Iwasaki, C. (2025). Violência às escolas no Brasil à luz do pensamento de Maria Montessori. Aprender – Cadernos de Filosofia e Psicologia da Educação, 19(33), 257-273. https://doi.org/10.22481/aprender.33.16866. This article is in Portuguese. The link page has options for translation into English and Spanish.

Violência às escolas no Brasil à luz do pensamento de Maria Montessori (Violence against schools in Brazil in the light of Maria Montessori's thought)

Taking continuous inspiration from Montessori’s title Education and Peace, Camila Iwasaki’s article reminds us that, for Montessori, peace is not the absence of war, but a constructive social reform. For that reason, material and technological advances must go hand in hand with universal human cooperation. Otherwise, we create only external progress, while our moral development fails to advance.

And here Iwasaki poses an interesting argument in dialogue with Dr Montessori’s ideas: No one would accept regressions in material progress—such as losing access to running water or electricity. But as a civilisation, we seem able to tolerate moral regression. This contrast works to highlight how necessary it is to argue, as Montessori did, that peace is the result of educational work, more than anything else.

The article takes as its point of departure Montessori’s focus on the child. While a child develops, successive opportunities appear for the re-establishment of human psychism. If these opportunities are nurtured, the result is a human being both well developed and self-confident. Characteristics such as blind obedience, which traditional education so often produces, are mostly absent. We would rather see initiative and dignity.

Contrasted with the context of gun violence against schools in Brazil, the argument gains urgency. Violence against schools, as Iwasaki underlines, cannot be seen only as isolated acts. They are symptoms of inequality, intolerance, and the spread of ideologies that devalue knowledge and human life.

Measures such as surveillance and control, even if needed for a while, are not enough for peace to be built. Only a society—and its education system—which gives children environments of respect, autonomy and moral development in a context of meaningful work can build foundations for “lasting peace”, as Montessori would define it.

While the author analyses the Brazilian context, the general argument of Iwasaki’s article is much broader. It proposes education as the strongest instrument we have to confront violence in all its forms. In this light, schools become not only places to be defended but must also be starting points for the construction of peace.

Dr Gabriel M Salomão