Maria Montessori

    Maria Montessori is as controversial a figure in education today as she was a half century ago. Alternately heralded as the century's leading advocate for early childhood education, or dismissed as outdated and irrelevant, her research and the studies that she inspired helped change the course of education.

    Those who studied under her and went on to make their own contributions to education and child psychology include Anna Freud, Jean Piaget, Alfred Adler, and Erik Erikson. Many elements of modern education have been adapted from Montessori's theories. She is credited with the development of the open classroom, individualized education, manipulative learning materials, teaching toys, and programmed instruction. In the last thirty-five years educators in Europe and North America begun to recognize the consistency between of the Montessori approach with what we have learned from research into child development.

    Maria Montessori was an individual ahead of her time. She was born in 1870 in Ancona, Italy, to an educated but nonaffluent middle class family. She grew up in a country considered most conservative in its attitude toward women, yet even against the considerable opposition of her father and teachers, Montessori pursued a scientific education and was the first woman to become a physician in Italy.

    As a physician, Dr. Montessori specialized in pediatrics and psychiatry. She taught at the medical school of the University of Rome, and through its free clinics she came into frequent contact with the children of the working class and poor. These experiences convinced her that intelligence is not rare and that most new borns come into the world with a human potential that will be barely revealed.

    Her work reinforced her humanistic ideals, and she made time in her busy schedule to actively support various social reform movements. Early in her career she began to accept speaking engagements throughout Europe on behalf of the women's movement, peace efforts, and child labor law reform. Montessori become well known and highly regarded throughout Europe, which undoubtedly contributed to the publicity that surrounded her schools.

    In 1901 Montessori was appointed Director of the new orthophrenic school attached to the University of Rome, formerly used as the asylum for the "deficient and insane" children of the city, most of whom were probably retarded or autistic. She initiated a wave of reform in a system that formerly had served merely to confine mentally handicapped youngsters in empty rooms. Recognizing her patients' need for stimulation, purposeful activity, and self-esteem, Montessori insisted that the staff speak to the inmates with the highest respect. She set up a program to teach her young charges how to care for themselves and their environment.

    At the same time, she began a meticulous study of all research previously done on the education of the mentally handicapped. Her studies led Montessori to the work of two almost forgotten French physicians of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries: Jean Itard and Edouard Seguin. Itard is most famous for his work with the "Wild Boy Of Aveyron," a youth who had been found wandering naked in the forest, having spent 10 years living alone. The boy could not speak and lacked almost all of the skills of everyday life. Here apparently was a "natural man;" a human being who had developed without the benefit of culture and socialization with his own kind. Itard hoped from this study to shed some light on the age-old debate about what proportion of human intelligence and personality is hereditary and what proportion stems from learned behavior.

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