but just

26:02

like the first few times because after a while it

26:04

would just become commonplace. Is it

26:06

commonplace to see the Pope walking down

26:08

your street? I just don't know. It is the

26:10

first two weeks after that. It's like,

26:12

oh hey, how's it going? Hey Leo, what's

26:14

up? Sad. Well, so

26:17

her fellow students were quite horrible to

26:19

her. So she gets to school, they

26:21

were constantly saying things under

26:23

their breaths, you know, that's one thing.

26:25

And she would always either pretend she didn't hear them

26:28

or respond back in a ladylike

26:29

manner that like, you know, I'm rubber

26:32

your glue, bounces

26:34

off you or whatever the thing is. And she

26:36

was not allowed to go into class

26:38

with everyone else. She had to wait in the hallway till everyone

26:40

was seated. Not out of second classness

26:43

necessarily, but because it was considered

26:45

unseemly for a woman to be

26:47

even accidentally jostled

26:50

around by men folk on their way into the

26:52

classroom. So she had to wait and then

26:54

take her seat in a calm way. But the

26:57

students often made sure there wasn't an empty

26:59

seat for

26:59

her. Yeah, they took pains to do that.

27:02

Not cool. They would cat call and

27:04

they would whistle at her because she was a woman amongst

27:06

their mixed and won't this make her feel really

27:09

uncomfortable. And one day they whistled

27:11

at her and she just stopped and she turned

27:13

around and she smiled at the guy and she said,

27:15

the harder you blow, the higher

27:17

I go. So it

27:19

was her mother's support and encouragement

27:21

that got her through, I think, and also

27:23

her natural ambition and a desire

27:25

to prove people wrong. But there

27:28

was another challenge ahead when it came time

27:30

for anatomy class. And this is not

27:33

unique to lady persons.

27:36

It is not unique to her time

27:38

and place. There are many forums

27:41

talking about how to get through anatomy class,

27:43

how to deal with the psychological ramifications

27:46

of walking into a room full of

27:48

cadavers. It's amazing the rabbit hole I

27:50

fell down their support groups and everything.

27:53

Well, in this time, Maria's time,

27:55

they had to kind of come up with a plan on

27:57

the fly because this has never happened before. But

28:00

they decided it was unseemly, again,

28:02

for the men students to look at nude

28:04

bodies in the presence of a woman.

28:07

I mean, honestly, if you can't even go to fourth grade

28:09

with a girl, you know,

28:11

I can see how the society would be like this.

28:14

They, the male students, did their dissection

28:17

together in the light of day during

28:19

regular class time. But Maria

28:22

had to come in after hours and spend

28:24

her time alone in a room full

28:26

of skeletons, full of jars

28:28

labeled with murderers titles,

28:31

you know, their brains in a jar. Why is the

28:33

murderer like this? Let's examine his brain. And

28:36

just row after row of partially dissected

28:38

human beings. Her first experience

28:41

with anatomy class nearly made her quit altogether.

28:44

She had a crisis. She wrote all about how

28:46

these were once people like myself.

28:49

And she had a hard time from being so

28:51

sheltered from anything unpleasant her

28:53

whole life. Let's jump in the deep end. This

28:56

scene from every haunted hospital

28:58

video game on earth. Unlike

29:01

her male co-students, there

29:03

were no jokes. There's nobody to talk to about

29:05

this. There's certainly no internet forums.

29:08

She had such a nervous breakdown when she got

29:10

home that even Mama, her

29:12

strongest supporter in this whole endeavor, advised

29:15

her to quit medical school. Maria was composing

29:18

her resignation letter in her head.

29:20

I mean, even during her classes

29:23

in botany, they never

29:25

brought a leaf into the classroom. It

29:27

was leaves in books. So

29:30

certainly she'd never been exposed to insides

29:33

of human bodies. You know,

29:35

that's a jump from the theoretical to the practical.

29:37

And it's a big jump. Well, her

29:39

first hands on experiences are hands

29:42

in somebody's body. Yeah,

29:44

that's got to be traumatizing.

29:46

So she really struggled to overcome this part

29:48

of her medical training. And I am astonished

29:51

at the failure of my own memory

29:54

here. I swear to you, though I couldn't

29:56

tell you who it was, that once before in the

29:58

history of this show.

30:00

The History Chicks podcast, we

30:02

encountered a woman who went to medical school,

30:05

encountered anatomy class and left

30:08

and went on to some completely other career.

30:10

And I thought it was Belva Lockwood, but I

30:12

can't for the life of me figure out who

30:15

it is and it's driving me insane. So if

30:17

anyone is listening out

30:19

of order or goes back to the Wayback

30:21

Machine and encounters that, I would appreciate a note

30:23

because I honestly have been digging and digging

30:25

and can't figure out who that is.

30:27

Yeah, you asked me and I had, I

30:29

don't even have any recollection of it.

30:32

So, but you're asking the right people

30:34

because if anybody remembers, it's somebody

30:36

who's listening right now. Maria changed her

30:38

mind. She thought about it. She tried

30:40

to think of solutions and she hired

30:43

a man to come be with her

30:45

in the anatomy lab so she'd

30:47

have company she wouldn't be all alone. And

30:50

part of his job description was that he was

30:52

to smoke, constantly lighting

30:54

one from the other and to blow

30:56

the smoke right in her face to mask

30:59

the smell in the room.

30:59

Like that is a very interesting

31:02

job description, I guess. Whatever

31:04

works. You know what? It's brilliant

31:06

problem solving. And I have to wonder how

31:09

much Rinalda had a part of that

31:11

because that was kind of one of the things she was doing now.

31:13

She was really team Maria. She felt

31:16

that she was part of the process. Maria

31:18

would come home from school and give her lectures

31:20

on what she learned and Rinalda would help

31:23

her with learning techniques and study techniques.

31:25

And one time there was this huge textbook.

31:28

It was too heavy to carry around

31:29

all the time. So Rinalda said, well, why don't

31:32

we just chop it up into sections?

31:34

You carry around that section until you're done with it. Then

31:36

take the next one. And at the end of the year, we'll

31:39

get the whole book rebound. That's brilliant.

31:41

Just like having the guy blow

31:42

smoke in her face. That's extreme.

31:45

Well, she never told the faculty about

31:47

any of these accommodations that she had

31:49

made for herself. She just became known

31:52

for her fortitude. So fake

31:54

as it was. That's the original fake it till

31:56

you make it. Keep

31:58

it all inside.

31:59

See your weakness, but you know, she's

32:02

handling her business in a very unusual

32:04

way.

32:04

This medical school at the time

32:07

was very interested in processing

32:11

young men through their program. I

32:13

guess I would stop short of calling

32:15

it a diploma mill exactly,

32:17

but they were very interested in checking

32:20

off the boxes. The students for the most part

32:22

wanted the status of the title

32:25

Dottore. They wanted the gentleman C.

32:27

We've seen that before too. It's

32:29

just Kate,

32:31

and most of the time we'll just be partying and

32:33

hanging out in coffee houses with our friends, etc. But

32:35

here was this woman student who

32:38

came to every class, who asked

32:40

questions, who paid attention in lectures,

32:43

who is actually trying to educate

32:46

herself despite everything.

32:48

Now if you're a professor and every

32:50

time you look up, you see this one person making

32:53

notes and listening to everything you say

32:55

and nodding and then asking an intelligent

32:57

question, and then you have this other guy who you

32:59

saw the first day and

33:01

you saw on test day

33:03

and between the two, and also he gets

33:05

a 69 or 71 in your class. He

33:08

like squeaks it. Who are you going to

33:10

like better? Who are you going to talk about in the staff

33:12

room? Oh yeah, and I can't help

33:15

but imagine that that didn't bode

33:17

well for them liking Maria at all,

33:19

the students. That's just one more reason

33:22

not to like her. Well they cannot

33:24

like her all they want because

33:26

Maria won a prestigious

33:29

academic prize that came with a very

33:31

generous scholarship out of all

33:33

the students, and she didn't get it

33:35

because she was a woman. She got it because

33:37

she was a very good student, the best

33:40

in the business, very diligent. She

33:43

ended up making enough money also tutoring.

33:46

I'm guessing she tutored young girls. I

33:48

can't imagine her father would let her tutor fellow

33:51

students. No. And

33:53

would she tutor these guys that were

33:55

mocking her all day? Would they even

33:57

ask? I don't think so.

33:59

Well, Papa had

33:59

this whole other category of things to disprove of

34:03

because she was making money and she

34:05

won a position as an assistant at

34:07

a hospital. Another very, very rare

34:10

coveted thing to, it's like an internship,

34:12

but to get practical experience before

34:14

you were qualified, that is incomparable.

34:17

That is very valuable to your future

34:19

as a doctor. If that's your goal

34:21

is to practice medicine and not just to walk into cocktail

34:24

parties with the name of Dr. What's-His-Name. Well,

34:26

during her last two years of medical school, she

34:28

worked at four different hospitals.

34:29

I just don't know how she has the

34:32

time, including a psychiatric

34:34

one and a children's hospital, which will break your heart

34:36

every time. Not only was she busting

34:39

all these glass ceilings, but she was doing

34:41

it in a very feminine way. She

34:43

wasn't one of those students who just, you know, let her

34:45

looks go and let her hair down, which

34:47

is fine, but it was important to her

34:49

to always look nice. So these guys are

34:51

going to class with this beautiful woman who's

34:54

always well put together, who's very polite,

34:56

who wouldn't let them walk behind

34:59

her up the stairs.

34:59

She's just very well mannered,

35:02

which I'm sure must have made

35:04

her father happy. And I think it

35:06

was just part of her personality too. You

35:08

know, she wouldn't have thought to be any other way. I

35:11

am reminded of Florence Nightingale, who

35:13

under the surface was just raging,

35:16

ambitious person, but on the outside, paid

35:18

calls, went to the dressmaker,

35:21

this and that. And you know what? We had the same conversation

35:23

when we talked about Lillian Gilbreth, the

35:25

mother from Cheaper by the Dozen, who

35:28

they said in the paper, even

35:30

though the bride has advanced degrees,

35:33

she is nevertheless an attractive

35:35

young woman. It's just shocking to

35:37

me how these two things don't

35:39

seem to be able to coexist in people's minds.

