Maria Montessori
Dr. Maria Montessori was born in Chiraville, Italy on 31st August 1870. She became the first woman to graduate from the University of Rome La Sapienza Medical School and went on to become one of the first female doctors in Italy. While she was a member of the University's Psychiatric Clinic, her interest in educating children with "special needs" grew.
While looking after such children, she became increasingly convinced that those children can learn, under proper guidance and assistance. She started designing materials based learning methods for children who had special needs.
While she was the Director of the Scuola Ortofrenica, an institution devoted to the care and education of the mentally retarded, Madam Montessori proved the effectiveness of her learning system by making several of her children, branded as defective, clear the State examinations in Italy, and that too with above-average scores. This was a great achievement and is considered not less than a miracle. She wondered what could be the potential of a normal child, if children with special needs can be brought to the level of normal children through her learning methods.
In 1907, Madam Montessori was requested to help manage the children of labourers at a construction site. This was the first montessori school, named "Casa dei Bambini", which means House of Children. She introduced sensorial materials while helping those children learn and she was amazed how they got excited about learning. Usage of sensorial materials - viz. tracing shapes of sounds and numbers is practiced even now in the montessori system.
Madam Montessori visited India in 1939 accepting an invitation from the Theosophical Society of India. She laid a strong foundation for the Montessori Movement in India, before she left for Netherlands in 1949. Today, her theories have withstood the test of time as contemporary researchers continue to confirm many of the concepts and ideas initiated by this visionary leader.
Fundamental elements of Montessori education
Dr. Montessori's educational method is based on a human development model. This model has two fundamental elements :-
(a) Children engage in psychological self-construction by means of interaction with their environments.
(b) Children, especially under the age of six, have an innate path of psychological development.
She believed that, children, who have freedom to choose and act freely within an environment prepared according to her model, would act spontaneously for optimal development.
Practices
Preschool Montessori classrooms for children from 2.5 to 6 years old are often called Children’s Houses, after Montessori’s first school in Rome.
A typical classroom serves 20 to 30 children in mixed-age groups, staffed by one trained teacher and an assistant. Classroom materials are kept in child-height shelves throughout the room.
Materials usually include activities for engaging in practical skills such as pouring and spooning, materials for the development of the senses, math materials, language materials, music and art materials, etc.
The teacher presents activities initially, and later, children can choose more or less freely according to their interests.
