Montessori history

backed by science, grounded in respect and love

Over a century after Montessori opened the first Casa dei Bambini, Montessori schools have more hype than ever - boasting graduates like the Google guys, Taylor Swift, and Beyonce. But still, when I talk to people about my work, I find that there are a lot of misconceptions about the history of Montessori education. Here’s some bullet points:

• Montessori education is named after a person, Maria Montessori

• Montessori education was NOT created for the upper class

• Montessori education was originally created for children with special needs, and in poverty

• Montessori schools work with kids from infancy to middle school, not just preschool

• The primary goal of Montessori education is Independence. That’s what it’s all about.

Let’s get into some details!

Maria Montessori was one of the first women to receive a medical degree in Italy in the late 1890’s. Because she was a woman in the 1890’s, this was no small feat. In medical school, her male peers though it was inappropriate for her to be present in the room with them and a naked cadaver, so she had to do her dissections after hours, alone. (I picture this happening by candlelight, but I’m not sure if this is historically accurate or just me imagining her as almost unbelievably cool.)

After frustrating all her peers by graduating, Montessori went into the psychiatric field, working at an asylum with children with special needs. (If you know what asylums looked like at the turn of the century, imagine that - but insert children with special needs. In the same asylum as the adults. That’s where she started developing the methods that produced Beyonce.) She built on the work of her predecessors, French doctors Itard and Séguin, to develop materials that helped the children develop their senses, coordination, and literacy - some of which are still used in Montessori classrooms today.

After working with the children in the asylum for some time, they sat for the turn-of-the-century Italian equivalent of standardized testing, amazing everyone by testing the same and better than Italian public school students.

Everyone was amazed. “You’re a miracle worker!” They said. “What the heck is wrong with our school system?*” Maria replied.

(*Not a direct quote)

Given her stunning success in the asylum, in 1907 Montessori was given the opportunity to work with another vulnerable group. These were preschool-aged children living in a slum, whose older siblings were in public school and whose parents worked long hours in factories. Here, she had another difficult population of kids, who had troublesome behavioral patterns like hiding under tables, screaming, and generally acting like snotty little hoodlums.

With the materials she’d developed in the asylum, and with the method that she continued to develop in this Casa - where she made scientific observations of children’s behavior to learn about their developmental needs and internal drives, then taught them the skills necessary to do things for themselves - here, again, Montessori saw miracles.

After a few months, the behavior of the children had completely changed. They were sweet, kind, and well-mannered. They knew how to clean their faces and button their jackets. Spontaneously, they started writing. Spontaneously, they started reading. Spontaneously, they started caring for their environment, and working together to solve problems. They learned to do complex activities independently; and in fact, they seemed to relish the chance to rise to challenges. With a classroom organized to meet their developmental needs, the shelves full of activities created for the same reason, and the free time to practice whatever they were driven to work on, the children were able to explore and grow in ways no one had ever seen before, creating a classroom community of capable children that caused a revolution in the world of education.

Soon, Montessori was able to share her method with other teachers through lectures, and she and they went on to open more schools across Italy and Switzerland. In the next decades, Montessori traveled to schools that opened throughout England, Germany, Spain, Argentina, and Austria. She also became a best-selling author, selling collections of her lecture notes as her first books. She visited the United States twice, touring some of the 100 schools that had already opened by 1915, and bringing her Glass Classroom to the World’s Fair in San Francisco. This means she set up a classroom without walls in the middle of the exhibition so that passersby could watch the children working.

Unfortunately, after initially supporting the Montessori method, the US public school system decided to follow another (factory-based) model, which is still in place to this day.

Montessori moved to Spain at the invitation of the government in 1916, and spent the next two decades traveling the world opening schools and training teachers. But she had to flee to Amsterdam in 1936 because of the Spanish coup, later embarking on a tour of India that was supposed to last 3 months, which actually lasted for the next 7 years.

Starting in the early 1930’s, Europe’s fascists were turning against the idea of raising children to be independent thinkers. After initially supporting Montessori for several years starting in 1924, Mussolini got upset in 1934 when she refused to force her teachers to swear an oath to fascism (seriously) and shut down all the Montessori schools in Italy in a single day. The same thing happened in Germany in 1933 (Hitler was also not a fan of freedom of thought).

Not one to waste time, Montessori opened schools in every country where she lived and worked, from Spain to the Netherlands to India. Eventually, in 1946, she was able to return to Europe after her 7 year exile, where she continued publishing, opening schools, lecturing, and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize three times before her death in 1952.

I love this true story not only because of the magic of Montessori’s discoveries in the classroom, but also because I’m impressed by her tireless work ethic. May we all do as much for our communities! I also think it’s important to know the history of this system of education, because it allows us to appreciate that it was created for children in the worst possible circumstances - in asylums, in slums, in uncertain political environments, in war times - not for an elite group of high-paying families. Montessori is for everyone. And because the first children she worked with suffered tremendous trauma and she was responding to the needs she observed in them, Montessori schooling is inherently trauma-informed. Simply by applying the Montessori method, we are able to provide care for children with the most difficult backgrounds, who might not be well-served by factory-style schools which expect uniform behavior, regardless of background.

Her method of teaching, and the materials she created continue to guide children’s learning in classrooms all over the world. Montessori education can start with children as young as infants and continue into the teenage years, and each level of schooling looks different according to the needs of the age group. But in every Montessori classroom you will see mixed ages, a variety of activities that are freely available, and as many opportunities for independence as the children can manage.

In other posts I’ll share more about the principles of Montessori teaching, what she discovered about children’s development at different ages, and what happens in a Montessori preschool classroom and why. For now, I’ll leave you with some of Montessori’s words on the importance of this style of education in our quest for peace around the globe:

“Everyone talks about peace but no one educates for peace. In this world, they educate for competition, and competition is the beginning of any war. When educating to cooperate and owe each other solidarity, that day we will be educating for peace.”