Maria Montessori

Maria Montessori was born in Ancona, Italy in 1870. She quickly distinguished herself from other girls of her social standing (middle-class but not very well off) by her determination to have a good education. In the face of opposition from her father she studied engineering at University and later switched to medicine; eventually she qualified as Italy's first woman physician.

Circumstances forced upon her the role of a pioneer for women's rights, and throughout the first half of her life every achievement was gained in the face of opposition from men who could not accept her encroachment upon their professional lives - which until then had been exclusively male preserves.

She was highly intelligent, accustomed to question the dogmas of her time and passionately committed to humanitarian causes. These factors combined to awaken her interest in the development of intelligence in the human being and in how children can be helped to achieve their full potential.

In 1901 she was appointed director of a centre for 'deficient and insane' children in Rome. She was appalled by the lack of respect shown to the children by the nursing staff and the starkness of the surroundings in which they were kept. She became personally involved in providing them with loving care and in enriching their environment. 

The application of a systematic, scientific approach combined with a loving,  maternal relationship with the children, allowed her to tailor programmes of education relevant to their specific needs - soon they began to learn things of which they had previously been considered incapable.

Her 'deficient' students were able to pass exams sat by 'normal' children of comparable ages in the public school system. The authorities would have been happy to applaud her results if she had been prepared to restrict herself to the specialist field of teaching children with special needs, but, awkwardly, Maria Montessori was not content to be sidelined in that way. She pointed out that the conclusion to de drawn from her results was not that she was an exceptionally good teacher but rather that the public school system achieved very little for the children who were forced to go through it.

"I studied the children and  they taught  me how to  teach them."

In 1907 she was given the chance to organise day-care for pre-school-age children from the slums of one of Rome's worst suburbs. Previous provision for the children had been appalling and they came from such squalid home conditions that they had little conception of how to behave in a civilised manner.

Maria Montessori applied what she had already learnt; she gave the children an opportunity to care for, and maintain, their own environment; she showed them how to look after themselves; and she provided them with interesting and well-constructed materials. Soon her results started to exceed even what she had expected. Whereas the children with special needs had had to be encouraged to take an interest in the materials that she provided, these children had an avid interest in everything - especially in objects that were clearly identifiable as being related to things in real life or which challenged the mind in a new way.

These 'Casa dei Bambini' (Children's Houses) established Maria Montessori's reputation and attracted attention from all around the world.

Worldwide interest in her methods was intense, and she travelled to America in 1913 where she worked with Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison and Helen Keller. Subsequently many of her ideas were incorporated into nursery schools across the western world.

She returned to Italy to work as the director of schools in 1922  but left in 1934, due to her opposition to fascism. She spent the Second World War in India where she was interned by the British but was allowed to continue working - training teachers - and after the war founded teacher training centres in London and in the Netherlands. She died in 1952.