the system of education and upbringing of children, developed by the outstanding Italian teacher and doctor M. Montessori. It is based on the ideas of free education. Based on the theory of spontaneous child development, Montessori came to deny the active role of the teacher in the upbringing of children: adults impose their own attitudes on children and thus inhibit them. The natural guidance of the teacher, according to Montessori, is carried out on the basis of autodidacticism: children themselves freely choose the lesson, but perform it as the teacher conceived and as required by the didactic material.