Born in Chiaravalle, Italy, in 1870, Maria Montessori exhibited a strong personality throughout her childhood. At a young age, she aspired to become an engineer and attended an all-boys technical school, despite her father’s disapproval. She then attended the University of Rome, where she studied medicine. Obviously ahead of her time, she was the first woman to graduate from the Sapienza University of Rome Faculty of Medicine and in 1896 she became the first woman doctor in Italy.
As a member of the Psychiatric Clinic of the University of Rome, Montessori went on to work in the fields of psychiatry, education, and anthropology. He developed an interest in the treatment and education of children with special needs and mental challenges. She was appointed by the Italian Minister of Education to head the Scuola Ortofrenica, an institution dedicated to children labeled as mentally retarded. As she tested her own educational theories, the children in her care improved remarkably in the areas of reading and writing, even exceeding normal achievement scores.
Montessori was soon asked to run a school in a low-income housing project in Rome. Opened in January 1907, the now-famous Casa dei Bambini, or Children’s House, became a revolutionary experiment in Maria’s career. Maria focused on creating an environment in which children could learn and develop their skills at their own pace, a principle Montessori called “spontaneous self-development.” The role of the teacher in the classroom changed dramatically to discover the potential of each individual child and follow the example of the child in the learning process. News of children’s ability to absorb knowledge and focus on learning soon spread around the world, and the Casa dei Bambini became the foundation for what is now known as the Montessori Method.
The impressive results of the natural learning method founded by Montessori soon brought fame and invitations to travel. Dr. Montessori first visited the United States in 1913. She had strong followers in America, including Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison, and Helen Keller. In 1915, she spoke at Carnegie Hall and later she was invited to the Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco, where she set up a glass-walled classroom for four months. She invited viewers to observe the 21 children in the classroom, all of whom were new to the Montessori method. The exhibit won two gold medals for education and the world’s attention was now focused on Montessori’s visionary method of developing a child’s innate potential.
Dr. Montessori began teaching teacher training courses and speaking with internationally renowned educational organizations. Societies were formed to promote her methods. She was invited to open a research institute in Spain in 1917. In 1919, she began to give training courses in London. Although she remained highly respected in Italy, she was forced to leave in 1934 due to her opposition to the fascism of the Mussolini regime. After initially traveling to Spain, she subsequently lived in the Netherlands and went on to make her home in India in 1939, at the invitation of the Indian Theosophical Society. Although she was detained in India due to the war, Montessori developed a series of training courses and created a solid foundation for the Montessori method in India. Her son Mario, born in 1898, helped her develop and teach these classes in India.
In her later years, Dr. Montessori undertook training courses in Pakistan, London, and the Netherlands. Montessori traveled the world for more than 40 years, establishing training courses, lecturing, writing, and promoting her principled method of learning.
She was nominated three times for the Nobel Peace Prize. She moved once more to the Netherlands in 1949 and lived there for the rest of her years, dying in Noordwijk aan Zee in 1952.
Dr. Montessori leaves behind not only an outstanding body of work investigating and observing children and their abilities to grow and learn, but also a system of education that promotes the freedom of the child to become more focused, creative, and imaginative as that develops intellectually. and emotionally. Her lifelong work studying child development and education remains well known internationally, numerous organizations promote her methods, and Montessori schools are prevalent both in the United States and in many other countries.
On January 6, 2007, the ascended teacher Maria Montessori spoke through David C. Lewis to spiritual seekers about the education of children of the seventh root race:
As I contemplated all that I was inspired to discern how the inner truths of the soul can manifest in a very orderly pattern through materials and through an environment that allowed for the inner genius and creativity of the man-child-in– becoming/the girl-woman-in-unfolding [to blossom, I saw the] miracle whereby through the naturally guided instruction presented to that child, the very Christic patterns of [that one’s] own soul could harmonize with what [her] own Higher Self would give birth. Therefore, blessed ones, it is not so much a teaching or an imparting of wisdom as a natural development of that innate wisdom from within him to whom the master is a servant.
Each one of you can take the same principles that I had the privilege to summarize in what has been called the Montessori method and apply them in other areas of your life: in business, in commerce and even in the organization of your Heart Centers. and the establishment of your communities. For these principles are universal in nature and when fully accepted and understood they will allow that flowery gift of virtue and the buddhic path to emanate through all you do, all you perceive, blessed ones.
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