Maria montessori biography wikipedia

She also direct tackled misogynistic anthropological theories that purported to show women’s essential/biological inferiority to men. Just as “life has a tendency to activity” (horme), so too “it has the power to acquire and retain impressions” (6:17). Unlike other animals, however, the human child “must construct his own adaptation” (17:82).

(1916: 180–81)

Dewey offers this critique in the context of a broader description of educational approaches whose “fundamental fallacy” is “in supposing that experience on the part of pupils may be assumed” (1916: 180). The inspiration for the White Cross came from Montessori’s efforts, especially during the First World War, to provide safe educational environments for child victims of war.

Moreover, higher order powers emerge teleologically, to meet needs implicit in the functioning of the world; life arose to deal with geological forces that were insufficient to maintain harmoniously ordered complexity, and psychic forces arise in response to limits on the part of merely biological structures. (6:24)

The emphasis on biological interdependence present from her earliest works (e.g., 1910 [1913: 39]) anticipates the emergence of ecology as a fundamental component of biology, a connection Montessori explicitly cites in 1949, when she described “Ecology” as

a study…[that] reveals that [animals] are not here to compete with each other, but to carry out an enormous work serving the harmonious upkeep of the earth,

linking this point with her metaphysical claim that

The purpose of life is to obey the hidden command which ensures harmony among all and creates an ever better world.

Throughout her life, too, she wrote short articles on various topics ranging from specific pedagogical practices to broader cultural critique.

By far Montessori’s most important work during her lifetime was Il Metodo della Pedagogia Scientifica applicato all’educazione infantile nelle Case dei Bambini (1909), first translated into English as The Montessori Method (1912) and then later translated (based on a new edition) as The Discovery of the Child.

Two of the most important such efforts were the “White Cross” and the “Social Party of the Child”. This book situates Montessori’s method in the context of trends of Italian anthropology in the early twentieth century, and it includes her discussions (including critiques) of figures such as Darwin, Lombroso, and her mentor Guiseppe Sergi.

Her son Mario accompanied her during the last two journeys. Maria visited Mario often, but it was not until he was older that he came to know that Maria was his mother. The school took children with a broad spectrum of disorders and proved to be a turning point in Montessori’s life, marking a shift in her professional identity from physician to educator.

There is only one between many children, so there is nothing for it but to wait…We cannot teach this kind of morality to children of three, but experience can. Psychogeometry and Psychoarithmetic (MS 16 & 20) give insight not only into Montessori’s philosophy of mathematics but her cognitive theory more broadly.

She represented Italy at major international women’s congresses in 1896 in Berlin, where she argued for equal pay for equal work and represented Italian women’s opposition to colonialism, and then again in 1899 in London (see Kramer 1976: 55; Moretti 2021: 105). Montessori’s Influence and Relevance

Montessori’s most significant impacts over the past hundred years have been the tens of thousands of schools throughout the world in which children develop in classrooms overseen by teachers trained in her pedagogical philosophy, methods, and materials.

This prompted the developers to approach Maria Montessori to provide ways of occupying the children during the day to prevent further damage to the premises.

Montessori grasped the opportunity of working with typical children and, bringing some of the educational materials she had developed at the Orthophrenic School, she established her first Casa dei Bambini or ‘Children’s House’, which opened on 6 January 1907.

Her pedagogy is grounded on the construction of environments within which children can find activities that engage their attention and then the protection of the independence of the child once in those environments: “human beings placed in the most favorable conditions should be left free to develop themselves” (18:9). Montessorian freedom and flexibility can also contribute to creativity (Fleming et al.