- H e r   L i f e   a n d   L e g a c y

Born in 1870, in a place called Chiaravalle, in Italy, Maria Montessori was the only child of a middle class family. Her father, an accountant, moved to Rome when she was twelve and this meant she could receive a good education which would prepare her for a teaching career, the only real profession open to educated young women at that time.    As her studies developed, she showed an interest in the sciences and, out of this, came a determination to become a doctor. It is ironic that as an adolescent she adamantly refused to follow her parents’ wishes to become a teacher. She applied to the University of Rome and after battling against the prejudices of the late 19th century towards women and the opposition of her father, she gained entrance to the medical school in 1890. She eventually graduated to become the first woman Doctor of Medicine in Italy.

Upon graduating her first appointment was as an assistant in the San Giovanni Hospital, working with women and children. In 1897 she became a voluntary assistant at the psychiatric clinic of the University of Rome.

During this time she encountered the so-called ‘idiot children’. These were feeble-minded children who, because they were unable to function in school or in their families, were put into asylums among the criminally insane. While she had been studying at the University there had been much undergraduate discussion about socialism, and it is not surprising, therefore, that Montessori had a passionate interest in social reform. She was also a doctor interested in pediatrics, and so she was particularly sensitive to the plight of the children who were locked away with nothing to do and with no sensory stimulation of any kind. When they were given food, they would throw themselves on the floor looking for crumbs. It occurred to her that this behaviour was a distinct effort on their behalf to try to learn about the world around them through their hands. This idea, that the path to intellectual development is through the hands, is a major theme in her Method.

Montessori became convinced that these children were not useless - just that their minds have never been stimulated. She began to work with them at the clinic, and gradually discovered glimmers of hope as they responded to her efforts.

On searching for information about the treatment of mentally deficient children, she came across the work of two French doctors, Jean Itard and Edouard Seguin. Itard made a particular study of deaf mutes, but he is probably better known for his attempts, over several years, to educate and socialize a retarded boy found abandoned in the forests of Aveyron, in France. He wrote an account of his efforts in a book called The Wild Boy of Aveyron. His particular approach was to stimulate the boy’s mind systematically through senses.

Edouard Seguin was a student of Itard and he later found his own school for deficients in Paris. His particular approach was to devise a change in behaviour and so educate the child through a method he described as physiological.

The study of the work of these two French doctors gave Maria Montessori a new direction in her life. She took the principal ideas of ‘education of the senses’ and the ’education of movement’, and adapted and developed them into a system that became her own.

Her next step was to turn her mind to the study of education. Methodically she read all the major works she could find on education theory that had been written in the previous two hundred years. Gradually some of the ideas and insights of educational thinkers and reformers such as Rouseau, Petalozzi and Froebel became synthesized in her mind with the ideas she had taken from Itard and Seguin, and the beginning of the so called ‘Montessori Method’ was taking shape. What she, in fact, accomplished was to draw together the knowledge and methods from the disciplines of education and medicine.

By 1899 she was involved in the establishment of the Orthophrenic School in Rome, where she spent two years with colleagues, training teachers in the special method of observation and education of the mentally retarded. During this time she worked with the children observing and experimenting, using different materials and methods and using all the ideas she had gleaned from her studies.
 

In 1901 Maria Montessori gave up her work as the Orthophrenic School in order to further her studies in anthropology, psychology and educational philosophy at the University of Rome. However, according to one of her biographers, Rita Kramer, there was another reason. It is claimed that she gave birth to an illegitimate child, Mario Montessori, around this period and that the father was none other than her colleague at the Clinic, Dr. Montessano. Mario was brought up by foster parents, but later was adopted by his mother. Kramer asserts that Maria Montessori ‘deprived of the experience of caring for her own child turned her attention increasingly to ways of meeting needs of other children’.

While studying and preparing herself for a career in education, Montessori visited many schools, observing both the methods used and reactions of children. She was appalled at what she saw and this helped to crystallize her belief in the ideas of the educational thinkers who were forerunners of the ‘progressive movement’ in education. The most significant influence on her was probably Friedrich Froebel, although she was also influenced by an anthropologist, Guiseppe Sergi, whom she credited with being responsible for turning her attention to the importance of the school environment and the role it could play in changing the child’s behaviour.

In 1904 she was appointed professor of Pedagogic Anthropology at the University, and at the same time continued with her many other activities.

In 1906, Montessori was asked to organize the infant schools being built in a slum clearance and rehousing programme. The first school, a large tenement house in San Lorenzo, was for children aged three to six. She called it ‘Casa dei Bambini’, the Children’s House in Italian.

In the following two years, other children’s houses were founded. In these schools Montessori was now able to apply her methods to normal children. She believed that if her methods achieved such startling results with retarded children then these same methods would improve the performance of normal children.

The children in her first two children’s houses were what we would now called deprived. They were often neglected and lacked care and stimulation from their parents. In many cases the parents themselves were illiterate. Under Montessori’s care these children began to learn successfully. In another school, children from relatively privileged backgrounds also proved that Montessori’s methods were much superior to the conventional teaching of her day. It was soon evident, in fact, that all children were capable of achieving and becoming independent learners when taught by her methods. Montessori’s hopes were realized.

International fame and recognition now came quickly. The world’s press disseminated many stories of how successful her methods were and within a few years she was internationally known.
 

Visitors came from many parts of the world to see for themselves the successful and stimulating teaching and learning taking place in the children’s houses. They were inspired by what they saw and conveyed the word when they returned home. In this way, the Montessori movement spread all over the world, with schools opening in places as widely separated as North America, Japan, Germany and India, to name only some.

Montessori now spent all her time on her new work, training teachers, writing and giving lectures. She traveled extensively, visiting the newly founded schools and Montessori societies. In America, particularly, her ideas were widely acclaimed. She was received in the White House and the daughter of the President of the United States, Margaret Wilson, became a trustee of the Montessori Educational Association sponsored by Alexander Graham Bell.

In the early twenties, Montessori was appointed Government Inspector of Schools for Italy. She did not hold the post for long because of her disagreement with   the Fascist government. She spent some time in Spain where she founded a special Teacher Training Institute in Barcelona. With the growing political tensions in that part of Europe in the thirties she left Spain to live in Holland. By 1939 she was in India, where she remained throughout the war years, developing the movement in the sub-continent. India to this day is a great Montessori centre as a result.

When her interment ended in 1946, she visited England and revived interest in the movement there. For the next few years, she continued to travel extensively, teaching and lecturing, and she was honoured by many countries with royal, civic and academic awards. She died in Holland in 1952.