Just who was this woman who began an educational revolution that changed the way we think about children more than anyone before or since?

Maria Montessori was born in 1870 in Ancona, Italy. To understand her unique method of education it’s important to understand her background. 

The child of a progressive and ambitious family, she chose to study mathematics and engineering at a time when higher education for girls was considered unnecessary. She was the first woman in her country’s history to receive a medical degree and 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 her premed training and in 1896 became Italy’s first female 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.  Later, during the 1940’s she worked with the founders of Heritage Montessori.

     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 when she realized the potential of these children:

“Supposing I said there was a planet without schools or teachers, study was unknown, and yet the inhabitants – doing nothing but living and walking about – came to know all things, to carry in their minds the whole of learning: would you not think I was romancing? Well, just this, which seems so fanciful as to be nothing but the invention of a fertile imagination, is a reality. It is the child’s way of learning. This is the path he follows. He learns everything without knowing he is learning it, and in doing so passes little from the unconscious to the conscious, treading always in the paths of joy and love.”

     Invited to the U.S. 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.

From Europe to the United States, India, and the rest of the world…

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.

Maria Montessori spent more time in India than any other country outside her home country of Italy. Theosophists of the time became acquainted with the Montessoris’ in Holland. Mr. Arundale was the president of the Theosophical society, the headquarters of which were located in Madras, India. At his behest, Maria Montessori and her son Mario were invited to India in 1939 where they conducted the first Montessori training course in South Asia. For the major part of the following 10 years, the Montessoris’ time was spent in India. While in India, she wrote and published The Absorbent Mind, crystallized the elementary curriculum and developed the theory of “Planes of Development” as the basis of the curriculum from infancy to childhood. This was the most productive time period for Maria Montessori.