Innovative educator and physician Maria Montessori advocated classrooms offering freedom of choice, self-motivation, and student autonomy. Her pioneering ideas abut education survive today, in countries all over the world. Photo credit: American Montessori Society

Almost everyone in the field of education has heard of Maria Montessori, the Italian educator and physician who spent a lifetime working towards developing innovative methods of child-centered instruction. Her prescription for education, which includes freedom of choice, self-motivation, and student autonomy, has proven surprisingly effective for many students of all ability levels.

Maria was born August 31, 1870, in the provincial Italian town of Chiaravalle. As a young woman, she broke gender barriers when she enrolled in medical school at the Sapienza University of Rome, where she graduated with honors in 1896. She became one of Italy’s first female doctors. In this role she developed a great interest in working with children who had developmental and physical challenges, and she devoted an entire career to helping them. Little did she know that long after she had left this earth, her strategies would still be used to help all children learn.

Maria opened her first school, which she named the Casa dei Bambini (Children’s House) in Rome on January 6, 1907. In the beginning, the children who attended were difficult to teach, but before long they showed increasing interest in working with puzzles, learning to prepare meals, and manipulating learning materials that Maria had personally designed. She observed how the children absorbed knowledge from their surroundings, essentially teaching themselves. From these observations, Maria developed her pioneering theories regarding educational pedagogy.

In the years that followed, Maria traveled the world and wrote extensively about her approach to education, attracting many followers. Today, there are thousands of Montessori schools in countries all over the globe. Her progressive instructional methods are reproduced in over 22,000 schools in 110 countries in schools that are known as Montessori schools.

Maria Montessori passed away May 6, 1952, in Noorwijk, the Netherlands. To read more about this amazing Chalkboard Champion, see this link at the American Montessori Society.