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| Why Montessori? |
| Dr. Montessori,
Italy's first woman physician developed
educational materials and methods which are
designed to meet the needs of the children. She
believed that the best way for children to learn
was by doing. To her, learning was not the
passive acceptance of other people's ideas and
knowledge. Instead, it was the active pursuit of
many different experiences. Physical. Social.
Emotional. Cognitive. |
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What is Montessori?
Montessori (pronounced MON-tuh-SORE-ee)
is a comprehensive educational approach from birth to
adulthood based on the observation of children's needs
in a variety of cultures all around the world.
Beginning her work almost a century ago, Dr. Maria
Montessori developed this educational approach based on
her understanding of children's natural learning
tendencies as they unfold in "prepared environments" for
multi-age groups (0-3, 3-6, 6-9, 9-12, and 12-14).
The Montessori environment contains specially designed,
manipulative "materials for development" that invite
children to engage in learning activities of their own
individual choice. Under the guidance of a trained
teacher, children in a Montessori classroom learn by
making discoveries with the materials, cultivating
concentration, motivation, self-discipline, and a love
of learning.
Today, Montessori schools are found worldwide, serving
children from birth through adolescence. In the United
States, there are more than 4,000 private Montessori
schools and more than 200 public schools with
Montessori-styled programs. The Association Montessori
Internationale (AMI), founded by Maria Montessori in
1929, maintains Montessori educational principles and
disseminates Montessori education throughout the world.
Maria Montessori: A Brief Biography
Maria Montessori was, in many ways, ahead of her time.
Born in the town of Chiaravalle, in the province of
Ancona, Italy, in 1870, she became the first female
physician in Italy upon her graduation from medical
school in 1896. Shortly afterwards, she was chosen to
represent Italy at two different women's conferences, in
Berlin in 1896 and in London in 1900. In her medical
practice, her clinical observations led her to analyze
how children learn, and she concluded that they build
themselves from what they find in their environment.
Shifting her focus from the body to the mind, she
returned to the university in 1901, this time to study
psychology and philosophy. In 1904, she was made a
professor of anthropology at the University of Rome.
Her desire to help children was so strong, however, that
in 1906 she 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, or "Children's House." What ultimately
became the Montessori method of education developed
there, based upon Montessori's scientific observations
of these children's almost effortless ability to absorb
knowledge from their surroundings, as well as 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 reform, methodology, psychology, teaching,
and teacher training--all based on her dedication to
furthering the self-creating process of the child.
Maria Montessori made her first visit to the United
States in 1913, 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. On this
second U.S. visit, she also 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 her to
San Francisco included Margaret Wilson, the daughter of
U.S. 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, but because of her opposition to
Mussolini's fascism, she was forced 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. She opened the Montessori Training Centre in
Laren, Netherlands, in 1938, and founded a series of
teacher training courses in India in 1939.
In 1940, when India entered World War II, she and her
son, Mario Montessori, were interned as enemy aliens,
but she was still permitted to conduct training courses.
Later, she founded the Montessori Center in London
(1947). She was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize
three times--in 1949, 1950, and 1951.
Maria Montessori died in Noordwijk, Holland, in 1952,
but her work lives on through the Association Montessori
Internationale (AMI), the organization she founded in
Amsterdam, Netherlands, in 1929 to carry on her work.
Courtesy of
American
Montessori Society
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