35:42

And it's like blowing their minds the

35:44

whole time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that's

35:46

really the only reason that I'm bringing it up because you

35:48

can dress however you want to go to class. I

35:50

wear pajamas quite often.

35:53

Well, that is where I draw the line.

35:56

They were cute. And I rolled up the sleeves.

35:58

I like made them look cute.

35:59

I swear. They were like

36:02

men's pajamas. So they matched. It

36:05

was the 80s. You could do stuff like that. Just throw

36:07

in a bunch of O-ring bracelets and

36:09

you're golden. Ew. No. Maybe

36:12

I'm wrong. Maybe this is how I

36:14

rebelled.

36:16

We

36:18

all need to at some point.

36:20

At the end of one's medical

36:22

training in Italy, the students

36:25

had kind of like a speech day where

36:27

you exhibit your knowledge by giving

36:30

a speech on a topic of your choosing.

36:32

And Maria was particularly nervous, of

36:34

course. All eyes were upon her. So there's

36:36

the public speaking element. But then there's

36:39

the antagonistic nature of her fellow

36:41

students. She said when she walked on

36:43

that stage, she felt, and this is an interesting

36:46

concept, like a lion tamer,

36:49

which seems like a position of power to me.

36:51

She thought, okay, I now have

36:54

the job of winning everyone in this audience over.

36:56

She didn't get up there thinking, okay, I just have

36:59

to duck and dodge and hope that it, you know,

37:01

no, she got up there with the intention of running

37:03

that room.

37:04

So Papa, so

37:06

the legend goes, had

37:09

no intention of coming to speech

37:11

day. He didn't even know about it until

37:13

somebody told him.

37:15

So that's how the story goes. But an acquaintance.

37:18

Oh, I'm so happy to see you. Let's walk together.

37:20

Like together to what? This is, again,

37:22

how the story goes. It's very heightened. He

37:25

goes and stands in the back and

37:27

his daughter gives her speech where she is a lion

37:29

tamer and receives a standing

37:32

ovation.

37:33

And when this acquaintance pointed

37:35

out, this is my friend. That's his

37:38

daughter. Everyone came up to congratulate

37:40

him. Yeah. Papa

37:44

was bewildered in sort of impressed

37:47

against his will. And so after she defended her

37:49

dissertation on July 10th, 1896, at the age of 25, Maria Montessori

37:51

was awarded her degree as doctor.

37:59

of medicine. Though

38:02

many of the words on her diploma had to be changed

38:04

to reflect feminine pronouns and

38:06

nouns. For the first time ever in

38:09

Italy that's the problem when everything in your

38:11

language has a gender. You gotta

38:13

do a lot more editing than he slash she.

38:16

So she is the only woman doctor

38:18

in Italy. Maria Montessori became

38:21

quite the celebrity. Maria wrote

38:23

to one of her friends,

38:24

everybody looks at me and follows me

38:27

as if I were a famous personality.

38:29

My celebrity derives from this fact.

38:31

I look delicate and I look shy and

38:34

it's known that I look at corpses and touch

38:36

them, that I look at naked bodies without

38:38

fainting, that nothing shakes me, that

38:40

I'm indifferent and so cold-blooded

38:43

that the very examiners are disconcerted.

38:46

So here I am, famous. On

38:48

the other hand my dear it's not very difficult. I'm

38:50

not famous because of my skill. I'm not famous

38:52

because of my intelligence but for my courage

38:54

and my indifference toward everything.

38:56

This is something which one can always

38:59

achieve. But it does take tremendous

39:01

effort.

39:27

The new, famous, Dr.

39:29

Montessori was the natural choice

39:31

to represent Italy in an international

39:33

women's conference to be held in Berlin.

39:36

Much was made similar

39:39

to what happened in Italy of the contrast

39:41

between her outward appearance and her intellect.

39:43

Reporters kept harping on how feminine

39:46

she was. Not at all what one would

39:48

expect from such a monster as this,

39:50

you know, thank you question mark.

39:53

She had one reporter who interviewed her in

39:55

Rome before she even went who

39:57

was

39:57

really shocked that he found someone

39:59

who was friendly and feminine, he said, quote,

40:02

the delicacy of a talented young woman

40:04

combined with the strength of a man, an ideal

40:07

one doesn't meet every day. So

40:10

you remember when we were talking about Annie

40:13

Londonderry and how people in France thought

40:15

that a woman in pants was not a woman

40:17

at all with some kind of third species, you

40:20

know? Yeah. It

40:22

seems like it's just like something they cannot

40:25

overcome.

40:26

They expect her to act

40:28

more like a man if she's going to have a brain

40:30

like that. So there is the undercurrent

40:33

of what is going on. But there's also

40:35

pride. The town that she had been born

40:37

in, Caravale, they went around

40:39

and collected for her to get her, well,

40:42

it was only 50 lira, which isn't very

40:44

much like 100 bucks, but that doesn't matter.

40:47

They went around and collected from the village because they wanted to

40:49

help send their daughter

40:51

to Berlin and onto this international

40:54

stage. How sweet is that? Well, I'm

40:56

glad that society as a whole

40:58

is catching up, you know? Yeah,

41:00

yeah, no kidding.

41:01

She was at the conference and before

41:03

the main event, there was a counter protest.

41:06

There were some lower class women protesting outside

41:09

about the injustice that

41:11

these middle class and upper class women

41:14

were agitating for their rights, but

41:16

seemed to have forgotten their

41:19

needs. It's not just for the upper class.

41:22

There was a need for solidarity among all

41:24

classes of women. And Maria Montessori

41:26

agreed. She volunteered to go out

41:28

and speak to these women and calm the waters.

41:30

And she spread

41:31

a message of action. And

41:33

I guess filled everybody with hope. There

41:35

was applause. There was a claim on

41:38

both things. She gave the official

41:40

speech she gave and the impromptu

41:43

speech she gave outside. And

41:45

even the official speech, she didn't really

41:47

have notes. She was just winging it.

41:49

She was holding paper to give the illusion

41:51

that she had this all organized. That

41:54

she was charming the crowd. She

41:56

was winning them over. And she was just

41:58

speaking.

41:59

newspaper, here

42:02

was a story. Everyone

42:04

was amazed. This physician-surgeon

42:06

graces the speaker's podium as if it were

42:09

a box at the theater. And

42:11

all the large questions she talks about,

42:13

the emancipation of the peasant and factory

42:15

women, the economic and legal rights of married

42:18

women, are discussed in a Roman accent

42:20

that sounds like music. Suddenly

42:22

one wishes there were a hundred thousand such

42:24

physician surgeons. So

42:27

serious things were discussed at this conference. Equal

42:30

pay for equal work was a big one. Educational

42:33

opportunities for women, relief work,

42:35

children's issues, of course, and

42:37

world peace, which has been a perennial

42:40

and remains to be an issue. Also

42:42

in the paper, the appearance of the young Dottarasa

42:45

Montessori overcame the sarcasm

42:47

of the gentleman present and made them smile

42:50

with pleasure. You know, we

42:52

can be forgiven, can't we, for

42:54

rolling our eyes a little bit. Not

42:57

at Maria Montessori, of course, who cannot

42:59

help her face and its attractiveness,

43:01

but the press latching on to the wrong aspect

43:04

of a genuine contributor. Turning

43:06

it into some kind of celebrity

43:08

spokesmodel is kind of how she was viewed.

43:10

So she was getting all this press, which that's

43:13

great, right? No. She was absolutely

43:16

furious. She had gone up there, she had done

43:19

serious work and talked about serious issues,

43:21

and the takeaway of all these people was

43:24

that she was pretty. She

43:26

said, quote, my face will not appear

43:28

in the newspapers anymore and no

43:30

one will dare to sing of my so-called

43:33

charms. Again, I

43:34

shall do serious work.

43:38

Good. Yeah, no kidding. In addition

43:40

to her hospital work, and Dr. Montessori

43:43

had a private practice because

43:46

what was one going to do with one's spare

43:48

time? She was notable for sort

43:51

of the global approach so she could

43:53

prescribe, yes, diagnosed,

43:55

but also tuck in. Listen,

43:58

maybe make you some soup. Her patient

44:01

felt that she really cared.

44:03

She felt like part of the family,

44:06

kind of. It's hard to explain. And

44:08

her fellow doctors kept asking her,

44:10

where are you demeaning yourself with all

44:12

this manual labor after all of your

44:14

hard work and all the struggles you've been through, you're making

44:16

soup for people now? Why go back to

44:18

women's work? And she had

44:20

a good point. This is human's work, all

44:23

of it. And you know, counter to

44:25

me stopping, how about boys starting?

44:28

Maybe boys should be trained in this aspect

44:29

as well. Oh, that's radical. No

44:32

kidding. You know, she reminded

44:34

me a lot of Marmee and Beth

44:36

at this, you know, she went to the houses of these

44:39

very poor people. There's one instance, there

44:41

was a mother who had just given birth to twins. And

44:44

instead of just coming in and doing doctor

44:46

stuff, she took care of the babies while the

44:48

mother was recuperating and getting

44:50

her strength back. She made sure that those babies

44:52

were healthy before she left. Didn't

44:55

that happen in little women? They went

44:57

to the house of the poor people. The Hummels.

