Montessori is one of the most significant and famousnames 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 at variance with store shelves? This is Maria Montessori. The biography of this outstanding scientist and the concept of her work are outlined below.
Mary comes from a noble aristocratic familyMontessori-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 were taken by 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 the Milan abbey of Chiaravalle. Father and mother sought to give the child a better education.
Since childhood she has been communicating with her relatives-scientists, reading their works. Especially Maria respected the works of her uncle, writer and theologian, Antonio of the genus Stoppani.
The efforts of parents and relatives in educationand the training of Mary was fruitful when she went to school. Maria Montessori, whose biography is interesting and informative, already at the first stages of schooling showed that classes are given to her easily. Mathematics is her favorite subject. It is known that she solved arithmetic problems even in the theater. For the first time the social secondary position of the woman Maria saw at the age of 12, when she wanted to go to the gymnasium. Only boys were accepted into an institution of this level. However, the character that Maria Montessori had (the biography stresses this more than once), the influence of her parents and, of course, the extraordinary intellectual abilities have broken the system adopted in society. It was accepted. Here, in the technical school, Mary constantly had to prove her right to study among the young men. This fact has become one of the decisive in her striving to fight for the rights of women and those with whom society is not considered.
The fascination with the natural sciences in the gymnasium andthe desire to be useful to society affected the choice of profession that Maria Montessori did. Biography shows that this choice was not easy. She decided to become an engineer, while her parents tended 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. The medical faculty did not take girls. But her perseverance and knowledge, the authority of the family allowed Mary to enroll in 1892 in the University of Rome and graduate from the medical faculty, becoming the first woman in the history of Italy, who received the profession of a doctor.
Biography of Maria Montessori tells thatsince the last years of training, Maria has been an assistant in the hospital, and since 1896, after defending her dissertation in psychiatry, she began to practice in the clinic. Here she first met children with disabilities, and then turned to the medical literature on the adaptation of this particular category of children in society. The work of psychiatrist Eduard Segan and a specialist in working with deaf-mute people Jean Marc Itar strongly influenced Montessori and its activities. She was convinced that such pediatricians would benefit greatly from proper pedagogical work than medical products.
Maria began to study works on the theory of education,pedagogy, theory of education. Since 1896, she worked with children with disabilities who were preparing for exams at the level of a junior secondary school. After the outstanding results that her students showed, Mary became known to the general public. The government opened the Orthophrenic Institute, which was headed by Maria Montessori. The biography, briefly described above, allows to draw a conclusion that Mary possessed unique abilities, sensitivity and awareness of the importance of her work.
Since 1901, Montessori studied philosophicalfaculty, while practicing in schools in parallel, where she led experiments and made observations. Maria saw the conditions under which children in the general education school are trained: those who are not adapted for the training of the audience, strict discipline, lack of desire for comprehensive development of students. She was amazed at how children with disabilities are growing: the complete lack of an 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, her first school - "The Child's Home" - was opened by Maria Montessori. Biography and the activities of subsequent years of life are aimed at developing and improving the methodology of developmental learning.
The first international training seminar,which visited several dozen teachers, Montessori held in 1909. The same period includes the publication of her first book on methods of working with children in the "House of the Child." Maria constantly perfected the methodology and regularly conducted training courses for teachers from all over the world. The effectiveness of the principles of Montessori's work remains recognized in modern schools and development centers.
Maria created her own family.Her heart was given to the doctor with whom she worked in a psychiatric clinic, working in parallel with special children. They had a boy born in 1898, whom the young were given up to be raised in a simple family. This happened because Montessori could not oppose anything to a society where the birth of children out of wedlock was sharply condemned. Maria's decision was influenced by her companion's family - the noblest genus in Italy of Montessano-Aragon and the oath of eternal intimacy, which Maria and Giuseppe gave each other.
Mario, the son of Maria Montessori, whose biographyno less interesting, did not hold a grudge against his mother and at the age of 15 began to live with her. He also possessed an extraordinary mind, took seriously the work of his mother, helped her, took on the organizational aspects of her work. Contemporaries say that Maria represented Mario in society as a relative, and only at the end of her life declared that he was her son. Together they have done a lot for world education: they organized seminars and courses, spoke at conferences, practiced, opened schools. Mario managed to become a worthy successor. At critical moments he was near. When the authorities began to ignore and survive in their homeland, the mother and son, Mario and Maria Montessori, were forced to migrate to India together. Biography (death took Maria in 82 years of life) tells us that Mario continued the Montessori case after the mother left her life. Mario himself left the business of his daughter Renilde, started by Maria Montessori. She continued to spread the Montessori method throughout the world. It was she who managed to introduce this pedagogy in Russia in 1998.
Helping a child make himself is the main mottothe whole Montessori technique. It consists in the idea not to force him to act, not to impose his idea of the environment, not to touch the child, if he rests or observes.
Some moments of Montessori pedagogyare criticized. This lack of creativity, the rejection of plot-role-playing, the restriction 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.
