AIA

Maria Montessori

Maria Montessori (August 31, 1870 – May 6, 1952) was an Italian physician, educator,
philosopher, humanitarian and devout Catholic; she is best known for her philosophy and the
Montessori method of education of children from birth to adolescence. Her educational method is
in use today in a number of public as well as private schools throughout the world.

Aside from a new pedagogy, among the premier contributions to educational thought by
Montessori are:
-children as natural learners
- instruction of children in 3-year age groups, corresponding to sensitive periods of development
(example: Birth-3, 3-6, 6-12, 12-15 year olds with an Erdkinder (German for "Land Children")
program for early teens
- children as competent beings, encouraged to make maximal decisions
- observation of the child in the environment as the basis for ongoing curriculum development
(presentation of subsequent exercises for skill development and information accumulation)
small, child-sized furniture and creation of a small, child-sized environment (microcosm) in which
each can be competent to produce overall a self-running small children's world
- creation of a scale of sensitive periods of development, which provides a focus for class work
that is appropriate and uniquely stimulating and motivating to the child (including sensitive periods
for language development, sensorial experimentation and refinement, and various levels of social
interaction)
- the importance of the "absorbent mind," the limitless motivation of the young child to achieve
competence over his or her environment and to perfect his or her skills and understandings as they
occur within each sensitive period. The phenomenon is characterized by the young child's capacity
for repetition of activities within sensitive period categories (Example: exhaustive babbling as
language practice leading to language competence).
- self-correcting "auto-didactic" materials (some based on work of Jean Marc Gaspard Itard and
Edouard Seguin)