44:59

That's

44:59

it, thank you. I'm like, this house. Now,

45:04

I will say, maybe that's not a good reference

45:06

because Beth did pay the ultimate price. Oh

45:08

yeah, that's true. For going

45:10

to the Hummels house, but, and taking

45:13

care of that baby. What's the opposite of uplifting

45:15

down pushing examples of

45:18

charity? Well, Maria Montessori became interested

45:21

in children that she had been introduced

45:23

to during her visits to some Roman

45:25

asylums. Idiots, is

45:28

what they were called in the language of the day, which

45:30

we certainly would not use today. They

45:32

were shut away like animals and they were given no

45:34

training or guidance at all. And

45:37

little kids that were slightly above

45:40

the mental capacities of these

45:42

children were simply set free onto

45:44

the streets to live or die as

45:46

they could, usually with a

45:48

life of crime and not a very long

45:51

life at that. So

45:53

she studied them and observed

45:55

their behavior and

45:57

kind of something started to tick in the back

45:59

of her mind. What to do? What to do? And why

46:01

are doctors in charge of these children

46:04

and not, for example, teachers?

46:07

Why is no one trying

46:09

to make them into members of society?

46:12

Everyone's just given up. She saw the way that

46:14

the children were acting and the ideas started

46:16

forming in her head. At one point,

46:18

the staff is like, their lunch is over. But

46:21

what do they do immediately? They drop to the floor

46:23

to eat the crumbs off the floor. And

46:26

Maria's looking at them going, no,

46:28

they're not eating the crumbs. They're playing with

46:30

them. They have absolutely no stimulation

46:33

in this environment at all. She's

46:35

starting to think like a teacher. So in

46:37

classic Maria Montessori fashion,

46:39

and since the internet had not yet been invented,

46:42

she began to read everything

46:44

she could get hold of about education

46:47

throughout history to see if

46:50

anything struck her, to see if any dots

46:52

would connect themselves with what she had been observing,

46:55

particularly the following. There was

46:57

a man named Edouard Seguin who

46:59

divided learning into stages,

47:02

also made apparatuses to

47:05

encourage learning and experimentation. Have

47:07

any of you ever had a doll called a dressy

47:10

Bessie doll? If

47:13

not, I'll provide you a picture. But it was a doll that

47:15

had a zipper and buttons and snaps

47:17

and you could tie her shoe. And I think

47:19

there was a boy version too, but I don't know its name. You

47:22

can thank him for things like that. Jean-Jacques

47:25

Rousseau, the philosopher who thought

47:27

that the job of a teacher is simply to unlock

47:30

the ability of the child that already

47:32

exists naturally within them. Oh,

47:35

wrote that down in her notebook. Johann

47:37

Pestilotsi, who said that

47:40

complicated tasks should be broken down

47:42

to their bare elements and a child should learn

47:44

how to do the beginning stages and then

47:46

they will naturally build upon themselves. Like

47:48

writing, for example, starts

47:51

with recognizing a line, withdrawing

47:53

on a paper, you know, then you just can move on

47:55

from there. And last but not

47:57

least, a man whose work has directly

47:59

affected most of us.

48:02

Friedrich Frobel, whose philosophy

48:05

of play-based learning and the natural

48:07

unfolding of the human intellect came

48:09

together in his much admired Klein

48:11

Kinder Bischoff-Digung-Sannstaltz.

48:14

Oh my gosh! I'm

48:18

so glad you said that instead of me because I have

48:20

it spelled out phonetically and that's

48:23

not even close. So does that sound

48:25

familiar to anyone? Well if you were born in the United

48:28

States after about

48:29

1974, the chances are that you likely

48:32

attended the school that he rebranded

48:34

kindergarten. I think it was better for the

48:36

postcards, you know. Was it really 74 because

48:39

I went to kindergarten before 74? Correct. 1974

48:41

was when most of the states

48:45

in the United States provided funding for

48:47

a universal kindergarten and when it kind

48:49

of went from a more rare

48:52

occurrence to you're almost

48:54

expected to have gone to kindergarten. I

48:56

lived in a very progressive state. It was in

48:59

the elementary school.

48:59

It was the first thing you did. Then

49:02

you went to the class next door. First grade. Correct.

49:04

But I'm just saying as of 1974

49:06

was when it all tipped so that the expectation

49:09

was that you would have gone. Right. I only

49:11

went for a few months and then got promoted to first grade

49:13

but that's because I went to Montessori preschool.

49:20

Anyway, all the study of educational

49:23

methods and the children convinced her

49:25

that the children she was observing in the asylums

49:27

could be helped with the proper attention. You

49:29

know society viewed them as potential

49:32

criminals so pre-locked them up

49:34

and so what chance did they ever have? And

49:36

the key time to

49:39

get a hold of these children and change

49:41

their pathway was when they were

49:43

very very young. Ideally between

49:45

say two and six. And

49:48

she began to publish articles and give

49:50

speeches about the need to intervene in

49:52

the children's development early. The education

49:55

of the senses was important to her. Then education

49:58

of the mind. We have to. start at

50:00

the fundamentals. It was for the good of

50:03

the entire society, she said. It's

50:06

65,000 children across the country that we can change

50:08

the course of their lives. Not only

50:10

that, it's crime prevention for the future.

50:13

We're elevating humanity. We're elevating

50:15

our country and bringing ourselves into the future. Oh,

50:18

she became the face and the voice of a movement.

50:20

Just people latched onto this, upper

50:23

class, wanted to fund it. Programs

50:25

were set up to train teachers. Articles

50:27

appeared in medical journals and educational

50:29

journals and the popular press got

50:32

a hold of it too. While she's doing this,

50:34

she's still working at a hospital and she still

50:36

has her private practice. So she's doing all

50:39

of it. Do you think if she had had a smartphone,

50:42

she would get as much done? I actually have been wondering about

50:44

that. Like how much has productivity

50:46

suffered because of the smartphone? You would think it would be a benefit,

50:49

but like the number of times you play, it's not Candy

50:51

Crush for me anymore, but you know, whatever

50:53

it is. My Harry

50:55

Potter game. No, I have no games on

50:58

my phone, but I still check Twitter,

50:59

you know, every couple hours at

51:02

least. I've got very good about ignoring

51:04

social media. I could

51:07

speak from experience and say yes, you have.

51:10

Which is fine. You should. You have a lot of stuff to do.

51:12

You're like Maria. You've got a lot of things on your plate right

51:14

now. So she went on a lecture tour

51:17

as the proponent of special education.

51:20

She was much appreciated and praised just

51:22

like before about that subject,

51:25

but also as a lightning rod

51:27

for the rights of women.

51:30

Oh, the speech she gave. I love this.

51:32

I just want to read you a little bit of one of

51:34

the speeches that she gave kind of talking

51:36

about us, you and I, and

51:39

all of the women listening. The woman of

51:41

the future will have equal rights as well as

51:43

equal duties. She'll have a new self-awareness.

51:46

Family life as we know it may change, but

51:48

it is absurd to think that feminism will destroy

51:50

maternal feelings. The new woman will

51:52

marry and have children out of choice, not

51:55

because matrimony and maternity are imposed

51:57

upon her. Aha. She

51:59

will exercise. control over the health and well-being

52:02

of the next generation and inaugurate a

52:04

reign of peace because when she

52:06

can speak knowledgeably in the name of her

52:08

children and in behalf of her own

52:10

rights, men will have to listen

52:13

to her."

52:13

Women in the audience, my friends, literally

52:16

screamed out loud as if she

52:18

were the Beatles.

52:22

Yes. Another radical viewpoint

52:24

that she proposed, we've had hospitals

52:26

since the Middle Ages. Once you're sick, they

52:29

attempt to cure you, thus the existence

52:31

of doctors. But how much better is an

52:33

ounce of prevention? The poor,

52:35

if you give them nutrition and

52:37

shelter and access to education,

52:40

maybe they wouldn't fill our jails, maybe

52:42

they wouldn't fill our streets. It's time to use

52:45

common sense. So her message of

52:47

social reform should sound familiar

52:49

to those of you who perhaps listened to our

52:51

Jane Addams podcast. This is the time

52:54

all over the world that educated women

52:56

were raising their heads and starting to realize, oh,

52:59

this maternal nature that

53:01

you have placed as a mantle upon our shoulders

53:03

can be used to transform our societies.

53:06

So she's in the zeitgeist of the moment

53:08

here with all

53:11

these feelings and all of these speeches that she's

53:13

given. Because she was such a public figure

53:15

and getting so famous and speaking

53:17

everywhere, when she was in London giving

53:20

a talk, she was presented

53:22

to Queen Victoria herself. That's

53:25

the level of fame that this

53:27

woman has hit already because of these radical

53:29

ideas. Her philosophies

53:31

became topics of discussion at dinner tables

53:33

and professional association meetings

53:36

all over Europe. It's amazing

53:39

how far her reach is. So it was time

53:41

to put her ideas into

53:44

practice. Put your money where your mouth

53:46

is time. She took a position as co-director

53:49

of the Orthophrenic School with another

53:51

doctor, Giuseppe Montesano.

53:54

He was the psychologist. So it

53:56

was a training school for teachers.

53:59

She had 60, 40.

53:59

teachers to teach. Well, what did you need?

54:02

You needed a lab. You needed practical

54:04

experience. And so a school

54:06

for children was opened inside

54:09

of the training institute. Kind

54:11

of the test subjects. Twenty-two children.

54:14

Financially, physically, mentally

54:16

challenged children who had been

54:18

put in the asylum. After only one

54:21

term, the progress the children

54:23

had made was mind-boggling to the

54:25

officials who had come to do an inspection.

54:27

Not only that, but the teachers

54:30

themselves were examined

54:32

by a strict board of

54:35

examiners made up of noted scientists,

54:38

educators, government officials. And

54:40

not only were all the teachers found

54:42

to be up to standard, which is just like we know the

54:44

history of education in Italy. Huh.

54:47

Interesting that that happened already.

54:50

After only one term, most of them received

54:52

honors on top of just passing.

