Maria Montessori
Born	August 31, 1870(1870-08-31) Chiaravalle (Ancona), Italy
Died	May 6, 1952 (aged 81) Noordwijk, Netherlands
Burial place	Noordwijk, Netherlands
Nationality	Italian
Education	University of Rome La Sapienza Medical School
Occupation	Physician and educator
Known for	Founder of the Montessori method of education
Religious beliefs	Catholic
Children	Mario Montessori Sr.

Maria Montessori (August 31, 1870 – May 6, 1952) was an Italian physician, educator, philosopher, humanitarian and devout Catholic; she is best known for her philosophy and the Montessori method of education of children from birth to adolescence. Her educational method is in use today in a number of public as well as private schools throughout the world. Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... is the 243rd day of the year (244th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1870 (MDCCCLXX) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Monday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Italy_(1861-1946). ... Country Italy Region Marche Province Province of Ancona (AN) Mayor Elevation 22 m Area 17. ... The Province of Ancona (Italian: Provincia di Ancona) is a province in the Marche region of central Italy. ... is the 126th day of the year (127th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1952 (MCMLII) was a leap year starting on Tuesday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_the_Netherlands. ... For other uses, see Noordwijk (disambiguation). ... University of Rome La Sapienza (Università della Sapienza) is the most ancient university of Rome, Italy. ... This article is about the educational method. ... is the 243rd day of the year (244th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1870 (MDCCCLXX) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Monday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ... is the 126th day of the year (127th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1952 (MCMLII) was a leap year starting on Tuesday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... This article is about the educational method. ...

Biography

Maria Montessori was born in Chiaravalle (Ancona), Italy to Alessandro Montessori, and Renilde Stoppani. Montessori was the first woman to graduate from the University of Rome La Sapienza Medical School. She was a member of the University's Psychiatric Clinic and became intrigued with trying to educate the "mentally retarded" and the "uneducable" in Rome. In 1898, she gave a lecture at the Educational Congress in Torino about the training of the disabled. The Italian Minister of Education was in attendance, and was impressed by her arguments sufficiently to appoint her the same year as director of the Scuola Ortofrenica, an institution devoted to the care and education of the mentally retarded. She accepted, in order to put her theories to proof. Her first notable success was to have several of her 8 year old students apply to take the State examinations for reading and writing. The "defective" children not only passed, but had above-average scores, an achievement described as "the first Montessori miracle."^[1] Country Italy Region Marche Province Province of Ancona (AN) Mayor Elevation 22 m Area 17. ... The Province of Ancona (Italian: Provincia di Ancona) is a province in the Marche region of central Italy. ... University of Rome La Sapienza (Università della Sapienza) is the most ancient university of Rome, Italy. ... Mental retardation (abbreviated as MR), is a term for a pattern of persistently slow learning of basic motor and language skills (milestones) during childhood, and a significantly below-normal intellectual capacity as an adult. ... For other uses, see Rome (disambiguation). ... Torino or Turin is a major industrial city in north-western Italy, capital of the Piedmont region, located mainly on the west bank of the Po River. ...

Because of her success with these children, she was asked to start a school for children in a housing project in Rome, which opened on January 6, 1907, and which she called "Casa dei Bambini" or Children's House. Children's House was a child care center in an apartment building in the poor neighborhood of Rome. She was focused on teaching the students ways to develop their own skills at a pace they set, which was a principle Montessori called "spontaneous self-development".^[2] The success of this school sparked the opening of many more, and a worldwide interest in Montessori's methods of education. is the 6th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1907 (MCMVII) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Monday of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ...

After the 1907 establishment of Montessori's first school in Rome, by 1913 there was an intense interest in her method in North America, which later waned. (Nancy McCormick Rambusch revived the method in America by establishing the American Montessori Society in 1960). Montessori was exiled by Mussolini mostly because she refused to compromise her principles and make the children into soldiers. She moved to Spain and lived there until 1936 when the Spanish Civil War broke out. She then moved to the Netherlands until 1939. North American redirects here. ... The American Montessori Society (AMS) is a non-profit, member supported, organization which promotes the use of the Montessori teaching approach in private and public schools. ... Mussolini redirects here. ... Not to be confused with the Spanish Civil War of 1820-1823. ...

