MONTESSORI EDUCATION 4 U

Maria Montessori, born in 1870, was the first woman in Italy to receive a medical

degree. She worked in the fields of psychiatry, education and anthropology. She

believed that each child is born with a unique potential to be revealed, rather

than as a "blank slate" waiting to be written upon. She believed in preparing the

most natural and life supporting environment for the child, observing the child

living freely in this environment and continually adapting the environment in order

that the child may fulfill his or her greatest potential, physically, mentally,

emotionally, and spiritually.


Maria Montessori was always a little ahead of her time. At age thirteen, against

the wishes of her father but with the support of her mother, she began to attend a

boys' technical school. After seven years of engineering she began premed and, in

1896 became a physician. In her work at the University of Rome psychiatric clinic

Dr. Montessori developed an interest in the treatment of special needs children

and, for several years, she worked, wrote, and spoke on their behalf.


In 1907 she was given the opportunity to study "normal" children, taking charge of

fifty poor children of the dirty, desolate streets of the San Lorenzo slum on the

outskirts of Rome. The news of the unprecedented success of her work in this Casa

dei Bambini "House of Children" soon spread around the world, people coming from

far and wide to see the children for themselves. Dr. Montessori was as astonished

as anyone at the realized potential of these children.


She was invited to the USA by Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison, and others, Dr.

Montessori spoke at Carnegie Hall in 1915. She was invited to set up a classroom

at the Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco, where spectators watched twenty-

one children, all new to this Montessori method, behind a glass wall for four

months. The only two gold medals awarded for education went to this class, and the

education of young children was altered forever.


During World War II Dr. Montessori was forced into exile from Italy because of her

antifascist views and lived and worked in India. It was here that she developed

her work Education for Peace, and developed many of the ideas taught in her

training courses today. She was twice nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.


If you want to learn more about the life of Maria Montessori and the history of the the Montessori method of teaching, the information on this page was drawn from this website:

Maria Montessori