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Maria Montessori, born in 1870, was the first
woman in Italy to receive a medical degree. She
worked in the
fields of psychiatry, education and
anthropology. She believed that each child is
born with a unique potential to
be revealed, rather than as a "blank slate"
waiting to be written upon. Her main
contributions to the work of those
of us raising and educating children are in
these areas:
- Preparing the most natural and life supporting
environment for the child
- Observing the child living freely in this
environment
- Continually adapting the environment in order
that the child may fulfill his greatest
potential: physically, mentally, emotionally,
and spiritually. |
THE
EARLY YEARS
Maria Montessori was always a little ahead of
her time. At age thirteen, against the wishes of
her father but with the support of her mother,
she began to attend a boys' technical school.
After seven years of engineering she began
premed and, in 1896 became a physician. In her
work at the University of Rome psychiatric
clinic Dr. Montessori developed an interest in
the treatment of children and, for several
years, she worked, wrote, and spoke on their
behalf.
In 1907 she was given the opportunity to study
"normal" children, taking charge of fifty poor
children of the dirty, desolate streets of the
San Lorenzo slum on the outskirts of Rome. The
news of the unprecedented success of her work in
this Casa dei Bambini "House of Children" soon
spread around the world, people coming from far
and wide to see the children for themselves. Dr.
Montessori was as astonished as anyone at the
realized potential of these children. |
FROM
EUROPE TO THE UNITED STATES, INDIA, AND THE REST
OF THE WORLD
Invited to the USA by Alexander Graham Bell,
Thomas Edison, and others, Dr. Montessori spoke
at Carnegie Hall in 1915. She was invited to set
up a classroom at the Panama-Pacific Exposition
in San Francisco, where spectators watched
twenty-one children, all new to this Montessori
method, behind a glass wall for four months. The
only two gold medals awarded for education went
to this class, and the education of young
children was altered forever.
During World War II Dr. Montessori was forced
into exile from Italy because of her
anti-fascist views and lived and worked in
India. Her concern with education for peace
intensified and she was twice nominated for the
Nobel Peace Prize. Since her death an interest
in Dr. Montessori's methods have continued to
spread throughout the world. Her message to
those who emulated her was always to turn one's
attention to the child, to "follow the child".
It is because of this basic tenet, and the
observation guidelines left by her, that Dr.
Montessori's ideas will never become obsolete.
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