54:54

The quote experiment was deemed

54:57

a giant success. And

54:59

the usual tidal

54:59

wave of good press followed. Seen

55:02

through the prism of her fabulous looks

55:06

and personable nature. I were not getting away

55:08

from that. I know she was putting her foot down and

55:10

saying,

55:10

they're never going to talk about it. That's just like your

55:13

M.O. My friend. Use what you got

55:16

on her 30th birthday. All

55:18

this happened before she was 30. Everyone, you

55:21

know, please fan yourself. Don't fan and accomplish.

55:23

She's a special case for

55:25

getting stuff done. But Papa gave her a gift,

55:28

a gift from his heart, as well

55:30

as from his own personal workshop,

55:33

a big leather bound scrapbook

55:35

of all her press clippings from around the

55:37

world. There was a handwritten index in

55:39

his careful writing and table of contents.

55:42

And he wrote her a letter. My

55:45

dear, a pile of

55:46

newspapers has accumulated in our house

55:48

over these last years. Thanks to some of your many

55:50

friends and admirers. These newspapers

55:53

contain souvenirs, which are as dear to me

55:55

as to you because they demonstrate

55:57

your genius and record your activity.

55:59

But if they were kept in a disorderly

56:02

way, they might not have been preserved. I

56:04

decided to collect these souvenirs in a volume

56:06

and present it to you on the occasion of

56:09

your 30th birthday with hope that

56:11

you will look through it with pleasure. Your

56:13

papa." So it

56:16

just might be a way for him to ask

56:18

for her forgiveness, don't you think? I

56:20

think the relationship really took a turn when

56:22

she graduated and became a doctor after he'd

56:25

seen her give her presentation. But

56:27

something like this, what a touching gift.

56:29

He had to be collecting this all this time,

56:32

all those clippings and putting them together

56:34

for her. If her heart was at

56:37

all hardened,

56:38

still, I think that would have softened it

56:40

completely. I have to tell you as someone

56:43

whose mother, through her whole adult

56:45

life, anytime my mother found

56:48

something in a magazine and she subscribed

56:50

to them all, that

56:52

appealed, she thought, to one of her children, she

56:55

kept these envelopes and she would cut

56:57

them out with a little scissor and put them in an envelope

56:59

and she would send them to us. Or

57:02

next time she saw us, she'd hand us this big fat

57:04

envelope full of clippings. And aside from

57:06

the articles themselves, which

57:08

typically were something we were interested in, the fact that

57:10

it kind of proves that she was constantly thinking

57:12

about us and maybe that's what this notebook

57:15

did for Maria Montessori too.

57:17

Oh, yeah.

57:19

So for two more years, alongside

57:22

her colleague, Dr. Montesano,

57:24

she worked at the Orthophrenic School refining

57:27

some of the Montessori classic materials

57:30

that we use today. In

57:32

fact, we'll talk about those later. These new materials

57:35

and the teaching methods that she was doing

57:38

worked so well that these children

57:41

who previously had been considered

57:43

trash.

57:45

I mean, discarded. Yeah,

57:49

they had no promise at all that they were going

57:51

to just be test subjects

57:53

as far as everybody but Maria was concerned.

57:56

These children scored better on

57:58

standardized tests.

57:59

than typical children in the public

58:02

school system at the time. That's how

58:04

effective these methods were.

58:06

Some of these children were mainstreamed into

58:08

regular classrooms. That is a result no

58:11

one ever thought would be possible. And

58:14

then

58:15

suddenly at the height of

58:17

her success,

58:19

she left the Institute and the question is

58:21

why. Okay, so here's where history

58:24

draws a little veil over

58:26

some timing. So we're just going to lay it out

58:29

because no one knows and everyone that does know is

58:31

no longer with us. So Maria Montessori

58:33

and her fellow director, Gia Seppi Montesano,

58:36

had a personal relationship

58:38

as well as a professional one. It was so personal

58:41

that Maria gave birth to a little

58:43

boy they named Mario. Either

58:46

she gave birth to him right now when

58:49

she so abruptly vanished for a little while,

58:51

or she had given birth to him a

58:54

couple of years earlier when she was 27. No

58:57

matter which that is, it had

58:59

to be a giant secret.

59:02

This is a career ending

59:04

scenario. Not you guessed

59:06

it for Dr. Gia Seppi Montesano. No

59:09

question. There's been a career ending scenario, but for

59:11

Maria Montessori. But you know what else

59:13

is a career ending scenario? Getting married.

59:16

Talk about a rock and a hard place. There was

59:18

talk that perhaps his mother did not

59:21

want him to marry her. I, you know, I don't

59:23

know. Who did you say? I'm just sort of

59:25

confused by the timing of this, because

59:28

if she had the baby when she was 27, you know,

59:30

what she was doing is the, you know, the four hospitals,

59:32

the private practice, she was observing the children.

59:35

There was a lot going on. How is she keeping

59:37

it a secret? This is that year after

59:39

she graduated. You know, she has a private

59:41

practice. She's famous. Everyone's looking at

59:43

her. So the sudden vanishing

59:45

at 31 makes more sense to me. They

59:50

often explain this away

59:52

by saying this is when the faithless

59:55

Dr. Montesano married someone else because

59:57

that is what he did. Marry someone else. And

59:59

in. her distress, she

1:00:02

laughed. So the timeline is

1:00:04

wobbly, but the birth date of baby

1:00:06

Mario, Montesano Montessori,

1:00:08

that's a mouthful, is officially

1:00:11

in March of 1898. So I guess we're going

1:00:14

to go with she was 27 and it was cold weather

1:00:16

and there were voluminous sweaters.

1:00:18

So

1:00:24

I don't understand. Maybe she's one of those women

1:00:26

that were so tiny that

1:00:28

they didn't look pregnant till the end. She's still

1:00:30

doing speeches. I mean, she's not

1:00:32

like quietly off, you know, treating

1:00:35

a few patients in their homes. She's in front

1:00:37

of the public eye. If when

1:00:39

she's 27 now she does disappear for

1:00:41

a period of months away from

1:00:44

the Orthophonic Institute when she was 31

1:00:46

a little later. So that to me, if

1:00:49

one were going to hide a pregnancy, how do you know that you're

1:00:51

not going to show you don't so you can't rely

1:00:53

on that. So anyway, it doesn't even 100% matter

1:00:56

of the timing. I just want to let you

1:00:58

know that you encounter both of those stories.

1:01:01

And the fact that she left abruptly is

1:01:04

still a mystery to people. So

1:01:06

there you go. So no matter the timeline,

1:01:09

no matter his actual birth date or the

1:01:11

circumstances of her distress and

1:01:13

disappearance, we can move on with

1:01:15

what happened afterward. What

1:01:17

we do know is that Mario, whenever

1:01:20

he was born, was sent off to live

1:01:22

with another family out in the country.

1:01:24

It was not acknowledged that he was her son.

1:01:28

And he

1:01:28

just had this mysterious, beautiful

1:01:31

aunt that would come and visit him frequently.

1:01:33

And that would be Maria. But nobody

1:01:36

knew about the child. And if they knew they

1:01:38

weren't

1:01:39

talking, I think her parents knew I

1:01:41

think her parents knew too. And I wonder

1:01:44

how much Rinalda influenced

1:01:46

this decision. She knew that this was going

1:01:49

to stop Maria's career, just like

1:01:51

shares had been stopped. So did

1:01:54

Rinalda say no, no, put him in the country, keep

1:01:56

on with your career, it'll be fine. It'll be

1:01:58

fine. I don't know.

1:01:59

Whichever crisis it was, the birth of her child or

1:02:02

the betrayal of her lover, Maria went

1:02:04

through a major change just about now. She certainly

1:02:06

did not go back to the Institute. That's

1:02:09

for dang sure. Where the father of her child

1:02:11

was now a married man. That's awkward.

1:02:15

Even if you were going to remain friends, that's

1:02:17

awkward. And they were not.

1:02:20

No, there is a, I'm

1:02:22

going to go with a myth out there that they'd

1:02:25

made a marriage pact that neither

1:02:27

would ever get married. And then he betrayed

1:02:29

her even

1:02:29

more by getting married. Well,

1:02:32

I'm, you know, it's all speculation. We weren't

1:02:34

there. Nobody knows what happens inside of

1:02:36

a relationship. So anyway,

1:02:39

so there's a little turbulent water. And

1:02:42

one thing that came out of it is she functionally

1:02:45

abandoned her medical career, although

1:02:47

she did serve with the Italian Red Cross,

1:02:50

which I thought was good and kept up with her

1:02:52

private practice somewhat. She did give

1:02:54

up her hospital work and this and that.

1:02:57

So a thought had been percolating in

1:02:59

her mind. If my poor little

1:03:01

idiots, her words, not

1:03:03

mine, again, nomenclature of the

1:03:06

time can be so improved by my

1:03:08

methods. How much could I change

1:03:10

the outcomes for other children, kids

1:03:12

that we ourselves in 2019, oh, it's 2020. Wow.

1:03:19

I haven't even done that yet. Well,

1:03:22

kids we would currently call neurotypical,

1:03:24

I guess is what we would call them. How

1:03:27

much could these affect

1:03:29

their minds if she could do so much

1:03:31

with people who were thought not to be

1:03:34

educatable? And so she went back to college,

1:03:36

back to study psychology and

1:03:39

education and anthropology,

1:03:42

which is weird. I have

1:03:45

to tell you, it reminds me

1:03:47

a lot of phrenology, those

1:03:50

that thought that bumps on your head indicate

1:03:52

your personality. It's

1:03:54

the study of say the size

1:03:57

of your features indicate

1:03:59

aspects of your personality.

1:04:01

Like why are you a criminal because you have

1:04:04

a Neanderthal brow or whatever. Yeah,

1:04:07

it's debunked, debunked,

1:04:09

debunked, but criminology

1:04:11

was in its infancy and this was

1:04:14

a large part of that. So it's not anthropology

1:04:16

as you or I might study it and

1:04:18

it has largely been dismissed, but

1:04:21

there you have it. Anyway,

1:04:24

all of that aside, she felt

1:04:28

a wave of something,

1:04:30

some kind of fire that took over her mind.

