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About Marie Montessori | About Montessori Education Maria Montessori was born in Italy in 1870. As a teen ahead of her times, she decided to become an engineer, and in college decided instead to be a doctor, an unprecedented career choice that caused great friction in her family. After fighting to become the first woman admitted to medical school in Italy, she was forced to complete her lab work alone at night in the morgue - women were not allowed to work side by side with men in the anatomy labs. Dr. Montessori became the first female physician in Italy, and her work at a state psychiatric school engendered interest in the educational potential of mentally disabled children. Through scientific observation and experimentation, she developed educational methods that led her disabled patients to normal levels of academic achievement. In 1907 she was asked by the state to establish a day-care facility in the San Lorenzo quarter, a ghetto in Rome. She called the school Casa dei Bambini, or Children’s House, and her students, of normal intelligence, thrived. The success of the Casa methods led, by 1909, to their implementation in all the Italian/Switzerland orphanages. Publicity around the prowess of Montessori’s orphans prompted parents, even the wealthy, to demand the use of this approach with their own children. Concurrent with its adaptation by the Italian elite, word spread quickly throughout Europe of the radical new approach. Dr. Montessori traveled extensively to speak and consult, and she established the first teacher-training center in Rome in 1913. Folks in the U.S. recognized the value of the method, and she witnessed the espousal of her ideas by some of our most powerful and forward-thinking citizens, including Alexander Graham Bell and Mrs. Woodrow Wilson. In 1915, a Montessori classroom was featured at the San Francisco World’s Fair. Dr. Montessori remained in great demand worldwide. Her lectures continued and she began work on elementary education methods and materials - a natural step, given her drive and curiosity. In 1929 she established AMI (Association Montessori International) in Amsterdam to ensure standardization in the use of her approach and in teacher training on a worldwide basis. Montessori worked extensively in Spain, Italy, India, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), and the Netherlands, refining her theory and coaching others in its use. Her movement around Europe was necessitated by the politics of war. She worked until her death in Amsterdam in 1952, having been nominated three times for the Nobel Peace Prize. |
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