If you’ve ever seen a sign for a Montessori School, and wondered about the history behind this educational style, here are the facts: Maria Montessori was ahead of her time. She was born in the town of Chiaravalle, Italy (in the province of Ancona) in 1870. Maria became the first female physician in Italy upon her graduation from medical school in 1896.
In her medical practice, her
clinical observations led Maria
to analyze how children learned. She concluded that they assemble themselves
from what they find in their environment. Maria shifted
her focus from the body to the mind, She returned to the university in 1901 to
study psychology and philosophy. In 1904, Maria was made a professor of anthropology at the University of
Rome.
Her desire to help children was so
strong that in 1906 Maria gave
up both her university chair and her medical practice to work with a group of
sixty young children of working parents in the San Lorenzo district of Rome. It
was there that she founded the first Casa dei Bambini, (Children's House).
What ultimately became the
Montessori Method of education developed there? It was based upon Montessori's
scientific observations of these children's almost effortless ability to absorb
knowledge from their surroundings, and their tireless interest in
manipulating materials.
Every piece of equipment, every
exercise, every method Montessori developed was based on what she observed
children to do naturally by themselves unassisted by adults. Children teach themselves. This
simple but profound truth inspired Montessori's lifelong pursuit of educational
methodology, psychology, teaching, and teacher
training. They
were all based on her dedication to
furthering the process of self-creating a child does.
Maria made her first visit to the
United States in 1913. This was the same year that Alexander Graham Bell and
his wife Mabel founded the Montessori Educational Association at their
Washington, DC, home. Among her other strong American supporters were Thomas
Edison and Helen Keller.
In 1915, she attracted world
attention with her glass house schoolroom exhibit at the Panama-Pacific
International Exhibition in San Francisco, CA. On her second visit to America, she
conducted a teacher training course, and addressed the annual conventions of
both the National Education Association and the International Kindergarten
Union. The committee that brought Maria to San Francisco included Margaret
Wilson, daughter of US President Woodrow Wilson.
The Spanish government invited her
to open a research institute in 1917. In 1919, she began a series of teacher
training courses in London. In 1922, she was appointed a government inspector
of schools in her native Italy. Her opposition to Mussolini's fascism forced
Maria to leave Italy in 1934. She traveled to Barcelona, Spain, and was rescued
there by a British cruiser in 1936 during the Spanish Civil War. Maria opened
the Montessori Training Centre in Laren, Netherlands. In 1938, she founded a
series of teacher training courses in India in 1939.
In 1940, when India entered World
War II, Maria and her son, Mario Montessori, were interned as enemy aliens. She
was permitted to conduct training courses. In 1947, Maria founded the
Montessori Center in London. She was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize three
times (949, 1950, and 1951). Maria died in Noordwijk, Holland, in 1952. Her
work lives on through the Association Montessori Internationale (AMI). This is the organization she founded in Amsterdam,
Netherlands, in 1929 to carry on her work.
“Travel stories teach geography; insect stories lead the child into
natural science; and so on. The teacher, in short, can use reading to introduce
her pupils to the most varied subjects; and the moment they have been thus
started, they can go on to any limit guided by the single passion for reading.” (Maria Montessori)
[i]
 |
| Maia Montessori |
[i] Source used: “Maria Montessori: A Brief Biography” by D. Renee Pendleton
No comments:
Post a Comment