Informationen zum Autor Cristina De Stefano is a journalist and writer. She lives and works in Paris as a literary scout for many publishing houses around the world. Her books Belinda e il mostro: Vita segreta di Cristina Campo (2002) and Americane avventurose (2007) have been translated into French, German, Spanish, and Polish. Her biography Oriana Fallaci: The Journalist, the Agitator, the Legend was published by Other Press in 2017. Gregory Conti has translated numerous works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from Italian including works by Emilio Lussu, Rosetta Loy, Elisa Biagini, and Paolo Rumiz. He is a regular contributor to the literary quarterly, Raritan. Klappentext "A fresh, comprehensive biography of the pioneering educator and activist who changed the way we look at children's minds, from the author of Oriana Fallaci. Born in 1870 in Chiaravalle, Italy, Maria Montessori would grow up to embody almost every trait men of her era detested in the fairer sex. She was self-confident, strong-willed, and had a fiery temper at a time when women were supposed to be soft and pliable. She studied until she became a doctor at a time when female graduates in Italy provoked outright scandal. She never wanted to marry or have children-the accepted destiny for all women in her milieu of late nineteenth-century bourgeois Rome-and when she became pregnant by a colleague of hers, she gave up her son to continue pursuing her career. At around age thirty, Montessori was struck by the work being done with children from the slums of the San Lorenzo neighborhood, and realized what she wanted to do with her life: change the school, and therefore the world, through a new approach to the child's mind. In spite of the resistance she faced from all sides-scientists accused her of being too mystical, and the clergy of being too scientific-she would garner acclaim and establish the influential Montessori Method, which is now practiced throughout the world. A thorough, nuanced portrait of this often controversial woman, The Child Is the Teacher is the first biographical work on Maria Montessori written by an author who is not a member of the Montessori movement, but who has been granted access to original letters, diaries, notes, and texts written by Montessori herself, including an array of previously unpublished material."-- Leseprobe A Little Girl It starts with a little girl. She is sitting in a big classroom with a ceiling that's way too high. It is 1876 and the public primary school in via San Nicola da Tolentino, in Rome, is like all the others in the Kingdom of Italy: a prison for children. You sit still at your desk, you listen to the teacher for hours, you repeat the lessons in chorus. If you behave badly, you are punished. The little girl is six years old and she has hated it all since the very first day. In silence, she begins her personal rebellion against the institution. Her attention goes out on strike, and, in just a few months, she's the last in her class. At school, I didn't study at all, she'll say as an adult. I paid very little attention to the teachers, using the lesson time to organize games, plays. And again: I didn't understand the arithmetic exercises, and for the longest time I wrote down the answers using made-up figures, the first ones that came to mind. Better at writing, with a passion for books, she's a born actress. When it's her turn to read out loud in class some touching tale, she makes everybody cry. She has an outgoing nature and, despite her young age, a powerful charisma. When it's time to play in the courtyard during recess, she's the boss, no doubt about it. If a classmate protests, she shuts her up with a cutting remark: You! Why, you are not even born yet! She's got the gift of gab and the security that comes from being a little girl whose family dotes on her. Since the day she was born, her pare...

Autorentext

Cristina De Stefano is a journalist and writer. She lives and works in Paris as a literary scout for many publishing houses around the world. Her books Belinda e il mostro: Vita segreta di Cristina Campo (2002) and Americane avventurose (2007) have been translated into French, German, Spanish, and Polish. Her biography Oriana Fallaci: The Journalist, the Agitator, the Legend was published by Other Press in 2017.

Gregory Conti has translated numerous works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from Italian including works by Emilio Lussu, Rosetta Loy, Elisa Biagini, and Paolo Rumiz. He is a regular contributor to the literary quarterly, Raritan.