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The Montessori Method
Maria Montessori, an Italian physician, began working with very young children in a run down neighborhood in Rome in 1907.
Many people believed that education for very young children outside of the home was unnecessary. Working from a storefront
in Rome, Dr. Montessori quickly noticed that the school aged children on their way home from school would often stop,
intrigued by the didactic materials they saw these very young children using. These materials, along with her
revolutionary ideas on child development, became the basis of the Montessori Method.
Maria Montessori believed that the role of a school and the teachers was to provide students with an environment in which
they would be able to work to their potential, developing according to their individual abilities. A teacher's job was to
direct each child towards the materials and curriculum that would lead them to success.
Dr. Montessori began her first teacher training program in Rome in 1913. Here future teachers learned that the teacher's
responsibility was to provide an environment wherein students would flourish. Teachers learned how to properly present
the didactic materials in order to develop the sensory, motor, and intellectual development of each child.
The proof that the method worked was in the obvious success of the students, and word of this new method of education
quickly spread. Dr. Montessori expanded her ideas to include primary and secondary aged students and today Montessori
schools can be found worldwide. Although there are various Montessori societies and associations, personally visiting
schools, speaking with the administration, and observing classrooms in action is the best way to assess the effectiveness
of each individual school since all are individually owned and operated. Observing in a good Montessori classroom,
watching students work toward their potential, working at their own level, under the direction of a trained, caring teacher
is the very best way to see Maria Montessori's vision of the child and their development come to life nearly a century later.
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