• The History of Montessori
    Dr. Maria Montessori, the creator of what is called "The Montessori Method of Education," based her approach on her scientific observations of young children's behavior. As the first woman physician to graduate from the University of Rome, Montessori became involved with education as a doctor treating children labeled as mentally handicapped. Then, in 1907, she was invited to open a child care center for the children of desperately poor families in the San Lorenzo slums of Rome.

    She called this center a "Children's House" and based the program on her observations that young children learn best in a homelike setting, filled with developmentally appropriate materials that provide experiences contributing to the growth of self-motivated, independent learners. Her methods were so highly successful that by 1912 news of the Montessori Method had reached the United States.

     

    The Main Premises of Montessori Education are:

    • Children are to be respected as different from adults and as individuals who differ from each other.

    • The child possesses an unusual sensitivity and intellectual ability to absorb and learn from his environment that is unlike those of the adult both in quality and capacity.

    • The most important years of a child's growth are the first six years of life when unconscious learning is gradually brought to the conscious level.

    The child has a deep love and need for purposeful work. He works, however, not as an adult for completion of a job, but for the sake of an activity itself. It is this activity which enables him to accomplish his most important goal: the development of himself, his mental, physical, and psychological powers.