Maria Montessori

About The Founder – Maria Montessori.

Maria Montessori was born at Chiaraville, in the province of Anacona on 31st August 1870. She was the only daughter of Chevalier Alesandron Montessori and Renildo Stopani. She studied medicine at the University of Rome and in 1896 became the first woman in Italy to take the degree of Doctor of Medicine. Soon after graduating, she was appointed assistant doctor at the Psychiatric Clinic in the University of Rome and became deeply interested in defective children.

In 1899, at a pedagogical congress in Turin, she delivered an address on moral education, expressing her belief the “defective children were not extra social-beings but were entitled to the benefit of education as much as, if not more than, normal ones.” As a result of her interest and belief, an orthographic school was established and she was appointed Director. She was convinced of the importance of this work and she devised methods of teaching so successful that a number of the children from the asylums learned to read and write so well that they were able to pass public examinations for normal children.

In 1907, Montessori became Director of a Day Care Centre for children up to seven years of age in an experimental slum redevelopment program in San Lorenzo, Rome, and was able to extend her ideas regarding the education of defective children to the education of normal children. Through observing children in the Day Care Centre, Montessori discovered qualities for which they had not hitherto been given credit. She attributed this spontaneous concentration, attachment to reality, love of silence and of working alone, power to cat from real choice, independence and initiative and spontaneous self- discipline.

Observation of Children As a Basis.

Montessori always observed first and then devised her methods, taking her lead from the child. She developed the theory of sensitive periods in development, saying that “children pass through definite periods in which they reveal psychic aptitudes and possibilities which afterwards disappear. That is why at particular epochs of their life, they reveal an intense and extraordinary interest in certain objects and exercise, which one might look for in vain at a later age. During such a period the child is endowed with a special sensitivity which urges him/her to focus his/her attention on certain aspects of his/her environment to the exclusion of others.

Such attention is not the result of mere curiosity, it is more like a burning passion. A keen emotion first rises from the depths of the unconscious and sets in motion a marvelous creative ability in contact with the outside world, thus building up consciousness.”

She considered two to four years the sensitive period for order, two and a half years the special stage for sensation and three and a half to four years the best age to learn to write. She geared the presentation of materials and instruction to the periods, believing that readiness was one of the most important factors in the learning situation.

Her Influence Today

Any person seeking to stimulate and encourage optimal growth and development of children should be prepared to examine and evaluate other educational methods. In this light, therefore, we should look at the work of Montessori with the willingness to “use and value the parts of Maria Montessori’s principles and methods that make sense to us today.”