Non the corridor of the Montessori middle school, the kids work quietly, in pairs or small groups, at the desks arranged in the center of the space. They check each other, help and support each other, always in full view of the teachers. Every now and then someone gets up to take a book from the shelves along the walls, the choice is vast. In the classrooms, with the doors always open, there are no professorships but only desks arranged in islands. Everyone cooperates, no one raises their voice. In a third, after the lesson on the Restoration and looking at the PowerPoint prepared by the teacher, students are creating a map on the subject.
The students of the first grade secondary school IC Riccardo Massa of Milan, leader of the Montessori experimentation, take care of the school garden.
We are in the lower secondary school, the former middle school, at theIC Riccardo Massa of Milan, in the Gallaratese district, on the north-western outskirts. The school is the leader of the Italian network, born in 2021, which is experimenting with the Montessori method in middle school: there are 25 in total, 23 of which are state-run. A method that families like: at Riccardo Massa, for example, they have gone from two to three dedicated sections, and many questions have remained unanswered.
Riccardo Massa actually started already in 2014, together with three others (Ilaria Alpi and Arcadia of Milan, Balilla Paganelli of Cinisello Balsamo) and the results, followed by the University of Milan Bicocca, are more than positive: «They are all suburban schools with a disadvantaged basic user base» explains Elisabetta Nigris, professor of educational planning and organizer of the conference open to teachers “Look beyond what you think you understand” (quote by Maria Montessori), which will be held on 8 and 9 February in Bicocca. «Thanks to this project instead they managed to become attractive and counter white flight (the escape of Italian students from public schools, we talked about it in the December 24, 2022 issue, ed) and now many families, from more central neighborhoods, want to enroll their children. To redevelop suburban schools, targeted planning is needed, a manager who believes in it and trained teachers».
For Maria Montessori, the adolescent is a social newborn
Also the results of the Invalsi tests reward the method: «Those of our Montessori sections are superior to the general ones of the school, which are in turn superior to those of Lombardy» proudly says Milena Piscozzo, director of Riccardo Massa, who has adapted, expanded and updated the method. As far as middle school is concerned, in fact, Maria Montessori did not give precise and organic indications as for primary school, but only general guidelines. She, however, setting precise stakes. Explains Benedetto Scoppola, president of theMontessori National Opera: «The first point is that, according to your definition, the adolescent is a social newborn, because for the first time in his life he realizes that he is part of a community that he is discovering, a world outside the family. How to fit into this new context? In 1939 Maria Montessori wrote an essay on the “Erdkinder”, in Dutch “The children of the earth”, a concept born however for a rural reality, and with small schools, such as in Northern Europe.
Today it is not enough for training to milk the cows or cultivate the fields. In the 21st century declination, the idea is not to keep students always in class but to let them know the place where they live, often developing interdisciplinary projects outdoors. Movement, as scientists confirm today, is a very powerful means of learning. Other teaching methods, such as the Finnish one, were inspired by ours on movement and the outdoors».
Adds Milena Piscozzo: «Maria Montessori was a forerunner: she said that adolescence is an explosive time of brain building; neuroscience, several decades later, confirmed it. The “Montessori urban compromise” was born from this starting point, our model adapted to today », he adds. «In the Montessori middle school, no frontal lessons, yes to the kids protagonists of their learning according to an individual work plan, a lot of interdisciplinarity and local pedagogy, that is, outdoor activities. In this age group, experience is essential for learning».
Geometry is studied open air at IC Riccardo Massa, Montessori experimentation.
Lessons on the beach, “word hunt” at the market
At Riccardo Massa, for example, one week a year we move to a structure in the countryside, where the students manage and cook. Meanwhile they go to discover the place, make botanical observations, research. But there are also initiatives in the neighbourhood, such as the collaboration with the area’s disabled day centre: the kids organize workshops or carry out a project on benches for legality: the students choose the names of the victims of the mafia to remember, the users of the Center make the plaques.
Each middle school that adheres to the Montessori experimentation declines the method according to its own reality: at the IC Senigallia-Centro Fagnani local pedagogy means lessons on the beach, or at the mouth of the river, but also in a wood with bees, a pond, a vegetable garden. During the Italian lessons, you don’t just follow the texts: «I suggest they tell me what interests them, and from that link we start to get to know authors who maybe they should deal with later» says the literature teacher Auro Barabesi . “Now in first grade we are reading poetry Crazy old carnival even if D’Annunzio is a third-party author. In the meantime, we have sown a seed».
In Rome, the Pini-Montessori institute (which is about to enter the network as the 26th school) in the African neighborhood goes “hunting for words at the market”, or to see the street art works that have colored the streets. The trial started in September, but after a few months the results are already very good: «Parents have noticed a reduction in anxiety in their children» says the coordinator Nicoletta Guidotti. «We have children who have just arrived from distant countries, perhaps because they have been adopted, who have found a warm welcome here. And even families in which Italian is not spoken see their children well integrated».
At the Montessori middle school we move from concreteness to abstraction
The lack of numerical grades during the year certainly contributes to lowering stress (only the final report cards remain) and the fact that the teachers (at Riccardo Massa all tenured), have chosen to follow the method, work together and have been trained in a specific way. Maria Accornero, a mathematics teacher, uses Montessori materials a lot to teach her discipline. She finds them valid, and useful. She shows a small wooden cube that can be taken apart which she needs to explain the cube of the binomial. «The student passes from the concrete visualization of the process to the abstraction, trying to insert the reasoning and the discovery. The method is perhaps slower, but the results take root better. Teenagers don’t like to repeat the lesson. They prefer to ask: what can we do? They have to be activated, so they feel more motivated». The work is free, by objectives, according to a weekly plan.
«The timetable is 36 hours, we try to finish the projects at school, because then the kids have to go out and have fun» says Antonella Binago, professor of Letters. “And if someone can’t do it, he does his homework. In general, however, we try to make them responsible, so that times are organized; a skill that will be very useful to them in high school. Just as it will be useful to know how to evaluate yourself, and evaluate your companions. It helps you grow.” The morning is about to end. We’ll be going to the canteen soon. On a counter is a copy of I’m not afraid, the book by Niccolò Ammaniti that they are reading in second grade. Every day, as soon as you enter school, the teacher on duty reads pages from a novel for about ten minutes. A nice way to start the day.
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