About Maria Montessori

Maria Montessori was a medical doctor who became renowned for her work in the education of young children. She was born in Italy on 31 August 1870, the daughter of well-educated, middle-class parents. Despite her fathers protests, she first studied engineering, then medicine, and in 1896 was the first woman to graduate as a doctor from the University of Rome. In her work as a voluntary researcher at the Universitys psychiatric clinic, she visited insane asylums to select patients for treatment and there observed "mentally retarded" children.

It became clear to her that none of them had any hope of improvement in asylum conditions and she became interested in the work done by Itard and Seguin on the education of "defectives". She began to study, and eventually to work with, mentally retarded children, becoming convinced that the key to their education lay in the release of their individual potential. She designed and had built a set of teaching materials and developed an environment in which self-motivated learning could take place. Her success with so-called "defectives" led her to take an interest in the education of normal children, and in 1907 she started her first school, the "Casa dei Bambini" (Childrens House) in a slum of Rome.

Thus began Dr Montessoris life-long involvement in education rather than medicine. The "Casa dei Bambini" attracted a great deal of attention, and in 1909 Maria Montessori ran her first training course for teachers. From this came her theory of education (set out in "The Montessori Method") and the growth of Montessori Schools all over Europe and the U.S.A. Subsequent lecture-tours and training courses were held in England, Spain, Australia, Holland and the United States. In 1934, Mussolini forced the closure of the Montessori Schools in Italy, and Dr Montessori settled in Holland. In 1929, she set up the International Montessori Association (A.M.I) to safeguard and promulgate the Montessori Method. When World War 2 broke out, Dr Montessori went to India to establish a training centre, and there her ideas were influenced by the Indian culture. As a result of the war she also developed a passionate concern for peace through education. After the war ended, she returned to London and a Montessori Center was established. The rest of her life was spent in writing and teaching, and she travelled widely to further the aims of the A.M.I. She was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize three times, and she lived to see herself and her theories acclaimed throughout the world. She died in Holland in 1952, at the age of 82, and is buried near The Hague, headquarters of the A.M.I