Dr montessori biography

Initially, she intended to pursue the study of engineering upon graduation, an unusual aspiration for a woman at the time. By the time she graduated in at the age of 20, with a certificate in physics—mathematics, she had decided to study medicine, a more unlikely pursuit given cultural norms at the time. Montessori moved forward with her intention to study medicine.

She appealed to Guido Baccelli, the professor of clinical medicine at the University of Rome but was strongly discouraged. Inshe enrolled in the University of Rome in a degree course in natural sciences, passing examinations in botany, zoology, experimental physics, histology, anatomy, and general and organic chemistry, and earning her diploma di licenza in This degree, along with additional studies in Italian and Latin, qualified her for entrance into the medical program at the university in She was met with hostility and harassment from some medical students and professors because of her gender.

Because her attendance of classes with men in the presence of a naked body was deemed inappropriate, she was required to perform her dissections of cadavers alone, after hours. She resorted to smoking tobacco to mask the offensive odor of formaldehyde. In her last two years, she studied pediatrics and psychiatryand worked in the pediatric consulting room and emergency service, becoming an expert in pediatric medicine.

Montessori graduated from the University of Rome in as a doctor of medicine. Her thesis was published in in the journal Policlinico. She found employment as an assistant at the university hospital and started a private practice. From toMontessori worked with and researched "phrenasthenic children"—in modern terms, children experiencing some form of cognitive delay, illness, or disability.

She also began to travel, study, speak, and publish nationally and internationally, coming to prominence as an advocate for women's rights and education for children with learning difficulties. On 31 Marchher only child — a son named Mario Montessori 31 March — was born. If Montessori married, she would be expected to cease working professionally.

Instead of marriage, Montessori decided to continue her work and studies. Montessori wanted to keep the relationship with her child's father secret under the condition that neither of them would marry anyone else. When the father of her child was pressured by family to make a more advantageous social connection and subsequently married, Montessori was left feeling betrayed and decided to leave the university hospital.

She was forced to place her son in the care of a wet nurse living in the countryside, distraught to miss the first few years of his life. She would later be reunited with her son in his teenage years, where he proved to be a great assistant in her research. After graduating from the University of Rome inMontessori continued with her research at the university's psychiatric clinic.

Inshe was accepted as a voluntary assistant there. As part of her work, she visited asylums in Rome where she observed children with mental disabilities, observations that were fundamental to her future educational work. Montessori was intrigued by Itard's ideas and created a far more specific and organized system for applying them to the everyday education of children with disabilities.

Also inMontessori audited the university courses in pedagogy and read "all the major works on educational theory of the past two hundred years". InMontessori spoke on societal responsibility for juvenile delinquency at the National Congress of Medicine in Turin. Inshe wrote dr montessori biography articles and spoke again at the First Pedagogical Conference of Turin, urging the creation of special classes and institutions for children with learning difficulties, as well as teacher training for their instructors.

That year Montessori undertook a two-week national lecture tour to capacity audiences before prominent public figures. In the National League opened the Scuola Magistrale Ortofrenicaor Orthophrenic School, a "medico-pedagogical institute" for training teachers in educating children with learning difficulties, with an attached laboratory classroom.

Montessori was appointed co-director. During her two years at the school, Montessori developed methods and materials which she later adapted to use with mainstream children. The school was an immediate success, attracting the attention of government officials from the departments of education and health, civic leaders, and prominent figures in the fields of education, psychiatry, and anthropology from the University of Rome.

Some of these children later passed public examinations given to so-called "normal" children. InMontessori left the Orthophrenic School and her private practice, and in she enrolled in the philosophy degree course at the University of Rome; philosophy at the time included much of what is now considered psychology. She studied theoretical and moral philosophy, history of dr montessori biography, and psychology as such, but she did not graduate.

During this time, she began to consider adapting her methods of educating children with learning difficulties to mainstream education. Montessori's work developing what she would later call "scientific pedagogy" continued over the next few years. InMontessori presented a report at a second national pedagogical congress in Naples. She published two articles on pedagogy inand two more the following year.

In andshe conducted anthropological research with Italian schoolchildren, and in she was qualified as a free lecturer in anthropology for the University of Rome. She was appointed to lecture in the Pedagogic School at the university and continued in the position until Her lectures were printed as a book titled Pedagogical Anthropology in InMontessori was invited to oversee the care and education of a group of children of working parents in a new apartment building for low-income families in the San Lorenzo district in Rome.

Montessori was interested in applying her work and methods to children without mental disabilities, and she accepted. At first, the classroom was equipped with a teacher's table and blackboard, a stove, small chairs, armchairs, and group tables for the children, and a locked cabinet for the materials that Montessori had developed at the Orthophrenic School.

Activities for the children included personal care such as dressing and undressing, care of the environment such as dusting and sweeping, and caring for the garden. The children were also shown the use of the materials Montessori had developed. Day-to-day teaching and care were provided, under Montessori's guidance, by the building porter's daughter.

In this first classroom, Montessori observed behaviors in these young children which formed the foundation of her educational method. She noted episodes of deep attention and concentration, multiple repetitions of activity, and a sensitivity to order in the environment. Given a free choice of activity, the children showed more interest in practical activities and Montessori's materials than in toys provided for them and were surprisingly unmotivated by sweets and other rewards.

