2 p.m. 06 January 2017
“You teach to the active mind—
which is universal.”
~Ann E. Berthoff
Collaborate. Compose. Innovate. Revise. Rewind.
About Being, Knowing, Creating, Composing, and Teaching
Last month, January 5th 2017, I received an email from one of the archivists at the UMass Boston library in response to a query I’d launched in December. My current research and interest in Dr. Maria Montessori stems largely from having discovered Montessori mentioned throughout the scholarship of Ann E. Berthoff. Berthoff is professor Emeritus at UMass Boston, so I figured the library might have some papers or something from her estate. I hoped to discover how it was that Berthoff came to cultivate an interest in Montessori. I found out.
“The method of observation is established upon one fundamental base–the liberty of the pupils in their spontaneous manifestations.” (p. 54)
“…so that the children may be free to go and come s they like…” (54)
p. 64
He also attended meetings of the ‘Black Cat,’ an intellectual club in New york City, and the annual suffragist parades, in which his wife and other college women marched. (In one suffrage parade, Dewey reportedly carried a sign which someone had handed him that said, ‘Men Can Vote–Why Can’t I?’) Kilpatrick enjoyed the demonstrations very much, although one year he noted that some men jeered. [Diaries, April 19, 1910;March 12 and May 6, 1911; May 4, 1912]