Maria Montessori Biography

Maria Montessori was an Italian physician, educator, and innovator, acclaimed for her
educational method that builds on the way children naturally learn.
She opened the first Montessori schoolthe Casa dei Bambini, or Childrens Housein
Rome on January 6, 1907. Subsequently, she traveled the world and wrote extensively about her
approach to education, attracting many devotees. There are now more than 22,000 Montessori
schools in at least 110 countries worldwide.
Maria Montessori was born on August 31, 1870, in the provincial town of Chiaravalle, Italy.
Her father was a financial manager for a state-run industry. Her mother was raised in a family
that prized education. She was well-schooled and an avid readerunusual for Italian women of
that time. The same thirst for knowledge took root in young Maria, and she immersed herself in
many fields of study before creating the educational method that bears her name.
Beginning in her early childhood years, Maria grew up in Rome, a paradise of libraries,
museums, and fine schools.

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Breaking Barriers
Maria was a sterling student, confident, ambitious, and unwilling to be limited by traditional
expectations for women. At age 13 she entered an all-boys technical institute to prepare for a
career in engineering.
In time, however, she changed her mind, deciding to become a doctor instead. She applied
to the University of Romes medical program, but was rejected. Maria took additional courses to
better prepare her for entrance to the medical school and persevered. With great effort she gained
admittance, opening the door a bit wider for future women in the field.
When she graduated from medical school in 1896, she was among Italys first female
physicians.

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Birth of a Movement
Marias early medical practice focused on psychiatry. She also developed an interest in
education, attending classes on pedagogy and immersing herself in educational theory. Her
studies led her to observe, and call into question, the prevailing methods of teaching children
with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
The opportunity to improve on these methods came in 1900, when she was appointed
co-director of a new training institute for special education teachers. Maria approached the task
scientifically, carefully observing and experimenting to learn which teaching methods worked
best. Many of the children made unexpected gains, and the program was proclaimed a success.
In 1907 Maria accepted a new challenge to open a childcare center in a poor inner-city
district. This became the first Casa dei Bambini, a quality learning environment for young
children. The youngsters were unruly at first, but soon showed great interest in working with
puzzles, learning to prepare meals, and manipulating materials that held lessons in math. She
observed how they absorbed knowledge from their surroundings, essentially teaching
themselves.
Utilizing scientific observation and experience gained from her earlier work with young
children, Maria designed learning materials and a classroom environment that fostered the
childrens natural desire to learn. News of the schools success soon spread through Italy and by
1910 Montessori schools were acclaimed worldwide.

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Innovator, Feminist, Idealist

In the years following, and for the rest of her life, Maria dedicated herself to advancing her
child-centered approach to education. She lectured widely, wrote articles and books, and
developed a program to prepare teachers in the Montessori Method. Through her efforts and the
work of her followers, Montessori education was adopted worldwide.
As a public figure, Maria also campaigned vigorously on behalf of womens rights. She
wrote and spoke frequently on the need for greater opportunities for women, and was recognized
in Italy and beyond as a leading feminist voice.
Maria Montessori pursued her ideals in turbulent times. Living through war and political
upheaval inspired her to add peace education to the Montessori curriculum. But she could do
little to avoid being ensnared in world events. Traveling in India in 1940 when hostilities
between Italy and Great Britain broke out, she was forced to live in exile for the remainder of the
war. There she took the opportunity to train teachers in her method.
At wars end she returned to Europe, spending her final years in Amsterdam. She died
peacefully, in a friends garden, on May 6, 1952.
Photo: Courtesy of the Archives of the Association Montessori Internationale, Amsterdam,
the Netherlands

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The Role of the Teacher

And so we discovered that education is not something which the teacher does, but that it is a
natural process which develops spontaneously in the human being. It is not acquired by listening
to words, but in virtue of experiences in which the child acts on his environment. The teachers
task is not to talk, but to prepare and arrange a series of motives for cultural activity in a special
environment made for the child. [Maria Montessori, The Absorbent Mind, translated by Claude
A. Claremont]
. . . the task of the educator lies in seeing that the child does not confound good with immobility,
and evil with activity, as often happens in old-time discipline . . .
A room in which all the children move about usefully, intelligently, and voluntarily, without
committing any rough or rude act, would seem to me a classroom very well disciplined indeed.
[Maria Montessori, The Montessori Method, translated by Anne E. George]
The instructions of the teacher consist then merely in a hint, a touchenough to give a start to
the child. The rest develops of itself. [Maria Montessori, Dr. Montessoris Own Handbook,
translator unknown]
A teacher, therefore, who would think that he could prepare himself for his mission through
study alone would be mistaken. The first thing required of a teacher is that he be rightly disposed
for his task. [Maria Montessori, The Secret of Childhood, translated by M. Joseph Costelloe, S.J.]
The teacher, when she begins work in our schools, must have a kind of faith that the child will
reveal himself through work. [Maria Montessori, The Absorbent Mind, translated by Claude A.
Claremont]

