Who was Maria Montessori?
Written by Cynthia Dahl and Regan Becker
Dr. Montessori with a student using the Racks and Tubes for division
Maria Montessori was born August 31, 1870 in Chiaravalle, Italy – a wealthy suburb of Rome. At age thirteen, she enrolled in an all-boys engineering school, as most education was not open to all genders at that time. Later, she changed her academic focus to medicine, graduating from the University of Rome in 1896 as one of the first female physicians in Italy. Dr. Montessori was interested in both psychiatry and education, giving special attention to children with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
In 1900, she was appointed co-director of The Orthophrenic School, a special education teacher training center. Using the scientific method, Dr. Montessori observed and experimented with various teaching techniques to see which worked best for the children. She observed children crumbing their bread, rather than eating it, demonstrating their desire for tactile stimulation.
Dr. Montessori with a student using the Metal Insets
In 1907, Dr. Montessori opened a full-day child care center in San Lorenzo, a poor neighborhood in Rome. The first center of its kind in Rome, it became known as Casa dei Bambini (“the Children’s House”), because materials and furniture were built to the children’s size and for their use. Dr. Montessori found that assisting children to be capable, independent, and responsible for their fundamental needs increased their confidence and helped them behave more peacefully. Materials created for this purposeful work form the Montessori Practical Life curriculum.
Metal insets in 2022
Dr. Montessori drew inspiration from concrete materials used by her mentors — French physician-educators Jean-Marc Gaspard Itard and Édouard Séguin — to form her own Math, Language, and Sensorial materials. Hands-on manipulatives allow children to access the world through their senses. Montessori later conducted anthropological research in Italy’s public schools, worked within the feminist movement on behalf of social change regarding gender, and gave lectures across the globe on educational reform.
By 1910, Montessori schools were founded in countries throughout Europe, and in 1911 the first Montessori school in the United States was founded in New York. At the 1915 Panama Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco, Dr. Montessori presented her “glass classroom” as a demonstration of the power of a child’s concentration when given didactic materials, trust, and freedom of movement.
Montessori’s “Glass Classroom” in 1915
The Children’s House did away with rewards and punishments present in traditional educational settings, instead encouraging children to practice self-regulation and develop intrinsic motivation. Dr. Montessori’s profound respect for children contradicted the fascist dictatorships in Europe at that time. Threatened by both Hitler and Mussolini, Dr. Montessori fled Italy, living and working abroad in India, the United States, and the Netherlands. In the 1940s, she was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize three times.
Her son Mario followed Dr. Montessori into education and brought “the Montessori Method” to the United States. She wrote fourteen books within thirty-five years, many of them transcribed from her international lectures. Italy honored Dr. Montessori by placing her face on the 1000 lire bank note. She died peacefully in a friend’s Amsterdam garden on May 6, 1952. Dr. Montessori’s respect for the child lives on in over 15,000 Montessori schools worldwide, three thousand of which are located in the United States.
Dr. Séguin’s boards inspired Montessori’s Teens board
