Esperanto ed educazione alla pace Uno strumento di crescita per “l’uomo nuovo” montessoriano

This paper illustrates the strategies for education for peace from the perspective by the Montessori method and the one by the founder of Esperanto, i.e., Zamenhof, in comparison. Despite the fact that recent experiences of teaching Esperanto within Montessori education are just a few, the points of contact between the two perspectives are evident in the writings of the respective founders, i.e., Maria Montessori and Zamenhof. Both fostered the common goal of reaching world peace by educating the Montessorian “new human being which echoes Zamenhof ’s homarano, “member of humanity” (in Latin: homo sum). Esperanto is then framed within Montessori education not only as a language per se, but as a tool offered to pupils so to learn to how think critically about the world they live and, more importantly, the world they want to live in while growing up, constructed by every- body’s everyday choices.