Maria Montessori

ARTICLE UNDER CONSTRUCTION
ARTICLE UNDER CONSTRUCTION
Dr. Maria Montessori was an Italian physician who developed ground-breaking methods for teaching children. Her acclaimed success beginning with the House of Children in Rome led to the rapid expansion of the Montessori Method throughout the world. For ten years she was a guest at the headquarters of the Theosophical Society based in Adyar, India, along with her son Mario. During that period she conducted courses for teachers all over South Asia, which has had a lasting impact on education there.

Life

Maria Montessori was born on August 31, 1870, in the provincial town of Chiaravalle, Italy. Her father was a financial manager for a state-run industry. With the support of her well-educated mother, Maria grew up with a love of learning. In 1883, when she was just thirteen, Maria was admitted to the Regia Scuola Tecnica Michelangelo Buonarroti. Few girls entered such technical schools, with more opting to study classics instead.

The technical system provided seven years of a modern curriculum. These schools offered a three-year course including French, arithmetic and bookkeeping, algebra and geometry, history, geography, and smattering of science. This was followed by the four-year course at the technical institute which offered modern languages - French, German, English - and mathematics, in addition to commercial subjects. Physics and chemistry were included but occupied a less important place in the curriculum.

After completing this technical education with high scores, Montessori considered becoming an engineer, but decided instead to study medicine, which no Italian woman had done before. She enrolled in the University of Rome in the fall of 1890, and studied mathematics and sciences, Latin and Italian. In the spring of 1892 she passed her examinations and received the "Diploma di licenza" that indicated she was qualified to study medicine. After many obstacles, and with her mother's support, she was permitted to begin the program consisting of six years of study and clinical work. Despite many obstacles, including her father's disapproval, she succeeded in becoming a physician in 1896.

Medical career

Casa dei Bambini in San Lorenzo, 1907

First House of Children

The first Casa dei Bambini (House of Children) was opened in Rome in 1907, after a group of bankers asked Dr. Montessori to find a way to occupy the children of poor families in a San Lorenzo tenement. During a chronic housing shortage in Rome, thousands of people crowded into abandoned buildings in the San Lorenzo district. Bankers attempting to renovate the buildings wanted to find a way to handle about 50 wild, uneducated children who were being left unsupervised while their parents worked.

One room was set aside for this purpose, resembling in every way a children's prison. It was hoped that a person would be found with enough social courage to tackle the problem.
I in my capacity of medical officer of hygiene was approached to take an interest in the work. Having considered the situation I demanded that at least the commonest aids in hygiene, food and sanitation be made available.

At the time it had become fashionable among society ladies to interest themselves in social uplift. They were approached to do something to collect funds, because we were confronted with the strange problem that while the bankers had agreed to invest money to improve the housing situation, they were not at all interested in education. One could not expect any returns from money, put into anything with an educational purpose.

Although society had embraced the ideal of improving the condition of these unfortunate people, the children had been forgotten. There were no toys, no school, no teacher. There was nothing for them...

On the 6th of January 1907 this room was inaugurated to collect the 50 children...

When the children, ranging between the ages of 2 to 6 entered, they were dressed all alike in some thick, heavy, blue drill. They were frightened and being hindered by the stiff material, could move neither arms nor legs freely. Apart of their own community they had never seen any people. To get them to move together, they were made to hold hands. The first unwilling child was pulled, thus dragging along the whole line of the rest. All of them were crying miserably. The sympathy of the society ladies was aroused and they expressed the hope that in a few months they would improve...

Remember that all these children were completely illiterate. Their parents were also illiterate and they were born and grown in the environment, I have described.

What happened more than thirty years ago now will always remain a mystery to me. I have tried since then to understand what took place in those children. Certainly there was nothing of what is to be found now in any House of Children. There were only rough large tables.

I brought them some of the materials which had been used for our work in experimental psychology, the items which we use today as sensorial material and materials for the exercises of practical life. I merely wanted to study the children's reactions. I asked the woman in charge not to interfere with them in any way as otherwise I would not be able to observe them, Some one brought them paper and coloured pencils but in itself this was not the explanation of the further events. There was no one who loved them, I myself only visited them once a week and during the day the children had no communication with their parents.

The children were quiet, they had no interference either from the teacher or from the parents, but their environment contrasted vividly from that which they had been used to; compared to that of their previous life; it seemed fantastically beautiful. The walls were white, there was a green plot of grass outside, though no one had yet thought to plant flowers in it, but most beautiful of all was the fact that they had interesting occupations in which no one, no one at all, interfered. They were left alone and little by little the children began to work with concentration and the transformation they underwent, was noticeable. From timid and wild as they were before, the children became sociable and communicative. They showed a different relationship with each other, of which I have written in my books. Their personalities grew and, strange though it may seem, they showed extraordinary understanding, activity, vivacity and confidence. They were happy and joyous.

This fact was noticed after a while by the mothers who came to tell us about it. As the children had had no one to teach them or interfere with their actions, they acted spontaneously, their manners were natural.