1:04:33

A great faith animated me. It's

1:04:35

as if I were preparing myself for an unknown

1:04:39

mission and we know looking back from here

1:04:41

what that mission was, but she doesn't. She

1:04:44

began to study children in regular

1:04:47

schools the way that she had studied the children

1:04:49

in this asylum systematically

1:04:51

with charts and notes to identify

1:04:54

methods to improve their education, where

1:04:56

the school system and the way that

1:04:58

they are treating the children is failing them,

1:05:01

is not matching with their natural

1:05:03

inclinations. And at 34,

1:05:07

Maria was offered a teaching position at

1:05:09

the University of Rome to ideally

1:05:12

lay a foundation for a far

1:05:14

reaching reform in the Italian school

1:05:16

system. For four years as

1:05:19

a professor, Maria Montessori exemplified

1:05:21

a major principle of her own philosophy,

1:05:25

even though she taught anthropology and we

1:05:27

have been very clear about what

1:05:29

we think about

1:05:31

that. She made her

1:05:34

material interesting and then

1:05:36

the students wanted to learn it.

1:05:39

Whoa. It's

1:05:42

our philosophy as well. That is why we

1:05:44

talk about history like this. It's our

1:05:46

philosophy at work. So

1:05:48

people fought to be in her classes. They

1:05:51

didn't skive off for the gentleman's sea in

1:05:53

her classes.

1:05:54

Here's a quote from a student. Note

1:05:57

the opening sentence, which we cannot escape.

1:05:59

She was a most attractive lecturer. Her

1:06:04

language was so simple, so clear. Her

1:06:06

delivery so animated that even the

1:06:09

poorer students could understand her. All

1:06:11

that she had said had the warmth of life.

1:06:14

I remember some students saying, her

1:06:16

lectures make us want

1:06:18

to be good people.

1:06:19

Man, if that's all you get

1:06:22

across, then I'd say you're doing good

1:06:24

no matter what the subject. Without

1:06:26

unpacking all the things that he managed

1:06:28

to insult in that, even the

1:06:30

poor students got it. Oh, okay.

1:06:33

At 36, she received another

1:06:35

degree in this time education

1:06:38

and anthropology. So just

1:06:40

as Maria Montessori, the busiest

1:06:43

person we have ever covered, by

1:06:45

the way, was looking for a new

1:06:47

challenge for some reason. Maybe

1:06:49

she had those extra 17 seconds every

1:06:52

minute that she needed to use. Along

1:06:54

came some friends of a friend,

1:06:56

friends of a friend, that's what I was looking for,

1:06:59

with a question for her. They're rich businessmen,

1:07:01

they're these developers, and they

1:07:03

have just remodeled a very

1:07:05

dangerous area of Rome, to the

1:07:09

point where, just like with

1:07:11

Wilma Mankiller, the

1:07:13

emergency services would not set foot

1:07:15

in this section of the

1:07:17

town. That's how bad it was. They had remodeled

1:07:19

it into low-income housing. It

1:07:21

was called San Lorenzo, and it

1:07:23

was supposed to be the new model, I

1:07:26

guess the projects, the first

1:07:28

iteration of the projects. The

1:07:31

challenge is

1:07:32

they had filled this place with married couples, with

1:07:34

kids. They're playing the odds for their most respectable

1:07:37

tenants, is what they're doing for themselves.

1:07:40

But at that income level, the mothers all

1:07:42

went out to work. And

1:07:44

well, compulsory education only covered kids

1:07:46

from seven to 12, at least it's higher than nine.

1:07:49

It was just this year. It was 1904,

1:07:51

where I went up to 12. So from seven to 12, you

1:07:53

had to be at school, and families

1:07:56

could find caretakers for the babies, or the

1:07:58

mothers didn't go back to work yet.

1:07:59

what these buildings were left with were

1:08:02

these

1:08:03

baby gangs. And I've said it before,

1:08:06

but literally these groups

1:08:09

of two to sixes, maybe

1:08:11

three to sixes were roaming the buildings,

1:08:14

wreaking their innocent, yet destructive

1:08:16

havoc on the buildings.

1:08:19

Well, people were gone. They're pooping on the stairs,

1:08:21

they're drawing on the walls, they're breaking

1:08:23

the windows, not out of badness, but because

1:08:26

they made a funny sound or whatever. You know, these are

1:08:28

little, little kids. And do

1:08:30

you, ma'am, know

1:08:32

anyone we could get to take control of them? We

1:08:35

really need to put them in a room, honestly, and throw

1:08:37

away the key. This is a real problem.

1:08:40

To their great surprise, this

1:08:43

medical doctor,

1:08:45

famous all over the world with

1:08:47

additional degrees, worldwide fame,

1:08:49

said, I'll do it. You're, what?

1:08:53

They looked at each other like, there's

1:08:56

no budget. I don't think

1:08:58

you understand what we're talking about here. She said,

1:09:00

no, I'll do it, I'll do it. I

1:09:03

want to test my theories on neurotypical

1:09:06

children. This seems like a

1:09:08

good opportunity, but I want free reign. They're

1:09:10

like,

1:09:11

whatever you want, ma'am. As

1:09:15

long as you solve our problem. And

1:09:17

it was kind of a win-win. On January

1:09:20

6th, 1907, 36-year-old Maria Montessori opened

1:09:24

up her first early childhood school

1:09:27

named Casa de Bambini, which

1:09:29

is Children's House. Which is what?

1:09:32

The first classroom that has P3,

1:09:34

P4, and kindergarten age children

1:09:36

in it is still called in a Montessori

1:09:39

school,

1:09:39

Children's House. But it was a deal.

1:09:42

They could not believe their luck. They could

1:09:44

not believe their luck. But little

1:09:46

did they know that

1:09:47

what happened in that little

1:09:49

room in their

1:09:51

low-income housing development

1:09:54

would soon revolutionize the

1:09:56

world.

1:10:00

Maria Montessori

1:10:02

has her children.

1:10:21

She

1:10:24

has her classroom and

1:10:27

now she is going to have her adventure.

1:10:29

So over the course of

1:10:31

a couple of years of running this program

1:10:34

with a person that she hired who

1:10:37

specifically and purposely was

1:10:39

not a qualified teacher because

1:10:42

Maria Montessori did not want any

1:10:45

other educational prejudices

1:10:47

getting in the way of this experiment. So

1:10:50

they observed the children, they

1:10:52

let the children and their interests kind

1:10:55

of lead how the class was going

1:10:57

to be and ultimately the following

1:11:00

principles kind of coalesced. And

1:11:02

this, although there are some

1:11:05

modifications over the years, this basically

1:11:08

laid out the way that the Montessori schools

1:11:10

are run even today.

1:11:12

So there's five main principles

1:11:16

that Maria Montessori came up with

1:11:18

during this experience. The absorbent

1:11:20

mind, which just means children are born

1:11:23

ready for learning. We all know that if you

1:11:25

have a child, all they want to do

1:11:27

is touch things, put things in their mouths. That's

1:11:30

how babies learn by touch. There is

1:11:32

a sensitive period for

1:11:35

many skills. And

1:11:37

if you don't learn them during those timeframes,

1:11:39

it's harder to learn them. We all know that too.

1:11:41

Walking, talking,

1:11:42

reading, writing, that kind of thing,

1:11:45

riding a bike. Children

1:11:47

will auto-educate themselves.

1:11:50

Anything else we know if anybody here has

1:11:52

dinosaur experts in the house? Oh

1:11:54

my goodness. Yes. Yes, if they get

1:11:57

a thing. Oh, oh, I was with my

1:11:59

friend Micah who's...

1:11:59

She was a dinosaur expert at six yesterday,

1:12:02

and she was telling me about all kinds

1:12:04

of things. It was

1:12:06

lovely. My favorite one, respect for

1:12:08

the child, which was very,

1:12:11

very rare during Maria Montessori's

1:12:14

time, the children should be seen and

1:12:16

not heard time. It boils

1:12:18

down to trusting the children,

1:12:20

I think. And a part

1:12:23

of that was her philosophy of never

1:12:25

interrupting a concentrating child.

1:12:28

Because to her, children's playtime is

1:12:30

their work. That's what

1:12:32

they are put on this earth to do. And

1:12:35

if they're concentrating, then they're

1:12:37

really involved in something serious. So you shouldn't

1:12:39

interrupt them. And that is a good principle

1:12:41

that I try to follow as far as I can.

1:12:44

You have to be places, you have to do

1:12:46

stuff. But for the most part, I actually did follow

1:12:48

that at home too. Actually it helps develop

1:12:51

the adult's patience. And

1:12:54

last but not least is children learn

1:12:57

best in a prepared environment.

1:13:00

And so that just means the way the classroom is set up.

1:13:03

And it is a prepared environment. And I wish

1:13:05

that somebody when I was looking for preschools for

1:13:07

my kids had told it to me the

1:13:09

way you just did, told me what Montessori schools

1:13:12

really were. Instead of saying, oh,

1:13:14

the kids just lead, which they do,

1:13:16

but there's more to it. There's all kinds

1:13:19

of things. It's whatever the kids want to do.

1:13:21

It just sounded chaotic. But

1:13:24

now, through the time knowing

1:13:26

you and through this, I realized

1:13:28

that it's organized chaos

1:13:31

and there's a method to all of it.

1:13:34

And I'm really sorry that I didn't, there's

1:13:36

no Montessori schools near me, but it's a great

1:13:39

opportunity for kids. And I wish that

1:13:41

my kids had had that. The prepared environment

1:13:44

is not just the physical objects, but it's

1:13:46

kind of the spirit of the room. The

1:13:48

thing that you noticed was the freedom,

1:13:50

the freedom the children have to move around, which

1:13:53

I found was critical for my boy,

1:13:55

because our other option was the French Immersion

1:13:57

School, which teaches in the French, i.e.

