Module 3 • Teaching Methods B. MONTESSORI METHOD – MARIA MONTESSORI
Historical background of Maria Montessori Maria Montessori was born in 1870 in Italy. She was an only child from a middle-class family. There, she received a good education that prepared her for a teaching career. She showed great aptitude for mathematics and her parents encouraged her abilities. Her parents thought she may become a teacher, a suitable career for woman.
Maria, however, had a mind of her own. She moved into the engineering field, an unheard of career for a woman. This, however, did not
last long and she turned to medicine, an even more unorthodox career for a woman.
In 1897, she became a voluntary assistant at a psychiatric clinic at the University of Rome, and at this time she encountered the so-called “idiot” children.
These children were unable to function in schools and in their families, and were put into an asylum. Dr Montessori felt strongly that their medical deficiency was more of a pedagogical problem than a medical one. She felt that these children could be helped.
She was particularly sensitive to the children who were locked away with nothing to do and with no sensory stimulation at all. The children tried to learn about the world around them through their hands.
Maria believed that the path to intellectual development is through the hands of a child. This is a major theme in Montessori’s methods. She was convinced that these children had a use. She began to work with them.
The educational methods she developed were so successful that her learning-disabled students passed reading and writing examinations for normal children. Her educational approach won her international fame for designing an education system to aid children in the development of intelligence and independence.
Due to her firm convictions in her method of teaching, she opened her first school in 1907, the CASA DEI BAMBINI in 1907 in the slums of Rome. Here, she taught normal pre-school children from poor families.
She lectured extensively on her methods throughout the world and wrote several books, including “The Montessori Method” in 1912 and “The Absorbent Mind” in 1949.
In these books, she described children as:
• Being capable of extended periods of concentration. • Enjoying repetition and order. • Enjoying activities with a purpose (preferred work to play). • Self-motivated. • Taking delight in silence. • Being capable of learning to read and write.
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