But the most outstanding thing about these strange children of the St. Lawrence Quarter was their obvious gratitude. I was as much surprised by this as everyone else. When I entered the room all the children sprang to greet me and cried their welcome. Nobody had taught them any manner of good behaviour. And the strangest thing of all was that although nobody had cared for them physically, they flourished in health as if they had been secretly fed on some nourishing food, And so they had, but in their spirit. These children began to notice things in their homes, a spot of dirt on their mother's dress, untidiness in the room. They told their mothers not to hang the washing in the windows but to put flowers there instead. Their influence spread into the homes, so that after a while also these became transformed.

Six months after the inauguration of the House of Children, some of the mothers came to me and pleaded that as I had already done so much for their children, and they themselves could do nothing about it because they were illiterate, would I not teach their children to read and write?

At first I did not want to, being as prejudiced as every one else that the Children were far too young for it. But I gave them the alphabet in the way I have told you. As then it was something new for me also, I analysed the words for them and showed that each sound of the words had a symbol by which it could be materialised. It was then that the explosion into writing occurred.

Teaching method

These are features of her educational approach:

• Fantasy is postponed until the child is grounded in reality.
• Tasks and activities are reality oriented.
• Manipulative materials are designed to be aesthetically pleasing, and to support very specific educational goals.
• The intellect or "absorbent mind" is engaged early, and is challenged more over time.
• Children are free to choose their own activities in the classroom, and individual choices are respected.
• The atmosphere is calm and productive.
• Teacher is a facilitator of independent learning.
• Multi-age groups in classrooms simulate the reality of families.
• Socialization begins with respecting the independence and space of other children.
• Older children voluntarily assist each other in learning.
• Children are grounded in the realities of the formed world before delving into the spiritual realm.

Montessori class at National Hindu Girls' School, Madras, 1918

Involvement with Theosophists

Dr. Montessori "went to hear Annie Besant speak in London in 1907 after Montessori had established her first Casa dei Bambini (Children’s House). Annie Besant spoke in praise of Montessori’s work in education which pleased Montessori, and thus sealed their friendship." They "formed a friendly relationship that was renewed whenever Dr. Besant came to Rome in the years before World War I ." Theosophists paid attention to the Montessori educational system, and were writing articles about her methods in 1913. Society members established many schools in India and Sri Lanka, and experimented with various methods to find what would work best under local conditions. Examples are night schools and elementary classes taught by college students. National Hindu Girls’ School in Madras, had a Montessori class operating by 1918, as shown in the photograph at right. At that point the school was under the supervision of the Society for the Promotion of National Education.

Teaching in India, 1939-1949

Maria Montessori teaching her method at TS headquarters in Adyar

The international President of the Theosophical Society based in Adyar, India, Dr. George S. Arundale, and his wife, the famous Indian dancer Rukmini Devi Arundale, spent time in The Netherlands, visiting the International Theosophical Centre at Naarden. Both Arundales were intensely interested in children and in education. They met Dr. Montessori and invited her to come to Society headquarters in Adyar, Chennai (then called Madras) to conduct a teaching course. She flew to India in 1939 and was warmly received. About 300 teachers from all over India attended.

Due to her Italian citizenship, in the early days of World War II Dr. Montessori was interned by the British authorities, restricted by house arrest to the Adyar headquarters estate. She and her son Mario were released from detention, and conducted teachers' courses in Ahmedamad, Kodaikanal, Adyar, and Kashmir in India, and also in Ceylon. Adyar remained her base of operation until 1946. Then she traveled to England and Scotland, and to Italy, but returned to India late in 1947 to teach in Poona, Gwalior, and Adyar. "With Mrs. Arundale, she established a Montessori training center at Kalakshetra as a memorial to Dr. Arundale, who had died in 1945. In 1949, she also taught in Pakistan at the invitation of the new government. After that she re-established her base of operation in The Netherlands.

Writings

Theosophical publications

Both Dr. Montessori and her son Mario wrote articles for The Theosophist, the Society’s journal. For a list of articles by and about Dr. Montessori in Theosophical periodicals, see this list.

Additional resources - general

• Kramer, Rita. Maria Montessori: A Biography. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976.
• Standing, E. M. Maria Montessori: Her Life and Work. New York: Penguin Group, 1998. Originally published in 1957.

Additional resources - Montessori and Theosophical Society

• Jinarajadasa, C. "The Montessori Gospel of the Child." The Theosophist 67 (May, 1946), 91.
• Jinarajadasa, C. "The Montessori Method." Theosophy in Australasia' 22.2 (May, 1916), 43.
• Jinarajadasa, C. "The Montessori System." The Theosophist 62 (April, 1941), 35.
• Jinarajadasa, C. "The Montessori System." Theosophy in Australia2 (February, 1942), 5.
• Ransom, Josephine. "Schools of Tomorrow in England: The Montessori Ideal.' 'The Herald of the Star 7 (August, 1918), 439.
• Wylie, Winifred. "Montessori and the Theosophical Society." Quest 96.2 (March-April, 2008), 53-55. Available at Quest magazine.