Maria Montessori
After studying maths, science and
medicine in University of Rome and realised that medicine was not for her, Maria
Montessori worked with women and children for 10 years when she realised that
she had more of an interest in children with disabilities. After working with
teachers, she went back to university to study education and anthropology. Maria
Montessori began to develop her philosophy and methods in 1897, attending
courses in pedagogy at the University of Rome and reading the educational
theory of the previous two hundred years. In 1906, Montessori set up a nursery in San Lorenzo
slum; it was the first children’s house as Montessori had no money she had to
do all the work herself. From the
beginning, Montessori based her work on her observations of children and
experimentation with the environment, materials, and lessons available to them.
She frequently referred to her work as "scientific pedagogy".
Montessori’s main priority was the children’s health; she developed her own
resources which are still used today. Maria liked to encourage the children to
look after the classroom, environment and facilities that were in the
classroom. In 1912, Maria travelled around the world to teach and opened up her
first American school. In over 100 countries there are 22,000 Montessori
schools including one in Swansea called ‘The Children’s room’. Maria was also
the first teacher to advocate the importance of the first 6 years of life. Unfortunately,
Maria Montessori passed away in 1952, but her work and theories still got used.
Montessori had three six year
periods which she liked to call the sensitive periods. The absorbent mind which
is 0-6 years old, childhood which is then 6-12 years old and adolescence which
is 12-18 years old, all of these are subdivided. Montessori had key principles
that she used such as freedom to work
and move around within guidelines, more than one age group in one class,
scaffolding, children encouraged to work at their own pace, children are
observed as an individual and groups, strict rules and promoting self
discipline in Montessori environments. Maria said the environment of the
classroom was important for the children, she had all children sized furniture
so they did not feel intimidated and so it was more comfortable for them. There
was no grading system so the children did not feel categorised, the children
were allowed to explore. Still to this day, many Montessori schools design their
programs with reference to Montessori’s model of human development from her
published works, and use pedagogy, lessons, and materials introduced in teacher training derived
from courses presented by Montessori during her lifetime. One of Maria
Montessori's most famous quotes was "The greatest sign of success for a
teacher....is to be able to say, "The children are now working as if I did
not exist." researched from Search Quotes.
References
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