Dr. Maria Montessori was the first Italian women who earned a Doctorate degree in 1896. She is the founder of the Montessori Method of Education. During her college years she stood out from her class by winning a series of scholarship that she then used to pay her medical education expenses. After graduating, Dr. Montessori worked in a psychiatric clinic for unfortunate children. She observed that the children throws food on the floor and play with it. Because of her compassion and intelligence she created a solution to help the children. She discovered the studies of two French doctors Edouard Seguin and Jean Marc Gaspard Itard. These two doctors believed in the education of deviated children. Dr. Montessori shared the conviction that her career in medicine was not the answer, but rather education. She had revolutionized the notion of early childhood through the establishment of “Children’s House or Casa Dei Bambini” in 1907. She put materials and activities into the environment but kept only those materials that engaged them. The prepared environment gave her a notion that “the children’s ability for deep concentration was phenomenal”.
In her observations, she analyzes how children learn on their own and how they build themselves from what they see and find from their environment. She believed children should not be treated as receptors of knowledge from the teacher, instead should be leaders of their own learning. Her philosophy has been embraced in school around the world.
