ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on various critiques of Montessori education and reflects on the benefits of the approach to the child’s individual development. It considers the challenges to delivery of Montessori education in England today. The chapter provides links with research in order to contextualise contemporary Montessori practices. Montessori practitioners find that parents who have themselves experienced difficulties at school, or who have participated in a more directed outcome-based approach to education which focused on passing examinations, are looking for different ways of engaging their children in the education process. The lack of opportunities for role-play activities and misunderstanding of the strong Montessori emphasis on the use of real objects and real experiences as the basis for learning by young children, contribute further to the critique of Montessori practice that it is not promoting children’s imagination and creativity. The international events have reignited Montessori teachers’ commitment to education for peace.