1:13:59

old Italian method where you

1:14:02

sit, teacher talks, nobody

1:14:04

moves from the seat, the end.

1:14:06

And my child, I'd have to go to the trophy store

1:14:08

and get him a plaque and put it on the bench

1:14:10

outside the principal's door because there's no way

1:14:14

he would have been still. So this

1:14:16

I thought was good for him. But what it is, it's you're

1:14:19

free to do things. You're also free

1:14:21

from interference. You are taught

1:14:24

to never interfere with anybody else's

1:14:26

work. If they are concentrating, you are not to interrupt

1:14:29

them. Well, that leads to a lot of quiet

1:14:31

in the room. If everyone else is working,

1:14:33

then you don't have any compatriots

1:14:36

in your cockamamie mayhem. So they get

1:14:38

these little rugs and that's their workspace and

1:14:40

you are to respect the rug. Nobody

1:14:42

walks on a rug because that's

1:14:44

interfering with people's workspace. So they don't.

1:14:47

They really don't. That's an amazing thing.

1:14:49

So it's very cool. And then

1:14:51

structure and order kind of go along with that.

1:14:54

Okay, yes, you're free to follow

1:14:56

your dreams in here, but there are rules. You

1:14:58

know, you must put all your things back. You

1:15:00

must put them in order. So for the next guy,

1:15:02

it's respect. Respect for the room, respect

1:15:05

for the process, respect

1:15:06

for your friends. But the classes

1:15:08

are very beautiful. You're invited to

1:15:10

come in. You're invited to explore. There's always

1:15:13

paintings hung at child level in

1:15:15

the classroom. There's live plants. There's

1:15:17

flower arrangements in the room

1:15:19

full of color. It's full of nature

1:15:22

and also child sized things that

1:15:24

are real. To us, it seems like

1:15:27

a no brainer at this point. Every

1:15:29

kid's classroom has child sized furniture

1:15:31

in it. But back then that wasn't the case.

1:15:34

Kids had to sit on big people's furniture instead

1:15:37

of ones that were geared towards them. There's

1:15:39

so many things that Maria Montessori

1:15:42

enacted that are in

1:15:43

just about every classroom you go into.

1:15:46

Even the ones that aren't Montessori, which

1:15:48

most of them aren't. I love that though. Like

1:15:50

the moving around thing. My kids did

1:15:52

that in preschool.

1:15:53

They did a lot of these things, but it wasn't a Montessori

1:15:56

school. So it lacked a lot

1:15:58

of the philosophy.

1:15:59

philosophies behind it. I liked, but

1:16:02

was blown away. When you take the tour,

1:16:04

your child starts at three. So if

1:16:06

you come in, everybody has plastic

1:16:09

cups and plates at your house. When

1:16:11

you have little children, you just do because

1:16:13

you do not want broken

1:16:15

glass everywhere. But if you go into a Montessori

1:16:18

classroom, you will find small size,

1:16:20

real china plates. You will find small

1:16:23

size, real glass cups. You

1:16:25

will find paring knives that are

1:16:27

sharp. There

1:16:29

is

1:16:29

a little bit of panic you have to overcome.

1:16:32

But the principle of Montessori

1:16:35

is they need to be trusted. They're

1:16:37

taught to use these things and they're

1:16:40

taught to use them properly and they concentrate

1:16:42

and they pay attention and this is their work and

1:16:44

they must learn to do it. And

1:16:46

I'm like, what happens if they drop a glass? And

1:16:48

she says, gravity takes hold and it breaks. What

1:16:51

a lovely scientific experiment that is. And

1:16:54

they go and get the dustpan and clean it up.

1:16:56

And that's another lesson. And I'm just thinking,

1:16:59

oh, the power of positivity in here is epic.

1:17:02

And honestly, we never had an incident with breaking.

1:17:04

We did have an incident with a garbanzo bean up

1:17:07

the nose, but that could happen to anyone.

1:17:09

It did. Ours was an eraser, a pencil

1:17:12

eraser.

1:17:12

Well,

1:17:14

and another thing I really like about the

1:17:16

Montessori environment, mixed age classrooms,

1:17:19

everyone says there's only one adult. How are

1:17:22

you running this three-ring circus? And in fact,

1:17:24

the adult is not

1:17:26

the only educator in the room. If you

1:17:28

are a five-year-old and a three-year-old needs

1:17:31

help with his lesson or help carrying his

1:17:33

object, you're right there. You've had this lesson,

1:17:35

you know all about it and you can help a guy out. And

1:17:38

I really think that is why my son is so kind

1:17:41

and gentle today with younger children. In

1:17:43

his

1:17:43

school, which went up to sixth grade, as

1:17:46

you get older, you have more responsibility

1:17:48

for everyone younger than

1:17:50

you. And so by the time you're in sixth grade,

1:17:52

you really feel like, oof, I have 189 younger

1:17:56

brothers in history. I

1:17:58

was going to say that. My kids.

1:17:59

got that because I gave them siblings.

1:18:02

But yeah, I love that. I can

1:18:04

link people up to a video

1:18:07

about the Montessori programs and

1:18:09

you can be in the classroom and see all

1:18:11

this stuff that Beckett's talking about. You're

1:18:13

right. It's beautiful. That's a great

1:18:16

way to put it. And I will post I

1:18:18

swear I'm going to get back on this Pinterest thing because

1:18:20

it's still making me mad and

1:18:22

they still have made it very, very hard to use.

1:18:24

However, I

1:18:25

would like to post pictures of iconic

1:18:28

Montessori materials like the pink

1:18:30

tower where it looks like nothing more

1:18:33

than a child stacking blocks. But what

1:18:35

do they learn? They learn size, they learn

1:18:37

shape, they learn balance and secretly

1:18:40

they're learning the decimal

1:18:42

system because they're all in powers of 10. I

1:18:45

know it's so crazy. The same thing

1:18:47

with the thousand bead string, which

1:18:49

was the most popular thing in that classroom.

1:18:52

People would run in and get to the thousand

1:18:54

bead string, go out in the

1:18:55

hallway and you string it out and man,

1:18:57

that thing is feet long. You count

1:19:00

by 10, a thousand by 10s and kids

1:19:02

ached to do it. And we're excited

1:19:05

to do it and would spend hours out

1:19:07

there counting that bead string and no one

1:19:09

interrupted them. And things like that, Maria

1:19:12

Montessori was able to develop them because

1:19:14

she's watching these kids. She was watching

1:19:16

a little girl at one point and she was doing

1:19:18

division. So she divided five

1:19:21

into 10, let's say, but then the girl took

1:19:23

it even farther and she added another zero.

1:19:25

So

1:19:25

she was doing five into 100 and

1:19:28

then another. So she ended

1:19:30

up having this entire string of

1:19:32

super long division that went

1:19:34

from the floor to the ceiling when they took all

1:19:37

the pieces of paper and lined them up.

1:19:39

And that's how Maria Montessori came

1:19:42

about with her materials

1:19:44

back in the early 1900s that

1:19:46

are still in the classrooms today, almost

1:19:49

identical materials. What stays

1:19:51

around that long? I cannot remember

1:19:53

what project it is, but there is some project you

1:19:55

do in lower elementary. Oh

1:19:58

Montessori

1:19:58

parents, chime in.

1:19:59

where it takes up so much space

1:20:02

on the floor that his school actually

1:20:05

you just go into the office and book

1:20:07

the auditorium and you had to use the

1:20:09

whole stage for

1:20:12

whatever project this was and it was something like

1:20:14

that some kind of math problem that took up a lot

1:20:16

of room

1:20:16

so they'll just I mean how awesome

1:20:19

is that that a child will go to

1:20:21

the office the principal's office the

1:20:23

source of fear for most elementary schools

1:20:25

and petition to do a math problem

1:20:29

they take their ownership of this classroom

1:20:32

very quickly in

1:20:33

this her first school in Casa de

1:20:36

Bambini number one because there was

1:20:38

quickly a number two and then more and

1:20:40

more but in her first school

1:20:43

some VIPs came to town and they wanted to

1:20:45

see the Montessori school they wanted to see the

1:20:47

room and it was locked but there were some kids

1:20:49

playing nearby that went there and they said let

1:20:52

me get the key we'll take you in so

1:20:54

they got the key open the place up

1:20:56

got out their materials and set to

1:20:58

work because they knew what to do

1:21:00

and that the VIPs wanted

1:21:03

to see them in

1:21:03

action without any teacher

1:21:06

in the room how cool is that as far

1:21:09

as Maria Montessori was concerned the ideal

1:21:12

situation in a Montessori classroom

1:21:14

is all the children concentrating acting

1:21:17

as if the adult in the room did not exist

1:21:20

and the adult was the observer of everyone's

1:21:23

development

1:21:24

and could direct people that were ready

1:21:26

for the next step and give them a lesson or

1:21:28

whatever and and that was the ideal so

1:21:30

those kids oh it just kills me and

1:21:33

then they started kind of learning

1:21:35

things by accident they had

1:21:37

got all this foundation knowledge and

1:21:39

in Italy you weren't taught to read and write until

1:21:42

you went to school at seven and the

1:21:44

children have been playing with these

1:21:46

wooden blocks shaped like letters and

1:21:49

suddenly started to write

1:21:52

and this whole little classroom

1:21:55

they were up on the roof terrace and

1:21:57

they had chalk and they were kind of messing around and

1:21:59

And one of the little kids said to Maria Montessori,

1:22:02

I can write, I can write. And he sure

1:22:04

enough started writing all these words.

1:22:07

I mean, they might not have been spelled correctly. They were phonetically

1:22:10

spelled most of the time, which is perfectly

1:22:12

fine. But he would write all over. I would

1:22:14

have write, I would have write too. And soon, 20, 30 kids were

1:22:16

all writing all over

1:22:18

the slate roof. And they went

1:22:20

home and wrote all over every scrap of

1:22:22

paper in the house. And the mothers had to go out and

1:22:24

get notebooks for these children. Otherwise, they'd be writing

1:22:27

on the walls. And everyone was so excited. And everyone

1:22:29

was four and five years old. And

1:22:32

that is another story that blew people away.

