Maria Montessori

Maria Montessori , born with Chiaravalle close to Ancône the August 31st 1870 and died with Noordwijk aan Zee (Netherlands) the May 6th 1952, is a Médecin and a pedagog Italy. It is internationally known for the teaching method which bears its name, the Pédagogie Montessori.

Biography

It is resulting from a middle-class family. His/her father was a Militaire. Although high with very strict rules of discipline, his/her mother, very near, respected its freedom.

In 1882, his/her parents move with Rome to give him a better education. They wish for it a teaching career of .

In 1884, Maria tests a very great interest for the Mathématiques. This involves the first difficulties with his/her father. She then integrates a technical training school for boys, discovers the Biologie there and decides to become doctor. She succeeds in being registered at the medical college and taking down a purse. The discord with his/her father develops, and it decides to ignore what she does. Many people of its entourage, as well family and as academic, criticize it and are hostile towards it.

In 1896, Maria Montessori becomes the first Italian lady doctor. She will work during ten years in psychiatry. It is there that she discovers that the children known as “weak”

do not have any play at their disposal, whereas they need actions to progress;
needs their hands to develop their intelligence.

In parallel, she discovers the searchs for two French doctors: Edouard Seguin and Jean Itard, namely work about the deaf-mute ones and the writings about Victor, the wild Enfant of the Aveyron.

Maria intervenes with the congress of Pédagogie of Turin in 1899: the Minister for Education asks him to make conferences in Rome shortly after. She says then, while speaking about the weak children (with the medical direction): “I have the intuition that the problem of these defective was less of a medical nature than teaching… I submitted a report/ratio of moral education”. Little time afterwards, it creates a school of orthophrénie. It trains teachers and their fact there of becoming aware of the importance of the observation: “to observe and not judge”. It takes part in many congresses in Rome, then with Paris, from where it brings back works of Itard and Seguin which it translates and recopies with the hand. It makes a thorough study of it the night; the day, she works with defective children to which she learns how to read, write and their fact of undergoing examinations (successfully) at the same time as of the normal children.

In 1901, it starts to be interested in the “normal” children. She undertakes studies of Psychologie and Philosophie. In 1906, turning in its life, it deals with normal children of pre-school age, for which it will create its teaching method.

The creation of the first House of the children ( Put dei bambini ) takes place in 1907 in the popular quarters of San Lorenzo in Rome. In order to improve the life of the district, an organization puts in building site the construction of two buildings to gather the population of the slums. Its director then asks Maria Montessori to organize the life of the children living these buildings. The objectives are:

to gather all these children and to prevent them wandering, from sowing the disorder.
to get a better hygiene and to found a family harmony.

One offers to the children a “small house” in a “large house” to live the day there. The parents had the free access of the school. N the other hand, they were to take care of the cleanliness and the good behavior (vestimentary) of the children. The teacher had the obligation to live in the building for better collaborating with the parents, from a common point of view of education of the children. The Casa dei bambini becomes a base of research, a laboratory of experimentation where Mrs. built Montessori and tests her method. It organizes international courses as from 1913. Many associations and charitable organizations require of him to create houses of children. It multiplies the voyages to carry out conferences and to organize training courses teaching.

1914 to 1918, Maria leaves to the the United States of America. She there creates a college for teachers and directs a “teaching week”.

From 1921 to 1931 it takes part in the exchanges of the international Ligue for new education and in particular in its congresses where it presents its work and meets the other large Pédagogue S of this movement such as Adolphe Ferrière, John Dewey and Roger Cousinet.

In 1936, the Italian government fascistic condemns and proscribes the principles montessoriens: it follows from there the closing of all the Montessori schools. Maria leaves Italy and settles in Spain. The arrival of Franco destroys its plans. She settles then in Holland and creates international Montessori Association there. 1939 to 1945, to flee the Second world war, it leaves food in India, where it is assigned with residence as amenable Italian until 1946. It benefits from it to create many Montessori schools.

In 1952, it turns over in Europe, first of all to Italy which rehabilitates it, but it prefers to settle with the Netherlands, where it dies the same year at the 82 years age.

One will retain of Maria Montessori that it was an empowered woman. In catholic Italy of the Years 1900, it became doctor against the opinion of all and educated a child designed except marriage. It was also a noble-hearted woman which knew to break with the adult prejudices which choked the child.

The son of Maria Montessori, Mario, continues the work of this one.

Publications

Psycho-Geometrica , international Montessori Association, Amsterdam, without date
Psycho-Grammar , international Montessori Association, Amsterdam, without date
the Child , Desclée de Brouwer, Paris, 1935
Of the child to the teenager , Desclée de Brouwer, Paris, 1958
scientific Pedagogy , Desclée de Brouwer, Paris, 1958
Psycho-Arithmetica , Garzanti, Milan, 1971
Education and Peace , Kalakshetra, Madras, 1972
Secret The off Chilhood , the Longman East, Bombay, 1986
The Formation off Man , Kalakshetra, Madras, 1991
To Educate the Human Potential , Kalakshetra, Madras, 1991
Education and peace , Editions Charles Léopold Mayer, 2002

Source

Clermont Gauthier and Maurice Late (coord.), Pedagogy. Theories and practices of Antiquity at our days, Gaëtan Morin Editor, Montreal, 2005.

Internal bonds

Pedagogy Montessori

External bonds

the first French site created in 1995 on Montessori pedagogy.
international Montessori Association
Biographical note
School of formation to the Montessori method for adults, parents or teachers, on all France.

; Schools Montessori

School of small of man located at Paris (XIe district)

Simple: Maria Montessori

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