Maria Tecla Artemisia Montessori was born in Chiaravalle, Italy, and grew up in Rome.
At 16, after graduating from the Regia Scuola Tecnica Michelangelo Buonarroti, she enrolled in the technical institute Regio Istituto Tecnico Leonardo da Vinci intending to become a doctor.
Due to her gender, she got rejected from the medical program and studied natural sciences; with her diploma di licenza, she enrolled in medical school at the University of Rome. There, she suffered hostility from students and professors because of her gender. While in school, she specialized in pediatrics and psychiatry, worked at a pediatric consulting room and emergency service, and became an expert in pediatric medicine.
In 1896, 26 years old Montessori became the first woman in Italy to become a doctor of medicine. With her new degree, she began to work as an assistant at the University hospital and opened a private practice.
At the time, she developed an interest in the educational challenges of intellectually disabled children, visiting asylums to observe the children and their behavior. In 1898, she began publishing articles on the subject and giving lectures in which she urged the need to establish separate institutions for children with learning difficulties.
A year later, Montessori joined the National League for the Protection of Retarded Children and gave lectures on hygiene and anthropology in teachers’ seminars. The following year, she was appointed director of the State Orthophrenic School of Rome, which trained teachers in educating children with learning difficulties.
In 1907, Montessori opened the first Casa dei Bambini (Children’s House), a school for children aged three to six in the poor San Lorenzo district of Rome. There, she applied her educational theories to neurotypical children.
According to her teaching method, later called the Montessori system, children can independently learn from their environment, provided with designed learning materials and surroundings that foster their natural interest and desire to learn through stimulation and practical play. Teachers should offer and demonstrate didactic apparatus but essentially to remain in the background.
Her program was proven successful, and the Montessori Method began to draw the attention of educators and journalists. Within only a few years, the system was adopted in schools worldwide, from Paris and Stockholm to the US and New Zealand. Over the next three decades, she wrote, lectured, and established teacher-training programs according to the Montessori Method worldwide.
In 1922, at 52, Montessori was appointed government inspector of schools in Italy, serving in this position until 1934, when she left the country because of the Fascist regime. She traveled to Spain and lived in India for seven years before settling in the Netherlands, where she died at the age of 81.
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