Over time, she saw a spontaneous self-discipline emerge. Based on her observations, Montessori implemented a number of practices that became hallmarks of her educational philosophy and method. She replaced the heavy furniture with child-sized dr montessori biographies and chairs light enough for the children to move, and placed child-sized materials on low, accessible shelves.

She expanded the range of practical activities such as sweeping and personal care to include a wide variety of exercises for the care of the environment and the self, including flower arranging, hand washing, gymnastics, care of pets, and cooking. In her book [ 33 ] she outlines a typical winter's day of lessons, starting at am and finishing at pm:.

She felt by working independently children could reach new levels of autonomy and become self-motivated to reach new levels of understanding. Montessori also came to believe that acknowledging all children as individuals and treating them as such would yield better learning and fulfilled potential in each particular child. She continued to adapt and refine the materials she had developed earlier, altering or removing exercises which were chosen less frequently by the children.

Based on her observations, Montessori experimented with allowing children free choice of the materials, uninterrupted work, and freedom of movement and activity within the limits set by the environment. She began to see independence as the aim of education, and the role of the teacher as an observer and director of children's innate psychological development.

The first Casa dei Bambini was a success, and a second was opened on 7 April The children in her programs continued to exhibit concentration, attention, and spontaneous self-discipline, and the classrooms began to attract the attention of prominent educators, journalists, and public figures. Four- and five-year-old children engaged spontaneously with the materials and quickly gained a proficiency in writing and reading far beyond what was expected for their age.

This attracted further public attention to Montessori's work. Montessori's reputation and work began to spread internationally. Around that time she gave up her medical practice to devote more time to her educational work, developing her methods, and training teachers. As early asMontessori's work began to attract the attention of international observers and visitors.

One such area was San Lorenzo, where its children were left to run amok at home as their parents worked. In an attempt to provide the children with activities during the day to fend of the destruction of property, Maria was offered the opportunity to introduce her materials and practice to 'normal' children. There, inshe opened the first Casa dei Bambini Children's House bringing some of the educational materials she had developed at the Orthophrenic School.

What she came to realise was that children who were placed in an environment where activities were designed to support their natural development had the power to educate themselves. By Maria gave her first training course in her new approach to around students. Her notes from this period provided the material for her first book published that same year in Italy, appearing in translation in the United States in as The Montessori Method, and later translated into 20 languages.

A period of great expansion in the Montessori approach now followed. Montessori societies, training programmes and schools sprang to life all over the world, and a period of travel with public speaking and lecturing occupied Maria, much of it in America, but also in the UK and throughout Europe. The rise of fascism in Europe substantially impacted the progress of the Montessori movement.

In September of the same year she was asked to represent Italy at the International Congress for Women in Berlin, and in her speech to the Congress she developed a thesis for social reform, arguing that women should be entitled to equal wages with men. A reporter covering the event asked her how her patients responded to a female doctor.

Much of her work there was with the poor, and particularly with their children. In she volunteered to join a research programme at the psychiatric clinic of the University of Rome, and it was here that she worked alongside Giuseppe Montesano, with whom a romance was to develop.

Dr montessori biography

Montessori realised that in such a bare, unfurnished room the children were desperate for sensorial stimulation and activities for their hands, and that this deprivation was contributing to their condition. The year-old Montessori was asked to address the National Medical Congress in Turin, where she advocated the controversial theory that the lack of adequate provision for children with mental and emotional disorders was a cause of their delinquency.

Expanding on this, she addressed the National Pedagogical Congress the following year, presenting a vision of social progress and political economy rooted in educational measures. She asked for the foundation of medical-pedagogical institutes and a special training for teachers working with special needs children. He created practical apparatus and equipment to help develop the sensory perceptions and motor skills of intellectually challenged children, which Montessori was later to use in new ways.

Until now her ideas about the development of children were only theories, but the small school, set up along the lines of a teaching hospital, allowed her to put these ideas into practice. The relationship with Giuseppe Montesano had developed into a love affair, and in Maria gave birth to a son, named Mario, who was given into the care of a family who lived in the countryside near Rome.

Maria visited Mario often, but it was not until he was older that he came to know that Maria was his mother. A strong bond was nevertheless created, and in later years he collaborated and travelled with his mother, continuing her work after her dr montessori biography. In Montessori left the Orthophrenic School and immersed herself in her own studies of educational philosophy and anthropology.

In she took up a post as a lecturer at the Pedagogic School of the University of Rome, which she held until During this period Rome was growing very rapidly, and in the fever of speculative development, some construction companies were going bankrupt, leaving unfinished building projects which quickly attracted squatters. Teachers were encouraged to stand back and "follow the child"—that is, to let children's natural interests take the lead.

Over time, Montessori tweaked her methods through trial and error. Her writings further served to spread her ideology throughout Europe and the United States. By more than 1, of her schools had opened in America. Gradually Montessori schools fell out of favor; by the movement had faded and only a few schools remained. Her work with the program earned her two Nobel Peace Prize nominations.

Montessori died on May 6,in Noordwijk aan Zee, Netherlands. The s witnessed a resurgence in Montessori schools, led by Dr. Nancy McCormick Rambusch. Today, Montessori's teaching methods continue to "follow the child" all over the globe. We strive for accuracy and fairness. If you see something that doesn't look right, contact us! Noam Chomsky.