Language: Italian

ISSN: 0373-3009

Abstract/Notes: Since Martin Luther, religious education has largely been identified with catechism that used question and answer method, particularly in the Catholic church. For a person with intellectual disability, this offers a grave difficulty in religious formation. Could there be alternatives? The present study aimed at exploring the benefits of Catechesis of the Good Shepherd (CGS) for children living with intellectual disabilities. The participants were 23 children and nine care-givers in a Catholic context in Kenya. Observation guides and interviews were used to collect data that showed that children with intellectual disabilities had the ability to spontaneously relate with the spiritual world, and in some cases, with Jesus. The findings confirmed that the CGS offers children with special needs the space, tools, and time to get in touch with the Divine through witnessing to the narrative of the Word.

Language: English

DOI: 10.1007/s40839-018-0069-5

ISSN: 2199-4625

Abstract/Notes: The Italian historiographical tradition on the reception of Maria Montessori has highlighted the widespread misunderstanding that she faced in Italy, often accompanied by prejudicial devaluation, if not by actual personal attacks. Within this critical panorama, stronger resistance was exhibited by Catholics and Neo-Kantians than by Idealists, and in particular Gentile and Lombardo-Radice showed deep appreciation for Montessori, offering her remarks that were rather interesting from a pedagogical standpoint – and are still to be considered thoroughly if we wish to approach her method critically. Furthermore, Lombardo-Radice also brought into the Italian debate a series of international criticisms that had the same tone and content as those addressed to her by the intellectuals involved in the new school movement, as evidenced by an analysis of the articles that Ferrière published in the magazine Pour l’Ère Nouvelleduring the 1920s. By doing so Lombardo-Radice confirmed his divergence from Gentile and his proximity to the progressive school movement.

Language: English

DOI: 10.6092/issn.1970-2221/12320

ISSN: 1970-2221

Abstract/Notes: In recent years, philosophers and psychologists have criticized character- or virtue-based normative theories on the basis that human behavior and cognition depend more on situation than on traits of character. This set of criticisms, which initially aimed at broadly Aristotelian virtue theories in ethics, has expanded to target a wide range of approaches in both ethics and, recently, epistemology. In this essay, I draw on the works of Maria Montessori to defend her conception of character and particularly of intellectual virtue in the light of situationist objections. I start with an overview of the situationist challenge before turning to some reasons to think that Montessori’s virtue epistemology might be susceptible to it. I then offer a brief discussion of Montessori’s approach to character. After laying out two ways that Montessori, like recent conservative defenses of virtue epistemology, deflates the significance of situationist findings, I show some ways that Montessori’s virtue epistemology resembles so-called “accommodationist” responses to situationism.

Language: English

DOI: 10.1007/s11229-019-02332-4

ISSN: 1573-0964

Abstract/Notes: The child's capacity for self-actuated intellectual growth and the possibility of speeding up intellectual growth through improved opportunities and increased stimulation were studied. Six exploratory studies carried out during the first two years of this project were reported. The three main areas of learning which were investigated with the idea of locating promising approaches were reading, creativity, and logical operations. These studies concerned (1) exploring the teaching of reading to very young children, (2) a teaching machine approach which showed some promise in the first study, (3) preferences for high-frequency versus low-frequency word use occurring in children's speech, (4) construction activities involving independent problem-solving, and guided construction, (5) a method of inducing conservation of substance in kindergarten children, and (6) teaching formal logical operation to preschool children. Two other studies were discussed, including (1) instruction of direct verbal instruction in language, arithmetic, and reading to four-year old disadvantaged children, and (2) comparison of a direct verbal instruction with a Montessori program for four-year olds. Results and conclusions were many and varied. (EF)

Language: English

Published: Washington, D.C., Jun 1967

Language: English

DOI: 10.1080/00071005.2022.2108757

ISSN: 1467-8527, 0007-1005

Language: English

Archive: Seattle University, Lemieux Library and McGoldrick Learning Commons, Special Collections