Maria Montessori Her Life and Work Essay Example

only professions available to young woman in the male dominated society in which Maria Montessori lived.

There was still the small matter of her being a woman that was standing in her way  but Maria persisted until she was accepted into the school. In the biography by Kramer it is mentioned that Pope Leo XIII helped her somehow. ?Montessori stood out not just because of her gender, but because she was actually intent on mastering the subject matter.She won a series of scholarships at medical school which, together with the money she earned through private tuition, enabled her to pay for most of her medical education. ?Her time at medical school was not easy. She faced prejudice from her male colleagues and had to work alone on dissections since these were not allowed to be done in mixed classes.

It was later in that year she was asked to represent Italy at the International Congress for Women’s Rights and in her speech to the Congress she developed a thesis for social reform, arguing that women should be entitled to equal wages with men. A reporter covering the event asked her how her patients responded to a female doctor. She replied “they know intuitively when someone really cares about them… It is only the upper classes that have a prejudice against ? Women leading a useful existence. ” In November 1896 Montessori added the appointment as surgical assistant at Santo Spirito Hospital in Rome to her portfolio of tasks.Much of her work there was with the poor, and particularly with their children.

Itard developed a technique of education through the senses which Seguin later tried to adapt to mainstream

education. Highly critical of the regimented schooling of the time, Seguin emphasised respect and understanding for each individual child. He created practical apparatus and equipment to help develop the child’s sensory perceptions and motor skills, which Montessori was to later develop in new ways.During the 1897-98 University terms she sought to expand her knowledge of education by attending courses in pedagogy, studying the works of Rousseau, Pestallozzi and Froebel. Some sixty years earlier, Froebel had established a school for very young children which placed an emphasis on play in early learning. In these ‘Kindergartens’ Froebel devised a series of toys or apparatus which he called ‘gifts’.

Within a year the Italian speaking part of Switzerland began switching its kindergartens to the Montessori approach and the spread of the new educational approach began. The school was for children between the ages of three and six, each of these children came from extremely poor families, and most of the parents were illiterate. The children themselves were “rough and shy in manner” they were very tearful and frightened, their faces expressionless and their bewilderment in their eyes was as though they had never seen anything in their lives. ?These children were referred to as “idiots” and uneducable Maria Montessori was quoted in saying: - "It was January 6th (1907), when the first school was opened for small, normal children of between three and six years of age.I cannot say on my methods, for these did not yet exist. But in the school that was opened my method was shortly to come into being.

On that day there was nothing to be seen but about fifty wretchedly poor children, rough and

shy in manner, many of them crying, almost all the children of illiterate parents, who had been entrusted to my care""They were tearful, frightened children, so shy that it was impossible to get them to speak; their faces were expressionless, with bewildered eyes as though they had never seen anything in their lives.

" It would be interesting to know the original circumstances that enabled these children to undergo such an extraordinary transformation, or rather, that brought about the appearance of new children, whose souls revealed themselves with such radiance as to spread a light through the whole world. " By 1909, all of Italian Switzerland began using Montessori's methods in their orphan asylums and children's homes.

They men made fun of her and threatened her. The only way she could do what she wanted to was to block them out completely and I think this was one of the reasons Maria never married. I think it was also due to Dr Montesano’s dishonesty  that destroyed her faith in men; Dr Maria Montessori was a woman with great integrity and high moral standing. I also believe that she was totally emerged in her work and perhaps did not want the distraction, she was totally devoted to her work, and this is clearly evident in her writings.

Giuseppe Montesano. One thing led to another, and they had an affair. Maria Montessori’s mother was devastated and knew that a scandal could destroy her daughter's career. It was not the done thing in the day to have a child out of wedlock and therefore everything was kept quiet. She gave birth to a son, Mario Montessori.

Mario was sent to a wet

nurse and then lived with family in the country near Rome. ?There are many different takes on this part of Maria Montessori’s life one group said that Dr Maria Montessori and Dr Giuseppe Montesano agreed not to marry, they would also keep their relationship a secret and by doing so they would not reveal that he was Mario Montessori’s Father. They agreed that neither of them would ever marry another person, it was not long after this that Dr Montesano fell in love and married some-one else, Montessori and Montesano still worked together on a daily basis in constant contact and it was this betrayal of trust that prompted her to leave the Orthophrenic School ? Biographer Kramer speculated that Maria Montessori’s pregnancy as well as the break up with Dr. Montesano must have occurred in 1901 as this is when Maria Montessori suddenly resigned from the Orthophrenic School, and for about a year M.

In 1922, Benito Mussolini took over the government of Italy. Mussolini being a politician wanted Maria on his side. So, initially he encouraged and fully supported the Montessori movement in Italy. The government of Italy funded the Montessori schools and also helped Maria establish a training centre for teachers.

Mussolini was nurturing colonial ambitions and in 1934 he was planning an attack on the African state of Abyssinia. To carry out his designs he needed the people of Italy, especially the youth, to be war-minded. To achieve this he set up a Fascist youth organisation whose members wore uniform at all times and gave the Fascist salute. ?Mussolini insisted that all children should enrol into this organisation. This meant even children from

the Montessori schools should join. Maria disagreed with this and would not compromise her principles and her beliefs to comply with his wishes.

With this Mussolini ordered the immediate closure of all Montessori schools, and with this Maria was exiled from Italy. She moved to Spain and lived there until 1936. This again was a mistake. A civil war broke out in Spain. General Franco another fascist took over the government of Spain.

She was rescued by a British cruiser. Maria opted to stay in the Netherlands for sometime. In 1938, she opened the Montessori Training Centre in Laren in the Netherlands.She continued with her work in the country till 1939.

She returned to Europe for a brief period. In 1947, she founded the Montessori Centre in London. In 1949 Maria Montessori travelled to Pakistan and also toured Europe in the same year. In 1951 Maria toured Austria.