Montessori biography

By the time she graduated in at the age of 20, with a certificate in physics—mathematics, she had decided to study medicine, a more unlikely pursuit given cultural norms at the time. Montessori moved forward with her intention to study medicine. She appealed to Guido Baccelli, the professor of clinical medicine at the University of Rome but was strongly discouraged.

In , she enrolled in the University of Rome in a degree course in natural sciences, passing examinations in botany, zoology, experimental physics, histology, anatomy, and general and organic chemistry, and earning her diploma di licenza in This degree, along with additional studies in Italian and Latin, qualified her for entrance into the medical program at the university in She was met with hostility and harassment from some medical students and professors because of her gender.

Because her attendance of classes with men in the presence of a naked body was deemed inappropriate, she was required to perform her dissections of cadavers alone, after hours. She resorted to smoking tobacco to mask the offensive odor of formaldehyde. In her last two years, she studied pediatrics and psychiatry , and worked in the pediatric consulting room and emergency service, becoming an expert in pediatric medicine.

Montessori graduated from the University of Rome in as a doctor of medicine. Her thesis was published in in the journal Policlinico. She found employment as an assistant at the university hospital and started a private practice. From to , Montessori worked with and researched "phrenasthenic children"—in modern terms, children experiencing some form of cognitive delay, illness, or disability.

She also began to travel, study, speak, and publish nationally and internationally, coming to prominence as an advocate for women's rights and education for children with learning difficulties. On 31 March , her only child — a son named Mario Montessori 31 March — was born. If Montessori married, she would be expected to cease working professionally.

Instead of marriage, Montessori decided to continue her work and studies. Montessori wanted to keep the relationship with her child's father secret under the condition that neither of them would marry anyone else. When the father of her child was pressured by family to make a more advantageous social connection and subsequently married, Montessori was left feeling betrayed and decided to leave the university hospital.

Montessori biography

She was forced to place her son in the care of a wet nurse living in the countryside, distraught to miss the first few years of his life. She would later be reunited with her son in his teenage years, where he proved to be a great assistant in her research. After graduating from the University of Rome in , Montessori continued with her research at the university's psychiatric clinic.

In , she was accepted as a voluntary assistant there. As part of her work, she visited asylums in Rome where she observed children with mental disabilities, observations that were fundamental to her future educational work. Montessori was intrigued by Itard's ideas and created a far more specific and organized system for applying them to the everyday education of children with disabilities.

Also in , Montessori audited the university courses in pedagogy and read "all the major works on educational theory of the past two hundred years". In , Montessori spoke on societal responsibility for juvenile delinquency at the National Congress of Medicine in Turin. In , she wrote several articles and spoke again at the First Pedagogical Conference of Turin, urging the creation of special classes and institutions for children with learning difficulties, as well as teacher training for their instructors.

That year Montessori undertook a two-week national lecture tour to capacity audiences before prominent public figures. In the National League opened the Scuola Magistrale Ortofrenica , or Orthophrenic School, a "medico-pedagogical institute" for training teachers in educating children with learning difficulties, with an attached laboratory classroom.

Montessori was appointed co-director. During her two years at the school, Montessori developed methods and materials which she later adapted to use with mainstream children. The school was an immediate success, attracting the attention of government officials from the departments of education and health, civic leaders, and prominent figures in the fields of education, psychiatry, and anthropology from the University of Rome.

Some of these children later passed public examinations given to so-called "normal" children. In , Montessori left the Orthophrenic School and her private practice, and in she enrolled in the philosophy degree course at the University of Rome; philosophy at the time included much of what is now considered psychology. She studied theoretical and moral philosophy, history of philosophy, and psychology as such, but she did not graduate.

During this time, she began to consider adapting her methods of educating children with learning difficulties to mainstream education. Montessori's work developing what she would later call "scientific pedagogy" continued over the next few years. In , Montessori presented a report at a second national pedagogical congress in Naples. She published two articles on pedagogy in , and two more the following year.

In and , she conducted anthropological research with Italian schoolchildren, and in she was qualified as a free lecturer in anthropology for the University of Rome. She was appointed to lecture in the Pedagogic School at the university and continued in the position until Her lectures were printed as a book titled Pedagogical Anthropology in In , Montessori was invited to oversee the care and education of a group of children of working parents in a new apartment building for low-income families in the San Lorenzo district in Rome.

Montessori was interested in applying her work and methods to children without mental disabilities, and she accepted. At first, the classroom was equipped with a teacher's table and blackboard, a stove, small chairs, armchairs, and group tables for the children, and a locked cabinet for the materials that Montessori had developed at the Orthophrenic School.

Activities for the children included personal care such as dressing and undressing, care of the environment such as dusting and sweeping, and caring for the garden. The children were also shown the use of the materials Montessori had developed. Day-to-day teaching and care were provided, under Montessori's guidance, by the building porter's daughter.

