"Originally published in Italian as Il bambino è il maestro: Vita di Maria Montessori in 2020 by Rizzoli, Milan"--Title page verso.

Includes bibliographical references (pages [339]-348).

Part one: Constructing the self (1870-1900). A little girl
The seduction of theater
Excellency, I will study medicine
The anatomy museum
Lessons on the cadaver
Walks on the Pincian Hill
Reaching out to the people
Up with women's unrest
A woman on the ward
Giuseppe Montesano
The boy savage
Let them shout and they will talk
The secret son
A pioneering speech
A new woman
A Niagara of words
The lesson of things
A different teacher
More painful than losing the man you love
Part two: Discovering her mission (1901-1907). A great faith
Back to university
A partisan of free love
Sorceress, witch, enchantress of the young
He who possesses love is a god
All women, rise up!
The communion of sins
San Lorenzo
Thy light is come
The children's house
Blocks, clay, and pencils
The immense work
The marvelous fact
Sandpaper letters
The explosion of writing
Part three: The first disciples (1908-1913). An angelic baroness
New people who speak in us
Just three darling girls
The martyred saint of the movement
The humanitarian society of Milan
Give the child exactness
Producing the material
A thorny individual
Like flies in summer
The year of farewells
The school in the convent
Taking religion to the people
A pilgrimage
Montessori, Rome
An American impresario
The refound son
Before the international tribunal
The first American tensions
Institutes, manuals, and other squabbles
The most interesting woman in Europe
Part four: Managing success (1914-1934). A triumphal tour
Montessori fever
Where are my trusted friends?
I know nothing about business, that I do know
Away from Europe at war
Jealous, in some ways fanatical
New things, houses as high as the sky
The glass classroom
A ball of fire
La escuela Montessori
The divine friend of children
Handmaiden in the world
The advanced method
Freedom with material
The white cross
The teachers college
The Montessori babes
A socialist friend
Development around the world
British pragmatism
Between socialism and psychoanalysis
Coming home
A hard year
Bombastic pronouncements, covert impediments
Montessorism without Montessori
The break with fascism
Part five: Cosmic education (1934-1952). The AMI and Mario's rise
Among the peoples
Children of the Earth
The great vision
India
The great spirit
Enemies and foreigners
The completion of the idea
The method is a small thing
My country is a star
The epoch of surprises
I don't think, I see
The house by the sea

"A fresh, comprehensive biography of the pioneering educator and activist who changed the way we look at children's minds, from the author of Oriana Fallaci. Born in 1870 in Chiaravalle, Italy, Maria Montessori would grow up to embody almost every trait men of her era detested in the fairer sex. She was self-confident, strong-willed, and had a fiery temper at a time when women were supposed to be soft and pliable. She studied until she became a doctor at a time when female graduates in Italy provoked outright scandal. She never wanted to marry or have children-the accepted destiny for all women in her milieu of late nineteenth-century bourgeois Rome-and when she became pregnant by a colleague of hers, she gave up her son to continue pursuing her career. At around age thirty, Montessori was struck by the work being done with children from the slums of the San Lorenzo neighborhood, and realized what she wanted to do with her life: change the school, and therefore the world, through a new approach to the child's mind. In spite of the resistance she faced from all sides-scientists accused her of being too mystical, and the clergy of being too scientific-she would garner acclaim and establish the influential Montessori Method, which is now practiced throughout the world. A thorough, nuanced portrait of this often controversial woman, The Child Is the Teacher is the first biographical work on Maria Montessori written by an author who is not a member of the Montessori movement, but who has been granted access to original letters, diaries, notes, and texts written by Montessori herself, including an array of previously unpublished material"-- Provided by publisher.