Montessori is one of the most significant and famous names of foreign pedagogy. Who was respected and accepted in the noble houses of Europe? Who helped thousands of children learn the basics of learning? Whose books are still diverging from store shelves? This is Maria Montessori. The biography of this outstanding scientist and the concept of her work are described below.
Montessori family
Maria comes from a noble aristocratic family of Montessori-Stoppani. Father, as a distinguished civil servant, was awarded the Order of the Crown of Italy. Mother grew up in a liberal family, in an atmosphere of gender equality. The best qualities of their parents took their daughter Maria Montessori. Biography (the family played an important role in her life) Mary is connected with the biography of her parents. She was born in 1870 in Milan's Chiaravalle Abbey. Father and mother sought to give the child a better education.
Uncle
From childhood, she talked with her relatives, scientists, read their work. Maria especially respected the writings of her uncle, writer and theologian, Antonio of the Stoppani clan.
He was a highly respected person in Italy (a monument was erected to him in Milan). His developments in the field of geology, paleontology are widespread and developed. There is evidence that some of Mary’s pedagogical ideas were borrowed from him. For example, the use of the theory of scientific positivism in pedagogy.
Education
The efforts of parents and relatives to educate and educate Mary bore fruit when she went to school. Maria Montessori, whose biography is interesting and informative, already at the first stages of schooling showed that classes are easy for her. Mathematics is her favorite subject. It is known that she solved arithmetic problems even in the theater. For the first time, Mary saw the socially secondary position of a woman at the age of 12, when she wanted to enter the gymnasium. Only boys were admitted to an institution of this level. However, the character that Maria Montessori had (biography emphasizes this more than once), the influence of her parents and, of course, her extraordinary intellectual abilities broke the system accepted in society. She was accepted. Here, at a technical school, Mary constantly had to prove her right to study among young men. This fact was one of the decisive in her desire to fight for the rights of women and those people with whom society is not considered.
Choice of profession
Passion for the natural sciences in the gymnasium and a desire to be useful to society affected the choice of profession that Maria Montessori made. A biography indicates that this choice was not easy. She decided to become an engineer, while her parents were inclined to pedagogical activity. In 1890, she was admitted to the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences of the University of Rome. However, she was fascinated by medicine. Maria began to attend medical courses and decided to become a doctor. This was another challenge to society. Girls were not taken to the medical faculty. But her perseverance and knowledge, the authority of the family allowed Maria to enter the University of Rome in 1892 and graduate from the medical faculty, becoming the first woman in the history of Italy to receive the profession of a doctor.
The beginning of pedagogical activity
Maria Montessori’s biography tells that since the last years of her education, Maria was an assistant in the hospital, and since 1896, after defending a dissertation on psychiatry, she began to practice in the clinic. Here she first met children with disabilities, after which she turned to the medical literature on the adaptation of this special category of children in society. The work of psychiatrist Eduard Seguin and deaf and dumb specialist Jean Marc Itar greatly influenced Montessori and her activities. She was convinced that such pedagogical work would be of great benefit to such children than medical preparations.
Maria began to study works on the theory of education, pedagogy, and theory of education. Since 1896, she worked with children with disabilities, whom she prepared for exams at the level of a primary school. After the outstanding results that her students showed, Maria became known to the general public. The government opened the Orthophrenic Institute, which was led by Maria Montessori. The biography briefly described above allows us to conclude that Mary had unique abilities, sensitivity and awareness of the importance of her work.
Methodology development
Since 1901, Montessori studied at the Faculty of Philosophy, while practicing in schools, where she conducted experiments and made observations. Maria saw the conditions in which children study in a comprehensive school: not adapted for teaching the audience, strict discipline, lack of desire for the comprehensive development of students. She was struck by how children with disabilities grow up: the complete absence of the educational process, and education was reduced to violence. Maria realized that it was time for society to become more humane and enlightened. And in 1907, Maria Montessori opened her first school - "Baby House". The biography and activities of subsequent years of life are aimed at developing and improving the methodology of developmental education.
Montessori held the first training seminar of international level, which was attended by several dozen teachers in 1909. The publication of her first book on methods of working with children in the "Children's Home" dates back to the same period. Maria constantly improved the methodology and regularly conducted training courses for teachers from all over the world. The effectiveness of Montessori's principles of work remains recognized in modern schools and development centers.
Maria Montessori: biography, children
Maria created her own family. Her heart was given to a doctor with whom she worked in a psychiatric clinic, working in parallel with special children. They had a boy in 1898, whom the young ones had given up to a single family. This happened because Montessori could not oppose anything to a society where the birth of children outside marriage was strongly condemned. Maria’s decision was influenced by the family of her companion - the noblest Montessano Aragon family in Italy and the vow of eternal cordial intimacy that Maria and Giuseppe gave each other.
Mario montessori
Mario, the son of Maria Montessori, whose biography is no less interesting, did not hold a grudge against his mother and at the age of 15 began to live with her. He also had an extraordinary mind, took his mother’s labors seriously, helped her, took on organizational aspects of her work. Contemporaries argue that Mary represented Mario in society as a relative, and only at the end of her life declared that he was her son. Together they did a lot for world education: they organized seminars and courses, spoke at conferences, were engaged in practical activities, and opened schools. Mario managed to become a worthy successor. At turning points, he was there. When the authorities in their homeland began to ignore and survive, their mother and son, Mario and Maria Montessori, were forced to migrate to India together. The biography (death took Maria in 82 years of life) tells that Mario continued the Montessori business after the mother passed away. Mario himself left the work begun by Maria Montessori to his daughter Renilde. She continued to distribute Montessori techniques around the world. It was she who managed to introduce this pedagogy in Russia in 1998.
Montessori Method
Helping your child do it himself is the main motto of the entire Montessori technique. It consists in the idea of not forcing him to act, not to impose his idea of the environment, not to touch the child if he is resting or watching.
An adult or teacher is an observer of the activities of the child. They guide him, patiently wait for the initiative coming from the child. The teacher carefully approaches the design of the environment in which the child will be: everything in it should be aimed at the development of sensoryism. An important factor in communicating with children, according to the Montessori method, is a respectful and polite attitude. Maria expressed her love for children and pedagogical activity in her books, some of which became aphorisms. Their essence is as follows: the child is taught by the environment, the people around him, their behavior, their relationship to each other and to the child. The manifestation of the best human qualities when communicating with a child is the seed by sowing which you collect valuable fruits in the future.
Some aspects of Montessori's pedagogy are criticized. This lack of creativity, refusal of role-playing lessons, limitation of physical activity and more. However, Maria Montessori, whose biography was associated with children, created such a technique, valuable elements of which are used in many development centers and kindergartens.