2. BREAKING CONVENTIONAL BARRIERS FROM
THE BEGINNING OF HER EDUCATION, MARIA
INITIALLY HAD ASPIRATIONS TO BECOME AN
ENGINEER.
MARIA MONTESSORI WAS BORN ON
THE 31ST AUGUST 1870 IN THE TOWN
OF CHIARAVALLE, ITALY.
3. When Maria Montessori graduated secondary
school, she became determined to enter
medical school and become a doctor. Despite
her parents’ encouragement to enter
teaching, Maria wanted to enter the male-
dominated sphere of medicine. After initially
being refused entry, Maria was eventually
given entry to the University of Rome in 1890,
becoming the first woman to enter medical
school in Italy. Despite facing many obstacles
due to her gender, Montessori qualified as a
doctor in July 1896.
4. Soon after her medical career began, Dr Montessori became
involved in the Women’s Rights movment. She became known
for her high levels of competency in treating patients, but also
for the respect she showed to patients from all social classes. In
1897, Dr Montessori join a research programme at the
psychiatric clinic of the University of Rome, as a volunteer. This
work initiated a deep interest in the needs of children with
learning disabilities. In particular, the work of two early 19th
century Frenchmen, Jean-Marc Itard, who had made his name
working with the ‘wild boy of Aveyron’, and Edouard Séguin, his
student. Montessori was appointed as co-director, of a new
institution called the Orthophrenic School.
At the age of twenty-eight Montessori began advocating her
controversial theory that the lack of support for mentally and
developmentally disabled children was the cause of their
delinquency. The notion of social reform became a strong theme
throughout Maria's life, whether it was for gender roles, or
advocacy for children.
5. In 1901 Montessori began her own studies of
education philosophy and anthropology,
lecturing and teaching students. In this
period, the development of Rome meant that
children were left at home as their parents
worked. The number of children needing a
guide and role model presented Maria with
an opportunity to work with children with
normal development and push her ideas into
the mainstream. Dr Montessori opening her
Casa dei Bambini in Rome, in1907 bringing
some of the educational materials she had
developed at the Orthophrenic School.
.
6. Dr. Montessori put many different activities and other
materials into the children’s environment but kept only
those that engaged them. What she came to realise was
that children who were placed in an environment where
activities were designed to support their natural
development had the power to educate themselves. By
1909 Dr Montessori gave her first training course in her
new approach to around 100 students. Her notes from
this period provided the material for her first book
published that same year in Italy, appearing in
translation in the United States in 1912 as The
Montessori Method, and later translated into 20
languages.
7. A period of great expansion in the
Montessori approach now followed.
Montessori societies, training
programmes and schools sprang to
life all over the world, and a period
of travel with public speaking and
lecturing occupied Dr Montessori,
much of it in America, but also in the
UK and throughout Europe.
8. Having long held the ambition to create her own permanent,
long-standing centre for research and development.
Montessori was held back by the rise of fascism in Europe.
Montessori schools were closed by Nazis and both books and
effigies were burned. In 1939, Maria and her son Mario
moved to India to lecture, initially intending to travel for only
three months, the trip lasted seven years, as the outbreak of
war, saw Mario was interned and Maria put under house
arrest, as Italian citizens. In India, Maria trained over a
thousand Indian Teachers. Returning to Europe, Maria
addressed UNESCO in 1947 with the theme of Education and
Peace and ultimately receiving her nomination for Nobel
Peace Prize in 1949. Maria died in 1952, in the company of
her son Mario, to whom she bequeathed the legacy of her
work.
