Who Is Dr. Maria Montessori?

Dr Maria Montessori was the founder of the Montessori method of Education. She was born in the Italian town of Chiaravalle in 1870, where she spent her early childhood years. She moved to Rome at age three and grew up in an environment dominated by academic achevement. She studied mathematics and engineering at a technical school and went to the Universityof Rome where she became the first woman doctor in her country's history.

Montessori launched her medical career at the State Orthophrenic School in Rome where she worked with rejected children. Her success in helping them learn as wellas their regular-school peers convinced herto leave her medical profession and focus on education. To learn the functions of humanthought, she returned to her university to study philosophy and anthropology and later headed the department of Pedagogic Anthropology. She was one of the most influential pioneers in early childhood education. She devise a method of education, which combines a philosophy with practical approach based on the central idea of feedom for the child within a carefully planned and structured environment.

The great pioneering achievement of Dr Maria Montessori was to recognise the crucial importance of a child in their first six years of development. It is during this time that a child powers of absorption are highest and lifelong attitudes and patters of learning are firmly formed. It is for the sensitive period that the Montessori system of education was most uniquely and effectively designed.

Her succes was so great that she travelled the world establishing schools and lecturing about her discoveries. Dr. Montessori's books have been translated into twenty-two languages and are readily available. Her method has become a part of every teacher-training course.

Dr. Maria Montessori left the world a wonderful legacy: a philosophy of life, a unique method of education, which gives children the best possible foundation for life.

Montessori died in Holland in 1952, just before her 82nd birthday. Herwork lives on today in education systems around the world. Besides new books, lectures, and theacher-training programmes, societies and scholls are still springing up under her name in the United States, in Europe, and in Asia.

Print this page...