In the year 1939, the Theosophical Society of India extended an invitation asking Maria Montessori to visit India. She accepted the invitation and reached India the very same year accompanied by her only son, Mario Montessori Sr. This heralded the beginning of her special relationship with India. She made Adyar, Chennai her home. However the war forced her to extend her stay in India. With the help of her son, Mario Montessori, she conducted sixteen batches of courses called the Indian Montessori Training Courses. These courses laid a strong foundation for the Montessori Movement in India. In 1949 when she left for The Netherlands she appointed Albert Max Joosten as her personal representative, and assigned him the responsibility of conducting the Indian Montessori Training Courses. Joosten along with Swamy S R, another disciple of Dr. Maria Montessori, continued the good work and ensured that the Montessori Movement in India was on a sound footing. Motto: Je Maintiendrai (Dutch: Ik zal handhaven, English: I Shall Uphold) Anthem: Wilhelmus van Nassouwe Capital Amsterdam1 Largest city Amsterdam Official language(s) Dutch2 Government Parliamentary democracy Constitutional monarchy  - Queen Beatrix  - Prime minister Jan Peter Balkenende Independence Eighty Years War   - Declared July 26, 1581   - Recognised January 30, 1648 (by Spain... S R Swamy Born in Bangalore, in the year 1922, of parents who lived a life of rich culture and austerity, Swamy was the darling of the family. ...

During a teachers conference in India she was interned by the authorities and lived there for the duration of the war. Montessori lived out the remainder of her life in the Netherlands, which now hosts the headquarters of the AMI, or Association Montessori Internationale. She died in Noordwijk aan Zee. Her son Mario headed the AMI until his death in 1982. For other uses, see Noordwijk (disambiguation). ...

Maria Montessori died in the Netherlands in 1952, after a lifetime devoted to the study of child development. Her early work centered on women’s rights and social reform and evolved to encompass a totally innovative approach to education. Her success in Italy led to international recognition, and for over 40 years she traveled all over the world, lecturing, writing and establishing training programs. In later years, ‘Educate for Peace’ became a guiding principle, which underpinned her work.

Pedagogy

Aside from a new pedagogy, among the premier contributions to educational thought by Montessori are: A Mongolian Pedagogical University Graduation Award Badge. ...

• instruction of children in 3-year age groups, corresponding to sensitive periods of development (example: Birth-3, 3-6, 6-9, 9-12, 12-15 year olds with an Erdkinder (German for "Land Children") program for early teens
• children as competent beings, encouraged to make maximal decisions
• observation of the child in the environment as the basis for ongoing curriculum development (presentation of subsequent exercises for skill development and information accumulation)
• small, child-sized furniture and creation of a small, child-sized environment (microcosm) in which each can be competent to produce overall a self-running small children's world
• creation of a scale of sensitive periods of development, which provides a focus for class work that is appropriate and uniquely stimulating and motivating to the child (including sensitive periods for language development, sensorial experimentation and refinement, and various levels of social interaction)
• the importance of the "absorbent mind," the limitless motivation of the young child to achieve competence over his or her environment and to perfect his or her skills and understandings as they occur within each sensitive period. The phenomenon is characterized by the young child's capacity for repetition of activities within sensitive period categories (Example: exhaustive babbling as language practice leading to language competence).
• self-correcting "auto-didactic" materials (some based on work of Jean Marc Gaspard Itard and Edouard Seguin)

// Background Dr. Maria Montessori believed that every human being goes through a series of quantum leaps in learning during the preschool years. ... Childrens language development moves from simplicity to complexity. ... Babbling is a stage in child language acquisition, during which an infant appears to be experimenting with making the sounds of language, but not yet producing any recognizable words. ... Jean Marc Gaspard Itard (April 24, 1774 – 1838) was a French physician born in Provence. ... Edouard Seguin (1812-1880) was a physician who worked with mentally handicapped children in France and the United States. ...

