The Contribution of Maria Montessori's Pedagogy and her Educational Action to Modern Inclusive Policies

Maria Montessori's influence on modern inclusive policies, in particular in relation to school education, is really remarkable. Her culture, pedagogical intuitions, her institutional projects and her methodological and didactic innovations influenced profoundly our views on education, offering a detailed and original understanding of childhood as the foundation of a mature, critical and democratic society. Maria Montessori's ideas, based on solid philosophical and anthropological grounds, not only found validation by embracing and implementing the achievements of various sciences pertaining to human evolutional development and its social community, but also shed light on research topics that are still object of scholarly attention. This is testified to by the fact that her educational methods are still relevant today, and they can be easily adapted to the change in life conditions and the widespread use of new media technologies. Cooperative work, mutual assistance, individually tailored education, reading, curricular and extracurricular activities, the tailoring of learning environments to the individual pupil, the need to monitor and evaluate learning outcomes, the design and experimentation of teaching, social involvement, use of technological aides, as well as inclusive and integrative education, are but a few of the foundations of her philosophy. Hence the importance of her ideas to this day.