In this first classroom, Montessori observed behaviors in these young children which formed the foundation of her educational method. She noted episodes of deep attention and concentration, multiple repetitions of activity, and a sensitivity to order in the environment. Given a free choice of activity, the children showed more interest in practical activities and Montessori's materials than in toys provided for them and were surprisingly unmotivated by sweets and other rewards.

Over time, she saw a spontaneous self-discipline emerge. Based on her observations, Montessori implemented a number of practices that became hallmarks of her educational philosophy and method. She replaced the heavy furniture with child-sized tables and chairs light enough for the children to move, and placed child-sized materials on low, accessible shelves.

She expanded the range of practical activities such as sweeping and personal care to include a wide variety of exercises for the care of the environment and the self, including flower arranging, hand washing, gymnastics, care of pets, and cooking. In her book [ 33 ] she outlines a typical winter's day of lessons, starting at am and finishing at pm:.

She felt by working independently children could reach new levels of autonomy and become self-motivated to reach new levels of understanding. Montessori also came to believe that acknowledging all children as individuals and treating them as such would yield better learning and fulfilled potential in each particular child. She continued to adapt and refine the materials she had developed earlier, altering or removing exercises which were chosen less frequently by the children.

Based on her observations, Montessori experimented with allowing children free choice of the materials, uninterrupted work, and freedom of movement and activity within the limits set by the environment. She began to see independence as the aim of education, and the role of the teacher as an observer and director of children's innate psychological development.

The first Casa dei Bambini was a success, and a second was opened on 7 April The children in her programs continued to exhibit concentration, attention, and spontaneous self-discipline, and the classrooms began to attract the attention of prominent educators, journalists, and public figures. Four- and five-year-old children engaged spontaneously with the materials and quickly gained a proficiency in writing and reading far beyond what was expected for their age.

This attracted further public attention to Montessori's work. Montessori's reputation and work began to spread internationally. Around that time she gave up her medical practice to devote more time to her educational work, developing her methods, and training teachers. As early as , Montessori's work began to attract the attention of international observers and visitors.

Her work was widely published internationally and spread rapidly. This prompted the developers to approach Maria Montessori to provide ways of occupying the children during the day to prevent further damage to the premises. A small opening ceremony was organised, but few had any expectations for the project. What Montessori came to realise was that children who were placed in an environment where activities were designed to support their natural development had the power to educate themselves.

She was later to refer to this as auto-education. The children in the Casa dei Bambini made extraordinary progress, and soon 5-year-olds were writing and reading. By the autumn of there were five Case dei Bambini operating, four in Rome and one in Milan. Within a year the Italian-speaking part of Switzerland began transforming its kindergartens into Case dei Bambini, and the spread of the new educational approach began.

In the summer of Maria Montessori gave the first training course in her approach to around students. Her notes from this period became her first book, published that same year in Italy, which appeared in translation in the United States in as The Montessori Method, reaching second place on the U. Soon afterwards it was translated into 20 different languages.

It has become a major influence in the field of education. A period of great expansion in the Montessori approach now followed. Before and during WWI she travelled three times to America, where there was much interest for her original approach to education. Her son Mario accompanied her during the last two journeys. Her son and his new wife joined her, and her four grandchildren spent their formative years there: two boys, Mario Jr and Rolando, and two girls, Marilena and Renilde.

Renilde, her youngest grandchild, was until the General Secretary and then President until of the Association Montessori Internationale, the organisation set up by Maria Montessori in to continue her work. We strive for accuracy and fairness. If you see something that doesn't look right, contact us! Noam Chomsky. Erasmus of Rotterdam. John Locke.

Francis Bacon. Auguste Comte. Charles-Louis de Secondat. John Dewey. William James. Early Life Montessori was born on August 31, , in the provincial town of Chiaravalle, Italy, to middle-class, well-educated parents. Early Childhood Education Research As a doctor, Montessori chose pediatrics and psychiatry as her specialties. Educational Legacy Montessori's success with developmentally disabled children spurred her desire to test her teaching methods on "normal" children.

Departs for India with Mario to run what was to be a three-month training course at the invitation of the Theosophical Society, which has been using the Montessori method to successfully combat illiteracy. In June, Mario Montessori interned by the British colonial government in India as an enemy alien, and Maria Montessori confined to the compound of the Theosophical Society.

Still, the Montessoris are not allowed to leave the country until the war is over. Trip to Italy: revival of the Montessori Society. Montessori establishments start to be reopened. Assistants to Infancy work initiated in Rome. Skip to main content. Model schools set up in Paris, New York, and Boston. First trip to the United States. Fourth International Training Course in Barcelona.

Visits schools in Ireland for the first time. Lectures at Berlin University. Mahatma Gandhi, leader of the Indian independence movement, visits Montessori schools in Rome. Third International Montessori Congress in Amsterdam.