I n building her compelling case, Martin engages ideas from Plato and Aristotle, Jefferson and Thoreau, John Dewey and William James, Virginia Woolf and Louisa May Alcott, among others. But she is most inspired by the moral vision of Maria Montessori, and The Schoolhome is among the most significant interpretations of Montessori s work ever to appear. Montessori s Casa dei Bambini has been translated as children s house, but Martin reveals that Montessori literally meant home a place where the emotional life of the child is nourished with care, concern and connection to other people and to the natural world. While Dewey recognized that the school s role must change in response to new patterns of work, Montessori went further, and addressed the absence of the workers in their children s lives. She vividly describes how gender roles are polarized in a culture that denigrates domesticity, and illustrates the discussion by referring to the archetypal heroes of American literature.
M artin sketches the outlines of the schoolhome environment.
Schooling should be less oriented to the economic demands of the public world and more concerned with the interior needs of the human personality.