Maria Montessori was born on the 31st August 1870 in the town of Chiaravalle, Italy. Her father, Alessandro, was an accountant in the civil service, and her mother, Renilde Stoppani, was well educated and had a passion for reading.
At the age of six, Maria was enrolled in the first grade of the public school. In childhood she showed strong leadership qualities with other children. Breaking conventional barriers from the beginning of her education, Maria initially had aspirations to become an engineer.
When Maria Montessori graduated secondary school, she became determined to enter medical school and become a doctor. Despite her parents’ encouragement to enter teaching, Maria wanted to enter the male-dominated sphere of medicine. After initially being refused entry, Maria was eventually given entry to the University of Rome in 1890, becoming the first woman to enter medical school in Italy. Despite facing many obstacles due to her gender, Montessori qualified as a doctor in July 1896.
Soon after her medical career began, Dr. Montessori became involved in the Women’s Rights movement. She became known for her high levels of competency in treating patients, but also for the respect she showed to patients from all social classes. In 1897, Dr. Montessori joined a research programmed at the psychiatric clinic of the University of Rome, as a volunteer. This work initiated a deep interest in the needs of children with learning disabilities. Afterwards, Montessori was appointed as co-director, of a new institution called the Orthphrenic School.
In 1901 Montessori began her own studies of education, philosophy and anthropology. During this time, children were left at home as their parents worked. The number of children needing a guide and role model presented Maria with an opportunity to work with children with normal development and push her ideas into the mainstream. Dr. Montessori opened the first Casa dei Bambini in Rome, in1907 bringing some of the educational materials she had developed at the Orth phrenic School.
Dr. Montessori put many different activities and materials into the children’s environment and observed the children’s use of them. She kept only those materials that engaged them. She came to realize that children placed in an environment with activities designed to support their natural development, had the power to educate themselves. By 1909 Dr. Montessori gave her first teacher training course in her new approach to around 100 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 1912 as The Montessori Method, and later translated into 20 languages.
A period of great expansion in the Montessori approach is now followed. Montessori societies, training programs and schools sprang to life all over the world, and a period of travel with public speaking and lecturing in America, the UK and throughout Europe occupied Dr. Montessori. In 1929, she and her son, Mario, founded the Association Montessori International (AMI) to protect the integrity of her life’s work.
In 1939, Maria and her son Mario moved to India to lecture. Initially intending to travel for only three months, the trip lasted seven years, as the outbreak of war. In India, Maria trained over a thousand Indian Teachers. Returning to Europe, Maria addressed UNESCO in 1947 with the theme of Education and Peace and ultimately received her nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1949. Maria died in 1952, in the company of her son Mario, to whom she bequeathed the legacy of her work.