Deutsche Montessori Vereinigung - German Montessori Association # Deutsche Montessori Vereinigung In many countries you need to be state certified, i.e. Germany, Ukraine, ... That is why in Germany for example it were students that became real teachers that started the AMI approved Montessori training that got approved by Mario Montessori in 1962. Here is a short story about how the "Montessori Vereinigung" actually started after World War 2. I translated it to English - This could happen in Ukraine as well as in many other regions that just start to discover Montessori right now with AMI support! It is the Maria Montessori SPIRIT that has to touch you - one time Montessori Always Montessori. We need not more paper and certificate holders but definitely more PIONEERS that start like Maria Montessori in San Lorenzo or those students and former prisoners of war that came home that started the movement in the ruins in Germany as described by Hans Elsner below. And all of them need the AMI support - especially those Pioneers. The Spirit, the right intention, seeing that its possible, motivates them. [https://deutsche-montessori-vereinigung.de/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Zur-Vorgeschichte-der-Montessori-Vereinigung.pdf](https://deutsche-montessori-vereinigung.de/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Zur-Vorgeschichte-der-Montessori-Vereinigung.pdf) Translation to English Language: ## On the history of the Montessori Association, Hans Elsner. Dear Colleagues, At first glance, you will have noticed that we are not that young anymore here on the podium. The origin of this A semblance can be found in the fact that we were present at the founding of this association 40 years ago. We were asked to report on the past and the beginnings of the Montessori Association. I liked making the start and pointing out a special feature first. If a 40th anniversary is celebrated today, then it only refers to the registration in the register of associations. The real beginnings were years earlier. For the Montessori Association there is such a thing as a natal period of development. I want to start with this phase. Other cuts from the association's curriculum vitae are taken over by friends sitting beside me. The roots of the Montessori Association - as I see it – lie in the period immediately after the Second World War. Not only do houses, streets, schools and churches lie in ruins and want to be rebuilt, but the entire spiritual life is on the ground and waiting for renewal. The whole school system, for example, has to start from scratch. We students from back then saw our chance in this new beginning. Another school had to be found. There were certainly pedagogy students everywhere who wanted just that. How lucky for a handful of them that they met a few lecturers at the Pedagogical Academy who wanted to work with them. There was the director Helene Helming, for example. She had obtained her Montessori diploma from Maria Montessori in Rome, but was prevented from practicing by the National Socialists and punished with a professional ban. The English occupation authorities entrusted her with the management of the academy immediately after the war. Everyone who studied there learned about Montessori education for the first time through her. Just by getting to know this completely different, entirely new pedagogy, the academy became the place where the prerequisites for the new path were right. If you wanted to go the new way, you could find it here. There were three requirements for this. First: the time called for renewal. The old school had to be replaced. We wanted education without ideology. Second: the young people who had resisted National Socialist ideas came together there. Third: there were teachers there who could impart the new spirit and show the new way. The study of philosophy freed thinking from narrowness and fear. Opening up to international literature (until then we only knew censorship) demanded intellectual generosity. Studying pedagogy, especially Montessori pedagogy, changed the image of people, law, and freedom. The introduction of art, design, images, and music led to new standards. In this context, I would like to mention a few names of women and men who have accompanied the direct practical work of the young teachers for years beyond their studies (4 semesters) as a matter of course and in a friendly manner: Helene Helming, Katharina Fischer, Maria Lücke, Johann Rasche, Josef Pieper, Alois Reiermann. Two years of study was small in terms of time, but great as an experience for the spirit of optimism. Because only 200 students attended the academy at any time, it was easy to get to know each other. Even during the course, everyone who wanted to take the new path seriously in practice got together. It was not only natural for us, but also necessary that we wanted to keep in touch in some way after the exam. This was necessary because, as young teachers, we were assigned to individual schools scattered all over North Rhine-Westphalia and very soon became lone fighters there. In this time of hunger, who would want to embark on a new lesson with inexperienced newcomers? It was clear that we were each on our own, everywhere alone. That was reason enough for us to organize meetings together. They took place regularly in Düsseldorf. First it was Günter Schulz's apartment, where we gathered to talk, to work, to plan. But then, because more and more people came, the well-known castle tower on the Rhine had to hold up. We were only able to leave home after school on Saturday. We stayed until Sunday noon. We had air mattresses with us for the night. Not only because Düsseldorf was easy to reach, we met there. Günter Schulz was the first to embark on the new path, the new teaching in a Düsseldorf elementary school. At first we called it "relaxation of the lessons". What was meant was what we later called "free work". For us it was always about the practice. We wanted to be as close as possible. Our decision was made. The classroom had to be designed differently. Away from rows of pews, away from rank and file, not the teacher should be the focus. Tools for the child's hand had to be manufactured, had