1:22:34

And this is why Montessori

1:22:37

started to take off all over

1:22:40

the world. And she published,

1:22:43

can I say this in one breath? I just don't know. She

1:22:46

published her findings in a book called

1:22:50

Il metto de la pedagogy

1:22:52

of scientifico applicato al

1:22:54

educación e infantile nelacasa

1:22:57

de bambini.

1:22:59

Which by the time it got to us here

1:23:02

in America was called the Montessori

1:23:04

Method. Because they

1:23:07

learned their lesson with branding. You know, kindergarten

1:23:09

had the same problem.

1:23:10

Yeah, that's right.

1:23:12

Well, it took the world by storm. Training

1:23:16

programs sprung up everywhere.

1:23:18

Schools all over the world.

1:23:21

England, Argentina, Paris, Boston,

1:23:23

New York. Maria Montessori was back

1:23:26

out on the lecture circuit firing

1:23:28

people up. Like in the old days,

1:23:30

but on a new topic. I'm

1:23:33

not surprised if people just ran straight

1:23:35

out of there to the real estate office to sign them a lease

1:23:38

for a school. She was so inspirational. People

1:23:40

would like cry while they were sitting there.

1:23:42

Her work was immediately translated into 20

1:23:45

languages. The US edition sold out in

1:23:47

a matter of three days. It

1:23:49

was the hottest thing around. It absolutely

1:23:52

was. This is not a warehouse to keep them out

1:23:54

from underfoot, but a true education

1:23:56

for the youth. It wasn't all sunshine

1:23:59

and roses for Maria.

1:23:59

Maria, yes, she had been working her

1:24:02

entire life to create this program

1:24:04

and she didn't even know it. Just like

1:24:06

when the kids are learning, they don't know that they're learning

1:24:09

until they're there. But every

1:24:11

step of Maria's life brought her here. Unfortunately,

1:24:14

about a year after her first

1:24:16

book came out, her biggest cheerleader,

1:24:18

her mother, passed away, crushing.

1:24:21

But a switch flipped inside of Maria

1:24:24

and she went to go visit her then 15-year-old

1:24:26

nephew, Mario,

1:24:29

at his boarding school.

1:24:29

And he kind of took charge of the situation

1:24:32

and he said, you know what? I know you're my

1:24:34

mother. And at that point, she said,

1:24:36

okay,

1:24:37

come with me, get in the car. I mean, almost

1:24:39

exactly like that. Get in the car. And

1:24:42

they were together for the rest of her

1:24:44

life. He traveled with her and nobody

1:24:46

except the people that were closest to her knew

1:24:49

that Maria was her son. Otherwise,

1:24:51

he was her nephew,

1:24:52

which is kind of a trick for an only child. Well,

1:24:56

she began training teachers over 100 from

1:24:58

all countries in the globe came eagerly

1:25:01

to see how this is done. And they called it

1:25:03

a pilgrimage. So coming

1:25:06

to worship at the shrine of Montessori. Interesting.

1:25:09

I've noticed it becomes a little bit of a,

1:25:11

I don't even want to say a faith, but a definitely

1:25:13

a fascination. The purity of

1:25:16

the Montessori method often became

1:25:18

its downfall. Fights

1:25:20

over who was the keeper

1:25:23

of the flame.

1:25:24

In fact, during her first trip to

1:25:26

America, her greatest backer

1:25:28

and someone who I don't think was

1:25:31

out to quote, get her or whatever tried

1:25:33

to make a business out of her, out

1:25:35

of her materials, which she

1:25:37

didn't get a piece of out of schools,

1:25:40

out of training horses. And Maria found

1:25:42

herself in a constant battle

1:25:45

to keep her legacy from being chipped

1:25:47

away. It reminds me of Florence Nightingale

1:25:50

there in the Crimea trying to prevent other

1:25:52

nurses from ruining her reputation. It

1:25:55

wasn't necessarily that she was so protective

1:25:57

of her

1:25:58

thing.

1:25:59

But just other people using her name

1:26:02

and not understanding it was really

1:26:04

bothering her. Right. To know

1:26:06

how to use the blocks is one

1:26:08

thing. To know why you're using the

1:26:10

blocks is something you have to be trained

1:26:13

in. And Maria Montessori wanted that

1:26:15

control so that people knew why

1:26:17

they were doing what they were doing. That's why

1:26:19

she set up her training session. She had

1:26:21

a six-month course of lectures and

1:26:24

lessons, philosophy and

1:26:26

sociology. And it's not just how

1:26:29

to play in the classroom.

1:26:29

It's all this other background

1:26:32

stuff that she wanted all of her teachers

1:26:35

all across the world to be trained in.

1:26:37

And people are like, yeah, that's really cool, but let

1:26:40

me do this instead. Under her name.

1:26:42

Still goes on now. I'm here to tell you. A

1:26:44

lot of schools that say they're Montessori, not

1:26:47

so much. I know. I tried to find

1:26:49

one around me.

1:26:50

And I know that there's a lot of Montessori schools here,

1:26:53

but there's none that are accredited. Yeah,

1:26:55

so, you know, she wouldn't necessarily

1:26:57

be that happy about that, I'm sure. No,

1:26:59

I don't think she would. To handle the

1:27:02

philosophical crises that kept following

1:27:04

the Montessori method all over the world, Maria

1:27:07

and Mario created the Association

1:27:10

Montessori Internationale, or AMI.

1:27:13

That is still the main governing body

1:27:16

of Montessori education even

1:27:18

today. Well, she does come

1:27:20

back

1:27:20

to America one more time for a very

1:27:23

cool reason, at least as far as I'm concerned,

1:27:25

to be part of an exhibit at the 1915

1:27:28

Panama Pacific International Exposition

1:27:31

in San Francisco.

1:27:32

Yes, what a strange concept.

1:27:35

What do you want me to do? Well, there's

1:27:37

a conference where 15,000 teachers are going

1:27:39

to be. Okay, I can give another lecture.

1:27:42

But here is the novel concept. Here

1:27:44

is the new thing we want. We are

1:27:46

going to make a glass walled classroom with

1:27:49

bleachers outside. And

1:27:51

we're going to run a class in there for four months. And

1:27:54

she, rather than be horrified, was very

1:27:56

intrigued by the concept and rather

1:27:58

than select children.

1:27:59

children from Montessori schools.

1:28:02

I honestly, I think I would do that. I'd be like,

1:28:04

give me your best, give me your best kids. Like,

1:28:08

no, she specified that any child

1:28:10

in this school could not have been to any school

1:28:12

before. And 2000 people applied to have

1:28:15

their children come to this school. In

1:28:17

the public eye, there were bleachers outside.

1:28:20

Well, Maria was a scientist. I mean, she

1:28:23

came to her program because she

1:28:25

studied like a scientist. She

1:28:27

came up with everything from the scientific

1:28:29

lens. So yeah, of course

1:28:32

she doesn't want kids that are already trained in the Montessori

1:28:34

method. Come on. Where's the science in

1:28:36

that? Too scary. Well, the class

1:28:38

was held from 9 to 12. And then after

1:28:41

that, the kids served themselves

1:28:44

the lunch. And people loved that

1:28:46

part the best. They would hurry and go get something from

1:28:48

one of the vendors and run back. And their friends saved

1:28:50

a seat on the bleachers. And they'd watch these little tiny

1:28:52

kids, perfect manners, serving

1:28:55

each other, carrying giant soup tareens.

1:28:57

It was just amazing. And these kids

1:28:59

did not often break the fourth

1:29:02

wall. I mean, they literally didn't break it. It was glass.

1:29:04

But they didn't look out at

1:29:07

the audience very much at all. Most

1:29:09

of the time, they were really, really deep into

1:29:11

concentration.

1:29:12

And Maria only was the

1:29:14

director of this particular school occasionally.

1:29:17

She had a very trusted deputy named Helen

1:29:20

Parkhurst, kind of one of her inner circle.

1:29:22

She had a few deputies that she really, really

1:29:24

trusted. And this lady was one of them. And

1:29:26

that lady ran it most of the time. And

1:29:30

she was really nervous when she looked up and saw

1:29:32

Maria Montessori in the bleachers, like a pool

1:29:34

crap. But she held it all together.

1:29:37

While she was in the United States with Mario,

1:29:39

of course, he got married. And

1:29:42

he and his wife set up a school, a Montessori

1:29:44

school, in Hollywood that was

1:29:46

attended by stars, children,

1:29:49

including the Fairbanks Pickford

1:29:51

kids. I don't know what episode that is. I

1:29:53

don't either. We covered her on the show. That's

1:29:56

right. Will the death of Maria Montessori's

1:29:59

father brought

1:29:59

her back to Italy and

1:30:02

her departure from America

1:30:04

and the Montessori schools of America

1:30:07

kind of left a vacuum and it

1:30:09

devolved into infighting and

1:30:12

drama and America's

1:30:15

obsession with Montessori Method died out

1:30:17

for many decades. It was kind of like

1:30:19

kindergarten v. Montessori

1:30:21

in America and their strongest

1:30:24

advocate for Montessori education has left

1:30:26

the building and it really turned

1:30:28

very ugly. The

1:30:29

problems in America were echoed in

1:30:32

a very similar rise and fall in

1:30:34

London, a giant waterfall

1:30:36

of infighting afterward and I

1:30:38

just really point again to what

1:30:41

might happen to a church

1:30:43

when there's a schism and a little

1:30:45

matter of dogma

1:30:47

must be nailed down or not, you know,

1:30:50

accepted or whatever until people leave

1:30:52

and that's what was happening over and over

1:30:54

again with the Montessori Method and I'm

1:30:57

kind of sorry to see that. She moved to Barcelona

1:30:59

during

1:30:59

World War I at the request

1:31:02

of the local government. This is where

1:31:04

her grandchildren ended up being. This is where

1:31:06

her home was. So this is her home base.

