Maria Montessori, creator of the method that bears her name, saw children with different eyes and began to perceive them not as mini adults, but as integral individuals from birth, and therefore as subjects and objects of teaching at the same time.
Based on the student's individuality and freedom, the educator's theory provoked a true educational revolution. Among the main changes in relation to traditional education, the teacher is no longer the protagonist of the classroom and assumes the role of acting as an assistant in the learning process.
see more
Discover the biography of Magda Soares and her main works
Who was Emmi Pikler? Discover its history and methodology
Created by the Italian physician, pedagogue and educator, Maria Montessori, this method is a set of practices, theories and teaching materials. According to her, these previously mentioned items are not the most important points of the method, but how their use can give children the possibility of releasing their true nature, so that education develops based on them, and not on the basis of contrary.
The method also defends self-education, since, according to it, we are all born with the ability to teach ourselves, if we are given the ideal conditions for that.
That is, education is seen as an achievement of the child, while the teacher is seen as responsible for accompany this process and detect the particularities of each one's potential, never imposing what will be learned.
Another important point is that at each time the child presents different needs and behaviors, which she calls “development plans”. Thus, taking into account the individual questions of each one, through the method it is possible to outline general behavioral profiles and provide specific learning opportunities for each age group age.
The understanding of these specificities is extremely important, since they allow us to know the more adequate resources for each of the phases, always taking into account the individualities of the children.
The Montessori Method has six fundamental pillars. Are they:
According to Montessori, her method efficiency is precisely in not going against human nature, on the contrary. According to her, when they are born, children are not incomplete, therefore, there is no need for the center of the classroom to be the teacher.
In schools that use the method, the space is completely prepared for children to move freely around the classroom, which provides greater development of independence and personal initiative. Montessori education can be applied from kindergarten to high school.
Motor and sensory activities are essential during learning. Thinking about it, Maria Montessori created a series of didactic materials capable of working in these areas, mainly with regard to the direct experience of search and discovery.
Instead of the marked places of traditional schools, children are scattered around the environment, alone or in small groups, always focused on their activities. Teachers, instead of standing in front of the class, circulate among the students to help them.
There is also no break time, as there is no distinction between didactic activities and leisure. Also, there are no traditional textbooks. Instead of this practice, children are encouraged to do research and present it to their peers.
In 2015, when the British royal family announced that Prince George, son of Prince William and Kate Middleton, would be educated in a Montessori school, several discussions about the method were put in guidelines.
But in addition to the prince, a number of notable people and some of the brightest minds of recent times have passed through schools like these. This is the case of the founders of Google, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the founder of Amazon, Jeffrey Bezos, the Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, the singer Beyoncé and the writer and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
Born on August 31, 1870, in the city of Chiaravalle, northern Italy, Maria Montessori was interested in biology from an early age. This was one of the reasons that made her face her father and the prejudice of the whole society to be one of the first women to study medicine in her country.
She went to the University of Rome, where she faced a lot of resistance from many colleagues, all of whom were men. She sometimes had to do her tasks alone, as she couldn't do them with them.
She graduated in July 1896, once again faced a series of prejudices in deciding to pursue her profession. She showed some interest in Psychiatry, and then dedicated her activities to this area.
She began to take an interest in children, especially those with mental problems, as she visited nursing homes and saw how questionable and inhumane their treatment was. As a result, she began to study the condition of these children based on the work of Édouard Séguin.
Within a short time, at the National Medical Congress, held in the city of Turin, Montessori defended the thesis that absence of adequate materials and stimuli was the main cause of delay in the learning of children with special needs. specials.
She graduated in Pedagogy, and later became involved with the League for the Education of Children with Retardo, where she met the doctor Giuseppe Montesano. Together with him, she became co-director of the Orthophrenic School.
There, despite most of the work being devoted to teacher training, there were some children removed from asylums, who were treated at the same time as students and research objects.
At that time, she adapted some of Séguin's materials and created many others, which later became a fundamental part of her method. She noted that the use of these by children caused their sensory part to be awakened, ensuring excellent results.
At the Escola Ortophrênica, she deepened her studies on Anthropology and Pedagogy. In 1904, who was already dedicated exclusively to Education, she started teaching at the School of Pedagogy at the University of Rome, where she stayed until 1908.
It was at that time, more precisely in 1907, that an opportunity arose that enabled her to work with children who did not have special needs. At that time, a contractor, in partnership with the government of Rome, was building a housing complex in a popular neighborhood called San Lorenzo.
In this place, Maria Montessori was responsible for developing the educational project of the place where the children of the group stayed. The "Casa dei Bambini" (in literal translation, Children's Home), ended up becoming the stage of the biggest educational revolution in the world.
The place was completely adapted to receive these children and using the materials developed by the educator they presented an excellent development, in addition to being calm, calm, concentrated and happy.
At the request of the parents of some of the children who did not yet know how to write, she began teaching them to read and write using her method. The children adapted so well that from one hour to the next they discovered that they could write and went around the set writing on the floor and walls.
In 1909 she wrote “Scientific Pedagogy”, which was consecrated with the title “Montessori Method”. After that, she taught in the United States, Spain and England. The success of her method was such that in 1922 the government appointed her Inspector General of Schools in Italy.
A few years later, with Mussolini's rise to power, many Montessorian schools were closed and the educator decided to leave Italy. Until 1946, when she returned, she visited Spain, Holland and India. In the latter country, she taught for seven years.
The year after his return, at the age of 76, he gave a speech to UNESCO on “Education and Peace”. Two years later she received the first of three nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize. Maria Montessori died on May 6, 1952 in Noordwijk, Netherlands.
