“The man of today – wrote Maria Montessori – is the citizen of the great nation of humanity. He is the new citizen of the new world, the citizen of the Universe“
The aim of the Montessori International Centre of Perugia is, basically, the one that Maria Montessori wrote in 1950 in the magazine “Perusia”, published by the University for Foreigners of Perugia “the aim of the Centre is to help intellectual humanity to orient itself (…): to elevate education above personal interests, limited to other professions and restricted in the national limits that are linked to customs established in regulations“.
This way, even though in a very dated language, Maria Montessori captures the two central themes of the educational methods of our time: the metaphor of cultural poverty and the problem of intercultural education.
Today, the activity of the “M. Montessori” International Centre of Perugia is articulated in three directions: research, training, experimentation.

The research activity is mainly centred around updating and actualising the educational path of Maria Montessori, researching new courses, cooperating with both national and international working groups. From the studies made with the University of Cambridge on the use of technological innovations, like working tools in the educational field, to the comparative research held to compare Montessori’s method and other educational programmes: Steiner’s pedagogy, Baden Powell’s scout -movement and philosophy, the education to peace of Perugia’s Aldo Capitini.

The training activity for teachers is still going on in the start and management of training courses in various realities, both Italian and international.
Training is also an essential part of the research project “Silver Age” currently ongoing in the Montessori Centre of Perugia, along with Marche Region, the INCRA (National Retirement and Care Institute for Elderly), some faculties of Ancona’s University and three Farms of the Region. The project wants to bring the base principles of Montessori’s method in the cure and assistance of elder people with cognitive issues, training personnel able to follow the elderly who, living in the farms that are part of the project, are in close contact with nature, encouraging autonomy and independence.

For more than twenty years and alongside the schools of the Centre, the activity of experimentation has been centred around the educational project 0-18 years old. This Montessori educational project which starts from birth, accompanying the child first and the teenager after until the eighteenth year, is going on and is realised in the work of the school started in 2002. The nursery, the House of children, the Primary school, the Middle school and the High Schools, the schools of the M. Montessori Centre of Perugia represent a unicum, a coherent path, an experimentation which is now in actual stabilisation stage, a place where the freedom of children, teenagers, can be fully expressed, followed by teachers who have been specifically trained to teach, listen carefully and individually each student. A success proved by the enthusiasm both young kids and teenagers show during school initiatives.
Today the centre is ready to build events of innovations centred on new paradigms, covering new streets in order not to dry up sources, roads and paths.