Ashley Jankowiak ECD 1404 Maria Montessori Many people have heard the term Montessori school before,

but most probably dont know exactly what it is. When parents choose a preschool for their children, Montessori schools are actually a good option but knowing background information about how it all started may be a very helpful deciding factor. Maria Montessori built a school on the ideas of children becoming independent learners by choosing what interests them personally. Through her work with medicine and mentally handicapped children, Maria realized that all children have the ability to be successful given the right materials. Maria Montessori was born on August 31, 1870. She was born to a father, Alessandro Montessori, a soldier in his youth and a civil servant later on in life. Her mother, Renilde Stoppani, was eight years younger than her husband but was highly educated for the time and loved reading. In the area that they lived most people could not write simple things such as their own name, so this was quite amazing. She was a union leader for Italy and spent a lot of time devoted to the liberation of Italy. Marias parents were married for a year when she was born. Maria was very strong-willed and confident. She was a very good student, always doing well on exams. When playing games Maria would always become the leader and take charge of what was going on around her. When Maria was thirteen she went to a technical school. She graduated in 1866 with very good grades and soon after was accepted into Regio Istituto Tecnico Leonardo da Vinci. She studied math, language and natural sciences. She did very well at this school too, and this sparked her interest to study medicine. Since at this time the idea that women

could pursue a career in medicine was absurd, her father was very disapproving. Her mother, though, supported her decisions no matter what. In 1890 she applied to the University of Rome, but was denied to the medicine program because she was a woman. Since she was so confident in herself she enrolled at the University to study physics, math, and natural sciences. She again did very well and after two years received her Diploma di licenza. She was eventually allowed to study medicine. When she presented her thesis in 1896, her sheer brilliance so impressed the all-male board of review that they awarded her a full medical degree, making her Italy's first woman doctor. (nndb.com). After she received her degree, she was chosen as a representative of Italy at two different womens conferences. One was in Berlin in 1896 and the other was in London in 1900. Maria was working at Santo Spirito as a medical assistant but then got promoted to surgical assistant. She joined the University staff in 1897 as a assistant instructor where she dated another doctor and got pregnant. She decided not to marry but had the child anyway, and she gave him to a foster family. Her new job entailed going to insane asylums working with mentally handicapped children. While doing this she became interested in psychology and human behavior. She accepted a professorship in anthropology at the University of Rome in 1904. She accepted but in 1906 gave the job up to work with sixty young children of working families (Webster). Maria thought that she could work with these children to find solutions for deafness, paralysis, and mental retardation. After working with them for awhile, Maria said I succeeded in teaching a number of the idiots from the asylums both to read and to write so well that I was able to present them at a public school for an examination together with normal children. And they passed the examination successfully (Morrison 111).

That same year a housing project opened in a slum area where she worked. She was given the task of looking after the children in this area, since their parents were not able to because they had to work. Maria was given a room to watch them in, so she put child-sized furniture and the same materials she used with mentally handicapped children in the room. While she was working here She observed children concentrating on graded wooden cylinders with such concentration that efforts to distract her were useless (daily Montessori). When they were done they seemed happy and content. She observed that they needed repetition and had a sense of order. She would always let them finish what they were working on and gave them freedom to choose what they played with and when they played. After a year of working with them, this room was named Casa dei Bambini, or Childrens House. This classroom is what Montessori classrooms look like today. She began to get followers and in Rome a society was started called Opera Montessori. In 1914 Maria came to America. She was welcomed by Thomas Edison and an American Montessori society was formed in Washington D.C. with Alexander Graham Bell as its president. She then went on to open the Association Montessori International in Amsterdam, the Montessori Training Center in the Netherlands, and the Montessori Center in London. After all of the great accomplishments she had made, Maria Montessori passed away in 1952 in the Netherlands. The children in a Montessori room should be in a prepared environment. Montessoris method gives children the freedom to choose their own materials to learn from. These materials should be displayed in an organized, orderly way. There should be enough material for each student to use what they want at all times. There should be child-sized wood furniture in each room. The room should be neutral in color, so as to not distract from learning experiences.

There are five things that all good Montessori classrooms should include. Respect for the child is one of those things. When you encourage children to do what they like they have higher self-esteem and more effective learning. The Absorbent Mind is the idea that children are born to learn through their environment. Montessori believed that children have sensitive periods, or critical periods, when they are more likely to learn. All children have sensitive periods for things like writing or math, but each child has a different timing. Teachers should be observing and notice when a child will be more sensitive to learning than others. The prepared environment has three separate areas of child involvement. There should be materials and activities to fulfill all three areas. Practical life is the first area, with basic life activities such as carrying trays and chairs, greeting visitors and learning to care for themselves. The practical life activities use four different types of exercise including care of the person (washing hands, polishing shoes), care of the environment (dusting, raking leaves), social relations (lessons in courtesy and grace), and analysis and control movement (walking and balancing). Sensory Materials is another one of the areas. Some of these materials include cylinder blocks, pink towers, brown stairs, cloth swatches, and red rods. They should develop senses and have these characteristics: control of error, isolation of a single quality, attractiveness and active involvement. The third is academic materials. The kids are taught to read and write in a way that they dont realize they are learning. They use things like sandpaper letters, command cards, and geometric forms with colored pencils to trace and color. The last of five ideas is auto education. The children can educate themselves with the help of other students and freedom to do what they want (Morrison 155). Montessori classrooms group children of different ages together so that the older children can help the younger children learn. The teachers guide the children to learning and then back up

to let them figure things out on their own. There should be many manipulative materials for the children to use. If done properly children that go to Montessori schools are very successful. I believe that Montessori schools are a great option and I chose to write about Maria because I feel that this relates to what I would like to do in the future. I believe that all children should learn the normal things like math, reading and writing, but I also think that learning life skills is something that should be taught to everyone, but yet a lot of schools dont teach this and Montessori does. Learning to help out and clean and do dishes is something that most kids actually like helping with at home so I think they should also do this at school. I eventually want to have my own preschool and learning more background into Montessori makes me think I would like to go that route. Montessori schools are everywhere yet a lot of people dont truly know what they offer. Through all the odds Maria Montessori stayed confident in herself to become the icon that she is today. Through her early work in insane asylums she learned that anyone can learn and become intelligent if they try, using materials that are interesting. Montessori schools provide a great environment for learning with the help of other students and while not every child may be successful there, I believe that most can be.

Works Cited Morrison, George S. Early Childhood Education Today. Pearson Education, Inc. 2012 http://www2.webster.edu/~woolflm/montessori2.html http://www.nndb.com/people/189/000108862/ http://www.dailymontessori.com/dr-maria-montessori/