to be invented, tested, exchanged, improved. Today everyone knows what is meant by Prepared Environment. Back then we had to learn step by step, chair by chair. But the most important thing for the new path was the free choice of work. Until then, who had thought it possible for children to work and learn voluntarily in school? We believed in it and soon we knew it. Free work is the best form for real learning. It was around 1950, 10 years before the founding of the Montessori Association, 5 years after the end of the war. There were governments, school doctors and education ministers again. But enough classrooms, enough teachers, enough chairs, enough paper, learning materials were far from available. How we still managed to prepare the environment in the classes was only possible through a joint effort. When we met in the castle tower, we all worked together and for each other. No one ever worked just for themselves. The difficulty of obtaining raw materials such as wood, cardboard, paper, ink and glue at that time is difficult to imagine today. And yet the change in the schools could not be stopped. Difficulties and resistance were of course inevitable. For some we were something of an oasis, for others we were a disruptive interruption to the desert landscape of school. We received unwanted help for our cause from the then Minister of Education of North Rhine-Westphalia. By decree, she had allowed freedom of method. Everything that we did differently than usual, we immediately called method. If questions were asked suspiciously or even checked, we reinforced the answer and called it the Montessori method. Since around 1950 the Montessori method was virtually unknown both in schools and in the school administration, this gave us a kind of pedagogical freedom. Nobody wanted to admit to being ignorant, it was hard enough to write the word. We already knew what that was, and we also knew that our work only had initial similarities with Montessori. The circle, which met regularly in Düsseldorf, was now officially known as the Düsseldorfer Kreis e. V. and registered. We had our own newsletter, paid subscriptions and had a chairman - Günter Schulz, of course. Perhaps it has already become clear up to this point that the "loosening of the Lessons" as practiced it, but still no Montessori pedagogy. Producing work and learning material that enables individual work and prepares a child-friendly environment helps on the way in the right direction, but can only be a start. Nevertheless, the new path led to a completely different learning success in a convincing way. We felt big. We had discovered children's love of learning. At the same time as the teachers in the Düsseldorf district changed their work in the classes to free work year after year (often against great opposition), Montessori classes were never set up in Essen-Dilldorf near the Pedagogical Academy. Ms. Katharina Fischer, a teacher with a Montessori diploma and Montessori practice, was supposed to be the head of the school. She was never because it would have gone too far for the school administration to change an entire elementary school.) Through Ms. Fischer, the students had the Opportunity to get to know Montessori material in seminars during your studies and to observe practice at school. I got to know the metal action figures from her. I remember very well the 'quite different' aspect of this observation. I was surprised by the simplicity of this exercise, and at the same time skeptical about its usefulness for school learning. It was perhaps still too difficult for a war veteran returning from captivity to understand indirect learning. But even then I wanted to get to know everything about this pedagogy. And once you seriously wanted it, you never let it go. The first Montessori practice after the war was in Essen-Dilldorf with Katharina Fischer and her colleagues Paul Drücke, Heinrich Schaffmeister and Luise Henkelmann. Gertrud Cinzzen. I understood it, this pedagogy, and yet I didn't understand it. What we developed in the Düsseldorf group was easier for me. Today I know that we didn't do something completely different, but a little less. The Düsseldorf circle had looked for and found the possibilities for which we were ready at the time, and could be ready for them. When the first Montessori diploma course took place in Germany after the war in 1954, it was a matter of course for everyone in the Düsseldorf district who could make it possible to take part. This diploma course came at the right time. We experienced what can always and everywhere be experienced in Montessori courses. The tools for the child's hand must be an aid to the holistic development of the human being. The Montessori material is a developmental material. This important discovery was bound to have implications for our future work, for example teacher behavior became even more reticent. It called for work equipment to be checked and restricted. The sensitive phases moved into focus. Thinking based on verifiable results lost its meaning. Particular attention was paid to how the children work. While the changes in teaching and learning brought about by the Düsseldorf Circle were still very much influenced by the individual's own ideas, they were now increasingly being oriented towards the child. It was a matter of time before the circle dissolved. This step may seem like a logical conclusion at first glance. Here, however, a teacher's attitude becomes clear that cannot be taken for granted. Where in school do we find a voluntary change from one correct pedagogy to another correct pedagogic, if this is the better one? When I look back at the development of Montessori pedagogy and the Montessori schools, I always see the same picture. There, where there is no separation from activity material, from one's own image of man and teaching ideas, from conformity and fear of guidelines, everything remains half-hearted. Maria Montessori never boasted of her ideas, she only ever spoke of discoveries. If you try to improve them, you will fall by the wayside, as I said, halfway. The Düsseldorfer Kreis has let its path flow into the path of the child. It was a prelude to the union, but a necessary one.