1:31:09

For 20 years, so she's able

1:31:11

to be there with Mario and his wife and her grandchildren

1:31:14

in Barcelona. Even though

1:31:16

the pattern of her life was

1:31:18

lectures, whole training in countries

1:31:21

all over Europe, speeches, conferences,

1:31:24

dinner parties, networking, publication,

1:31:27

she was very, very busy. She was

1:31:29

very, very desired in

1:31:31

many companies but nevertheless

1:31:34

she would come home and Mario

1:31:36

said to the interviewer and you wouldn't believe it but she

1:31:38

got right on the floor and started playing with my

1:31:40

children and she thought that was her most important

1:31:42

work.

1:31:43

Why wouldn't somebody believe that? That's what

1:31:45

she does. Well, but I think they're just

1:31:47

thinking she's a noted figure. She's so important.

1:31:51

She's this, she's that but it comes down

1:31:53

to the fact that she is here for the children.

1:31:55

She is not here to hear you

1:31:58

talk about this or the thing or whatever.

1:31:59

theories or, you know, she's like, look,

1:32:02

I've observed this is what the children have told me.

1:32:04

So, so similar to the

1:32:07

government of Barcelona, the education

1:32:09

minister back home in Italy under

1:32:12

Italy's new ruler, who should sound familiar,

1:32:14

Benito Mussolini thought

1:32:17

that it was a shame, was

1:32:19

it? The other countries were benefiting

1:32:21

from Italy's own homegrown

1:32:24

educational system, Miss Montessori.

1:32:26

And Senor Mussolini, after

1:32:28

a study of its

1:32:30

contents, this is actually a press

1:32:33

release, states that the Montessori

1:32:35

principle is established and those who

1:32:37

fail to understand it are only displaying

1:32:40

their ignorance. When Mussolini

1:32:42

came to power, it was under

1:32:44

a lot of questions. You know, it was a, the

1:32:47

election was not exactly on the up and up,

1:32:49

but his whole premise was he wanted

1:32:51

to improve Italy. Of course

1:32:54

Italians want their country improved. They'd

1:32:56

seen it destroyed in World War I. So

1:32:58

Mussolini

1:32:59

started off an awful lot

1:33:01

like a guy in Germany named Hitler

1:33:03

trying to improve the life of

1:33:05

Italians. So he'd get more people that said,

1:33:07

yes, this is great. Let's keep doing this

1:33:09

to our country. So having a good

1:33:12

education system was important

1:33:14

to Mussolini. For about 10 years, Maria

1:33:17

was back in Italy, setting up schools

1:33:19

and enthusiastically, she set up over 70

1:33:22

schools and they were all working perfectly

1:33:26

until a certain point when she

1:33:28

figured out

1:33:29

that Mussolini was kind of playing a long

1:33:31

game and that he was using her experience

1:33:33

and her fame and her credibility

1:33:36

to give that to his government.

1:33:38

And meanwhile, he was just becoming even a more

1:33:40

powerful fascist. So there

1:33:43

should have been a red flag or

1:33:45

maybe there was, and there were other factors

1:33:47

at work. Two years in the rule

1:33:50

came down that all classes must

1:33:52

open with the fascist song Giovanica,

1:33:55

which is okay. You're not really supposed

1:33:58

to like reach your finger down

1:33:59

here and tell us. what song to play

1:34:01

first seems a little

1:34:04

sus. And

1:34:07

so she began to experience

1:34:09

some difficulties obeying, which

1:34:12

you know, she's not that good at obeying.

1:34:15

And also she did not see any virtue in

1:34:17

obeying, not even for children. Is that

1:34:19

where I get it? I don't know. I don't see any virtue of people

1:34:22

obeying either, even children. So obviously

1:34:25

with Mussolini, you're going to have a big problem.

1:34:27

And one of the major problems she had

1:34:29

was that Mussolini required

1:34:32

all teachers to state

1:34:35

a loyalty oath to the country.

1:34:37

And she was not going to let her teachers

1:34:39

do that. And here is the loyalty oath that

1:34:42

they were supposed to start

1:34:44

saying in 1931, I swear

1:34:46

fidelity to the king, to his royal successors

1:34:48

and to the fascist regime. And I swear

1:34:50

to respect the National Fascist Party's

1:34:53

statutes and the other laws of the state

1:34:55

and to fulfill my teachers and all academic

1:34:57

duties with the aim of preparing industrious

1:35:00

and righteous citizens patriotic

1:35:02

and devoted to the fascist regime. I

1:35:04

swear not to be or ever become a member

1:35:06

of organizations or parties whose activities

1:35:09

are incompatible with my official

1:35:11

duties. Kind of chilling, kind of not

1:35:13

good. And the philosophy of Maria

1:35:16

Montessori using children as a

1:35:18

means to world peace and the

1:35:20

obvious opposite goals

1:35:23

of Mussolini, they did not see eye to

1:35:25

eye. And in a one day

1:35:28

period, Mussolini ordered every

1:35:30

single Montessori school in Italy

1:35:32

closed and thus it was done.

1:35:34

Meanwhile, in Germany, the same thing

1:35:36

was happening when Hitler instructed that all

1:35:38

the Montessori schools there also

1:35:41

be closed. One of the problems with

1:35:43

the Montessori schools, we did talk about this

1:35:45

a little in the Anne Frank episode. Anne Frank

1:35:47

is a famous alumna

1:35:50

of Montessori education. He at

1:35:52

one point required all Jewish students

1:35:54

to be eliminated from

1:35:57

schools and for certain materials to

1:35:59

be taken outward.

1:35:59

of school, and the Montessori

1:36:02

schools did not do either of those things and

1:36:05

were therefore closed. They weren't going to police

1:36:07

the out-of-school activities of their teachers,

1:36:09

and they were not going

1:36:11

to expel the Jewish students. So they

1:36:14

had to go. And Hitler and Mussolini

1:36:16

certainly did not want free-thinking

1:36:19

citizens anyway, so this whole

1:36:22

system was very incompatible with

1:36:24

the Montessori way, really,

1:36:27

if you think about it. And I am cracking up

1:36:29

about the

1:36:29

obedience thing still. I'm just...

1:36:32

I have to tell a story of something that happened

1:36:35

when authority tried to put their

1:36:37

foot on the neck of Montessori children. At

1:36:39

my son's school, when he went to Montessori

1:36:42

Elementary School, I have

1:36:45

to tell you the story of the saga of the chocolate

1:36:47

milk. Okay, the principal decided

1:36:49

that she was going to eliminate

1:36:52

chocolate milk from the lunch program,

1:36:54

and there was disquiet among

1:36:57

the populace. They

1:36:59

didn't want one chocolate milk taken out, and

1:37:01

she said, it's not good for you. I read this article, and

1:37:03

she was trying to be a good Montessori teacher. This

1:37:05

is why we're doing this, your body's are this,

1:37:08

and it's not healthy, and the sugar content,

1:37:10

blah, blah, blah. And several of the upper L

1:37:12

students, this is fourth, fifth, and sixth grade, got

1:37:15

together in a committee at recess, and

1:37:17

they developed a strategy. And they

1:37:20

looked up data, and they discovered that Manchester

1:37:22

United, the most famous soccer team in the world,

1:37:24

used chocolate milk as a training beverage. They

1:37:28

looked up the medical benefits

1:37:31

of protein replacement for this and

1:37:33

for that, and got all this medical details.

1:37:35

And then they went further, and they took

1:37:37

a

1:37:37

survey. They drew up a survey, and

1:37:39

they went from class to class, and asked

1:37:41

to speak to the class, and made appointments

1:37:44

with certain teachers and

1:37:46

librarians, and they made their presentation.

1:37:48

And they asked the question, if your choice

1:37:51

is between white milk and no milk, which

1:37:53

do you choose? And so, some

1:37:55

kind of data point emerged that more kids

1:37:58

would drink no milk than drink

1:37:59

white milk. Then they added a question, which

1:38:02

would you drink? Chocolate milk, white milk, or no

1:38:04

milk. And then chocolate milk came out on top.

1:38:07

So therefore they compiled their data, made

1:38:09

an appointment with the principal and went in and said, you

1:38:11

are depriving 78% of

1:38:13

the student body of this much protein and

1:38:16

this much health giving properties and blah, blah,

1:38:18

blah, blah, blah, blah. And they really had all their crap

1:38:20

together. Little kids who couldn't write their names yet

1:38:22

had given an X and the teacher signed as

1:38:24

her witness, you know, and

1:38:26

they had got all their ducks in a row and the principal

1:38:29

just laughed.

1:38:29

And called down to the district and

1:38:32

got the chocolate milk back because what can you

1:38:34

do with that kind of organized and

1:38:36

intelligent resistance? Even if

1:38:38

some of their logic might've been flawed, you can not

1:38:41

complain when all the education you've

1:38:44

been giving these kids coalesces into one big project

1:38:46

like this that encompassed the whole school

1:38:48

from the P threes to the sixth graders. And

1:38:51

I love that story. So Hitler and Mussolini

1:38:53

are not going to like these kinds of citizens that ask

1:38:55

why and complain when there's a regulation they

1:38:57

don't like. So the surprise level I

1:38:59

have for them closing is not

1:39:02

great. No.

1:39:03

So Maria moved back to Spain, but

1:39:06

in Spain, the Spanish civil war had

1:39:08

led to the rise of Francesco

1:39:11

Franco,

1:39:12

yet another man who wants to control

1:39:15

everything. So it's 1936. Maria

1:39:17

sees the writing on the wall and she flees

1:39:20

Spain and goes to England and then

1:39:23

onto Amsterdam. The Netherlands,

1:39:26