I am Maria Montessori, and my name is known worldwide through the educational system that I established. I based the teaching approach used in my Montessori schools around my belief in the creative potential of children and the right of every child to be treated as an individual.
Join me as I bring my revolutionary educational method, which builds on the way children naturally learn, to countries all around the world.
I was born on 31st August 1870, in the small town of Chiaravalle, Italy. My father, Alessandro, worked for the Ministry of Finance and my mother, Renilde, was an intelligent, well-educated woman. I was their only child and they often disagreed on how to raise me.
I had a thirst for knowledge from a young age and became an avid reader, encouraged by my modern-thinking mother rather than my traditional father. At the time, the roles of women in Italy were limited by their gender, but my mother was determined I would get a good education, just as she had.
My family moved to Rome in 1882 when I was 12. It was a sophisticated and cosmopolitan city, filled with brilliant schools, libraries and museums. Living there allowed me to have a better education and I soon started at elementary school.
I enjoyed being there, but I did find the classroom set-up rather restrictive and the constant repetition very boring. Although women at the time were not encouraged to get more than an elementary level of education, I asked my parents if I could continue at school.
I graduated in 1890 at the age of 20, with a degree in physicsmathematics. However, by then I was more interested in biology and had decided to swap engineering plans for medicine instead. Disappointingly, when I applied to the University of Rome’s medical course I was rejected.
But instead of being put off, I took some additional lessons to better prepare me, and I finally gained entry on the course in 1893. I went on to graduate with honours in 1896, becoming one of the first female physicians in Italy.
Through my work I was able to observe the ways in which children with learning difficulties were taught and I began to feel that they would do better if some changes were made. I had also discovered the studies of two French doctors from the 18th and 19th centuries, Jean-Marc-Gaspard Itard and Édouard Séguin, who argued that all education would benefit from careful observation and experimentation.
Greatly inspired by their ideas, I began to study educational theory and took a more scientific approach to teaching, experimenting and refining to see which methods worked best.
Previously the children were placed in bare rooms and at mealtimes would play with their food. I realised they needed things to occupy their hands and provide stimulation. Soon the children began to perform everyday tasks, such as preparing meals, and my program was declared a success.
In fact, many of the children with learning difficulties were able to pass the standard exams taken by children in Italian public schools. I felt this signified a failing in those schools, which should be getting hugely better results. So in 1901, I left the Orthophrenic School to do further research, and I was appointed Professor of Anthropology at the University of Rome in 1904.
The Italian Ministry of Education did not welcome my findings and so at first they denied me access to children without learning difficulties. But in 1907, the government gave me the opportunity to work with students up to age 6 in San Lorenzo, an extremely poor area of Rome.
The school was called Casa dei Bambini, or Children’s House, and the students were running wild. I brought in learning materials and then encouraged the teachers to let the students’ natural instincts and curiosity take the lead. Through trial and error, I revised my methods and wrote up my findings.
Over the next few years I devoted my time to advancing my childcentered approach to education. I lectured all around the globe, wrote many books and articles and developed programs to train teachers in the Montessori method.
My hard work resulted in the method being adopted worldwide. By 1925 there were schools as far afield as Holland, Ireland, England, Germany, Panama, Bulgaria and South Africa.
When the war finished in 1946, I finally returned to Europe and settled in Amsterdam. I spent the next few years travelling around Europe and in 1946 I visited London. The Montessori St Nicholas Training Centre in Knightsbridge was founded there that same year.
I had become increasingly convinced that education played a vital role in building a more just and peaceful society. So I worked tirelessly in support of the rights of children and was involved in the founding meetings of UNESCO – the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation.
The Second World War had done much to harm the movement I’d set in motion, with many Montessori schools around the world being forced to close.
But in the 1960s, there was renewed interest and my method grew in popularity once more. In the US, a teacher called Dr Nancy McCormick Rambusch led the reintroduction after meeting my son, who had taken over from me as leader of the Montessori Movement, at the Paris for the Tenth International Montessori Congress in 1953. Mario encouraged her to bring the Montessori Method back to America, and that’s what she did.