Maria Montessori

Background

Maria Montessori is a well-known figure in schools in all four corners of the globe. Not only was she an incredible teacher, but she was also an accomplished doctor and humanitarian. Montessori was born on August 31, 1870, in Chiaravalle in Italy. Her father, Alessandro, was working in a state-run tobacco factory. Her mother, Renilde Stoppani, was remarkably well-educated for a woman in the late 19th century in Europe. Stoppani encouraged Montessori to pursue an extensive education. Montessori graduated from secondary school (high school) in 1886 and then went on to study at a technical institute, excelling particularly in Mathematics and the natural sciences. After passing her degree in natural sciences at the University of Rome in 1890, she was eventually accepted to the university’s medical school, which was highly unusual for a woman at that time, in 1893. She finished her medical degree in 1896 and after working as an assistant at the university’s hospital, she set up a private practice.

For five years after finishing medical school, she worked with children with mental disabilities and continued to conduct research at the university’s psychiatric clinic. In 1900, she was appointed as a co-director at the Orthophrenic School, an institution that specialized in training teachers to work with mentally disabled children. During her two years at the school, she developed a wide range of teaching materials and methods that she would later incorporate into her teaching style known as the Montessori method. In 1907, she was invited to work at an institution for children of working parents, known as the Casa dei Bambini (or Children’s House), and began applying her method to mainstream education. She noticed that when given the right materials, freedom to move around, an appropriate environment, and a greater degree of independence, children were more ready and willing to learn.

Her success in the classroom quickly started attracting positive attention from other educators, public figures, and journalists. In 1909, before she even turned 30, she held her first teacher training course in her method. Her excellent reputation soon spread across the world and her work on pedagogy (the study of teaching and learning) quickly became favored globally. Only two years later, in 1911, her teaching method was officially incorporated into school curriculums across her native Italy and Switzerland. Montessori schools and societies were soon established across the world, including in the United Kingdom and the United States of America. She continued to lecture, speak at events, and host training sessions until she died in 1952.