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On January 6, 1907, Maria Montessori opened her first school in a low income housing project in Rome. In her own words, “In the school that was opened, my method was shortly to come into being. On that day there was nothing to be seen but about fifty wretchedly poor children, rough and shy in manner, many of them crying, almost all the children of illiterate parents, who had been entrusted to my care.” The results of Maria Montessori’s education experiment made her an international celebrity and her school was visited by world leaders including the queen of Holland and Alexander Graham Bell. Montessori’s method of education enabled an extraordinary transformation, or as she wrote, “brought about the appearance of new children, whose souls revealed themselves with such radiance as to spread a light through the whole world.”
The initial international enthusiasm in response to her early results was interrupted by international politics including two world wars. Because of wartime politics, Maria Montessori was forced to leave Italy and shifted to Spain, to India and finally to Holland. The politics of academia also threatened the spread of Montessori education as the method was scrutinized and critiqued by the education establishment of the day.
Maria Montessori continued her work and expanded her initial program designed for preschool children (ages 3 to 6), adding the infant-toddler program (0-3) and elementary education (6-12). She wrote her vision for the adolescent program (12-18) although she did not live to see it realized. Maria Montessori died in 1952. In the late 1950’s, the Montessori movement was re-launched in the United States and has continued to grow and thrive. Today there are over 5,000 Montessori schools in the U.S. and 8,000 worldwide.
Research and technology have finally caught up with Montessori. In her time, critics found her ideas “unscientific”. Today, recent brain research as well as trends in research-based education confirm Montessori’s theories regarding ways the brain processes information and learns, the methods that best support learning, and the environments that are most conducive to learning.
The results that Montessori obtained at her first school one hundred years ago have been reproduced again and again as her method has been practiced in schools on every continent. Regardless of ethnicity, nationality, social status or even century, children have responded to Montessori education and have continued to reveal their potential to all those who, like Maria Montessori, have sought to discover the “secrets of childhood”.
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