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The Child and Learning

Before elaborating any system of education, we must therefore create a favorable

environment that will encourage the flowering of a childs natural gifts. All that is needed is to
remove the obstacles. And this should be the basis of, and point of departure for, all future
education.
The first thing to be done, therefore, is to discover the true nature of a child and then assist
him in his normal development. [Maria Montessori, The Secret of Childhood, translated by M.
Joseph Costelloe, S.J.]
When a child is given a little leeway, he will at once shout, I want to do it! But in our
schools, which have an environment adapted to childrens needs, they say, Help me to do it
alone. And these words reveal their inner needs. [Maria Montessori, The Secret of Childhood,
translated by M. Joseph Costelloe, S.J.]
What is to be particularly noted in these child conversions is a psychic cure, a return to what
is normal. Actually the normal child is one who is precociously intelligent, who has learned to
overcome himself and to live in peace, and who prefers a disciplined task to futile idleness.
When we see a child in this light, we would more properly call his conversion a
normalization. [Maria Montessori, The Secret of Childhood, translated by M. Joseph Costelloe,
S.J.]
A child in his earliest years, when he is only two or a little more, is capable of tremendous
achievements simply through his unconscious power of absorption, though he is himself still
immobile. After the age of three he is able to acquire a great number of concepts through his own
efforts in exploring his surroundings. In this period he lays hold of things through his own
activity and assimilates them into his mind. [Maria Montessori, The Discovery of the Child,
translated by M. Joseph Costelloe, S.J.]

Here is an essential principal of education: to teach details is to bring confusion; to establish

the relationship between things is to bring knowledge. [Maria Montessori, From Childhood to
Adolescence, translator unknown]

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Education and Social Change

Since it has been seen to be necessary to give so much to the child, let us give him a vision of
the whole universe. The universe is an imposing reality and an answer to all questions. We shall
walk together on this path of life, for all things are part of the universe and are connected with
each other to form one whole unity. This idea helps the mind of the child to become fixed, to stop
wandering in an aimless quest for knowledge. He is satisfied, having found the universal centre
of himself with all things. [Maria Montessori, To Educate the Human Potential, translator
unknown]
The laws governing the universe can be made interesting and wonderful to the child, more
interesting even that things in themselves, and he begins to ask: What am I? What is the task of
man in this wonderful universe? Do we merely live here for ourselves, or is there something
more for us to do? Why do we struggle and fight? What is good and evil? Where will it all end?
[Maria Montessori, To Educate the Human Potential, translator unknown]
Education today, in this particular social period, is assuming truly unlimited importance. And
the increased emphasis on its practical value can be summed up in one sentence: education is the
best weapon for peace. [Maria Montessori, Education and Peace, translated by Helen R. Lane]
An education capable of saving humanity is no small undertaking: it involves the spiritual
development of man, the enhancement of his value as an individual, and the preparation of
young people to times in which they live. [Maria Montessori, Education and Peace, translated by
Helen R. Lane]

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On Her Contribution to Education

It is not true, says Dr. Montessori, that I invented what is called the Montessori Method. I
have studied the child, I have taken what the child has given me and expressed it, and that is
what is called the Montessori Method. [What You Should Know About Your Child: Based on
Lectures Delivered by Maria Montessori, transcribed and translated by Gnana Prakasam]
This book of methods compiled by one person alone, must be followed by many others. It is
my hope that, starting from the individual study of the child educated with our method, other
educators will set forth the results of their experiments. These are the pedagogical books which
await us in the future. [Maria Montessori, The Montessori Method, translated by Anne E.
George]

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Maria Montessori, Revolutionary

Today, however, those things which occupy us in the field of education are the interests of
humanity at large and of civilization, and before such great forces we can recognize only one
countrythe entire world. [Maria Montessori, The Montessori Method, translated by Anne E.
George]
How can we speak of Democracy or Freedom when from the very beginning of life we mould
the child to undergo tyranny, to obey a dictator? How can we expect democracy when we have
reared slaves? Real freedom begins at the beginning of life, not at the adult stage. These people
who have been diminished in their powers, made short-sighted, devitalized by mental fatigue,
whose bodies have become distorted, whose wills have been broken by elders who say: your
will must disappear and mine prevail!how can we expect them, when school-life is finished,
to accept and use the rights of freedom? [Maria Montessori, Education for a New World,
translator unknown]
Nowadays nobodys life is safe. An absurd war may be declared in which all menyoung
and old, women and childrenare in mortal danger. Civilians are bombed and people have to
take refuge in underground shelters just as primitive men took refuge in caves to defend
themselves against wild beasts. The supply of food may be cut off and millions may die of
famine and plague. Do we not see men in rags or even naked, freezing to death, families
separated and torn apart, children abandoned and roaming about in wild hordes?
This we see, not only among those vanquished in war, but everywhere. Humanity itself is
vanquished and enslavedbut why enslaved? Because all men are slaves, the victors as well as
the vanquished, insecure, frightened, suspicious and hostile, compelled to defend themselves by
means of spying and brigandage, using and fostering immorality as a means of defense . . .
It may seem that we have drifted rather far from our original subjectEducation. This
digression, however, must open up the new road along which we now have to go. In the same
way in which we help the patients in a hospital to recover their health and continue to live so we
must now help humanity to save itself. We must be nurses in a hospital, as vast as the world
itself. [Maria Montessori, The Formation of Man, translated by A. M. Joosten]

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REFERENCE
We got this from book who the write is ROBERT BUCKENMEYER.
Beside that, we found that about MARIA from internet, magazine and others are related with
MARIA MONTESSORI.
That all from me AZRI and others of my groups.
Assalamualaikum