Influence

A conference in Rome on 6/7th January 2007^[3] heralded the start of a year of celebrations for children and schools around the world. Dr. Maria Montessori’s innovative approach was that “Education should no longer be mostly imparting of knowledge, but must take a new path, seeking the release of human potentialities.”

What followed worldwide has been called the "discovery of the child" and the realization that: "...mankind can hope for a solution to its problems, among which the most urgent are those of peace and unity, only by turning its attention and energies to the discovery of the child and to the development of the great potentialities of the human personality in the course of its formation.”

The efficacy of Montessori teaching methods has most recently been demonstrated by the results of a study published in the US journal, Science (29 September 2006)^[4] which indicates that Montessori children have improved behavioral and academic skills compared with a control group from the mainstream system. The authors concluded that "when strictly implemented, Montessori education fosters social and academic skills that are equal or superior to those fostered by a pool of other types of schools."

The Montessori method of education that she derived from this experience has subsequently been applied successfully to children and is quite popular in many parts of the world. Despite much criticism of her method in the early 1930s-1940s, her method of education has been applied and has undergone a revival. It can now be found on six continents and throughout the United States. This article is about the educational method. ... A male Caucasian toddler child A child (plural: children) is a young human. ...

The Association Montessori Internationale is member of the International Coalition for the Decade for the Culture of Peace and Nonviolence. On November 10th, 1998, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed the first decade of the 21st century and the third millenium, the years 2001 to 2010, as the International Decade for the Promotion of a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence for the Children of the World. // Presentation Since 2001...

Important events in Dr. Maria Montessori's life

Related scholarly work

Erica Moretti, a renowned scholar of Italian studies at Brown University has produced a monograph expounding Montessori's method and its applications to education in the developing world. In particular she has unearthed documents that establish her theories as a foundation for school models in urban India. A monograph is a scholarly book or a treatise on a single subject or a group of related subjects. ...

Recognitions

• In 1980, Maria Montessori was pictured on the Italian 200 lire coin and through the 1990s on the 1000 lire bill, by far the most common one, replacing Marco Polo, until Italy adopted the Euro.

ISO 4217 Code ITL User(s) Italy, San Marino, Vatican City, but not Campione dItalia Inflation 2. ... This article is about monetary coins. ... A £20 Bank of England banknote. ... Marco Polo (September 15, 1254[1] – January 9, 1324 at earliest but no later than June 1325[2]) was a Venetian trader and explorer who gained fame for his worldwide travels, recorded in the book Il Milione (The Million or The Travels of Marco Polo). ... For other uses, see Euro (disambiguation). ...

References

1. ^ Current Biography 1940, p. 591.
2. ^ Early Childhood Today, p. 74.
3. ^ Montessori Centenary.
4. ^ Montessori. Science (2006-09-29).

Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 272nd day of the year (273rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ...

Further reading

• O'Donnell, Marion (2007). Maria Montessori: Continuum Library of Educational Thought. Continuum. ISBN 0-8264-8406-9. 
• Schapiro, Dennis (1993). "What if Montessori Education is Part of the Answer?". Education Digest. 
• Cohen, Deborah L. (1990). "Montessori Methods in Public Schools". Education Digest. 
• Plekhanov, A., Jones, Anthony (1992). "The Pedagogical Theory and Practice of Maria Montessori". Russian Social Science Review. 
• "Maria Montessori" (2000). Early Childhood Today. 
• Shute, Nancy (2002). "Madam Montessori". Smithsonian. 

External links

• American Montessori Society
• International Montessori Index
• Association Montessori Internationale
• e-text of The Montessori Method by Maria Montessori
• http://www.webster.edu/~woolflm/montessori2.html
• I Love Montessori - A Certified Montessori Directress' Blog on the Montessori Method
• Evaluating Montessori Education -- study published in the journal Science
• Notes from some of her books
• Transcript of a lecture delivered by Dr. Maria Montessori at the International Montessori Training Course held in London in 1933
• Maria Montessori: Her Life and Legacy 4-minute clip from a documentary film used primarily in higher education.
• Works by or about Maria Montessori in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• A Montessori Mother  by  Dorothy Canfield Fisher