Maria Montessori (redirected from Dr. Maria Montessori)

Montessori, Maria 

Born Aug. 31, 1870, in Chiaravalle near Ancona; died May 6, 1952, in Noordwijk aan Zee, the Netherlands. Italian educator.

Montessori graduated in 1896 from the University of Rome, where she was one of the first women to receive a doctor of medicine degree. As an assistant in the university’s psychiatric clinic, she worked with mentally retarded children. She was a professor of anthropology and hygiene at the Higher Women’s School (1900–08) and a lecturer in pedagogical anthropology at the University of Rome (1904–08).

Montessori sharply criticized the traditional school of pedagogy for its drill method of teaching and for ignoring the child’s natural curiosity. Elementary school, in her opinion, should be a laboratory for the study of child psychology. She developed an original system for the sensory development of children in specialized preschool institutions (the “children’s houses “opened by her and by her disciples) and in elementary schools. In theory and in practice she adhered to the idea of freedom for the child in its upbringing.

When the fascist regime was established in Italy, Montessori left the country. She founded schools offering her method of instruction in the USA, France, Great Britain, Denmark, the Netherlands, India, and other countries. She also organized international congresses and protested against war. After World War II she returned to Italy.

WORKS

In Russian translation:
Rukovodstvo k moemu metodu. Moscow, 1961.
Metod nauchnoipedagogiki, primeniaemyi k detskomu vospitaniiu v “domakh rebenka, “4th ed. Moscow, 1920.
Samovospitanie i samoobuchenie v nachal’noi shkole. Moscow, 1922.

A. I. PISKUNOV