Montessori

Maria Montessori - Biography

Maria Montessori was born on August 31st 1870 in Chiaravalle near Ancona in Italy, but soon moved to Rome with her parents. She was always a strong-willed girl, unusual for the times, who knew what she wanted. She managed to get a place to study medicine, although it was prohibited for women at this time. With a lot of hard work and against a lot of opposition (for example, they could not accept a woman in the same room as the men studying anatomy so she had to go in after hours on her own) she graduated as the first female doctor in Italy in 1896.

She began to work in the psychiatric clinic and to teach at Rome university and became more and more interested in the education of children with special needs. She developed special materials and was amazed at how much the children learned. This success encouraged her to further her studies in psychology and education and to work on similar teaching materials and methods for “normal” children.

In 1907 the Italian government asked her to set up a Casa dei Bambini in San Lorenzo in Rome where the children of working parents had been uncared for and running wild on the streets. The success of this first Children’s House, run according to her ideas, was amazing and Maria Montessori continued to develop her educational method and materials based on her observation of the children and their work. It was clear that these children, with the help of this new method of education – encouraging independence of thought and action in a prepared environment with the specially developed materials and trained teachers, were learning more than anybody had expected. She was also a strong advocate of providing care for children so that their mothers could go out to work.

img-fluid
img-fluid

From 1909 onwards her reputation grew around the world and she spread the word through lectures and teacher-training courses in various countries. As a result many Children’s Houses were set up following her method.

However, her determination to raise strong, independent, self-disciplined children clashed with the principles of totalitarian regimes and in the 1930s Montessori schools in Italy, Germany, Austria and Spain were closed down.

When the Second World War broke out she and her son, Mario Montessori, were on a lecture tour of India. Her son, being an Italian, was interned by the British in India but was allowed to continue to help his mother in the training of more and more teachers and setting up many Montessori schools and training centres, which exist to this day. It was in India that they developed their idea of cosmic education for schools for children from 6 to 12 years of age.

In 1946 she returned to Europe – to the Netherlands and continued running training courses for teachers.

Influenced by the principles of Gandhi she devoted a lot of her time developing her ideas on education for peace. She was convinced that dreadful wars could only be avoided by cultivating a completely different awareness and attitude towards life and other human beings. As a result of this, she was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize three times.

She died on May 6th 1952 in the Netherlands – her son and grandson, both called Mario continued with her work and her great-granddaughter, Renilde is still involved with AMI – the Association Montessori Internationale.

img-fluid