Maria Tecla Artemisia Montessori ( MON-tiss-OR-ee; Italian: [maˈriːa montesˈsɔːri]; 31 August 1870 – 6 May 1952) was an Italian physician and educator best known for her philosophy of education (the Montessori method) and her writing on scientific pedagogy. At an early age, Montessori enrolled in classes at an all-boys technical school, with hopes of becoming an engineer. She soon had a change of heart and began medical school at the Sapienza University of Rome, becoming one of the first women to attend medical school in Italy; she graduated with honors in 1896. Her educational method is in use globally in many public and private schools.
Montessori was born on 31 August 1870 in Chiaravalle, in the province of Ancona, Italy. Her father, Alessandro Montessori, age 33, was an official of the Ministry of Finance working in the local state-run tobacco factory. Her mother, Renilde Stoppani, 25 years old, was well-educated for the times and was the niece of Italian geologist and paleontologist Antonio Stoppani. While she did not have any particular mentor, she was very close to her mother who readily encouraged her. She also had a loving relationship with her father, although he disagreed with her choice to continue her education.
Because of her father's work, the family frequently moved during Montessori's childhood. The Montessori family moved to Florence in 1873, then to Rome in 1875. Montessori entered a public elementary school at the age of 6 in 1876. Her early school record was "not particularly noteworthy", although she was awarded certificates for good behavior in the first grade and for lavori donneschi, or "women's work", the next year. When a teacher asked her class to present the lives of famous women the children wanted to imitate, young Montessori reportedly said, "I shall never be that. I care too much for the children of the future to add yet another biography to the list".
In 1883, or 1884, at the age of 13, Montessori entered a secondary, technical school, Regia Scuola Tecnica Michelangelo Buonarroti, where she studied Italian, arithmetic, algebra, geometry, accounting, history, geography, and sciences. She graduated in 1886 with good grades and examination results. That year, at the age of 16, she continued at the technical institute Regio Istituto Tecnico Leonardo da Vinci, studying Italian, mathematics, history, geography, geometric and ornate drawing, physics, chemistry, botany, zoology, and two foreign languages. She did well in the sciences and especially in mathematics. Initially, she intended to pursue the study of engineering upon graduation, an unusual aspiration for a woman at the time. By the time she graduated in 1890 at the age of 20, with a certificate in physics–mathematics, she had decided to study medicine, a more unlikely pursuit given cultural norms at the time.
University of Rome—Medical school
Montessori moved forward with her intention to study medicine. She appealed to Guido Baccelli, the professor of clinical medicine at the University of Rome but was strongly discouraged. In 1890, she enrolled in the University of Rome in a degree course in natural sciences, passing examinations in botany, zoology, experimental physics, histology, anatomy, and general and organic chemistry, and earning her diploma di licenza in 1892. This degree, along with additional studies in Italian and Latin, qualified her for entrance into the medical program at the university in 1893.
She was met with hostility and harassment from some medical students and professors because of her gender. Her father also disapproved and wanted her to become a teacher, which was considered the only professional career appropriate to women at the time. Because her attendance of classes with men in the presence of a naked body was deemed inappropriate, she was required to perform her dissections of cadavers alone, after hours. She resorted to smoking tobacco to mask the offensive odor of formaldehyde. Montessori won an academic prize in her first year, and in 1895 secured a position as a hospital assistant, gaining early clinical experience. In her last two years, she studied pediatrics and psychiatry, and worked in the pediatric consulting room and emergency service, becoming an expert in pediatric medicine. Montessori graduated from the University of Rome in 1896 as a doctor of medicine. Her thesis was published in 1897 in the journal Policlinico. She found employment as an assistant at the university hospital and started a private practice.
1896–1901: Early career and family
From 1896 to 1901, Montessori worked with and researched "phrenasthenic children"—in modern terms, children experiencing some form of cognitive delay, illness, or disability. She also began to travel, study, speak, and publish nationally and internationally, coming to prominence as an advocate for women's rights and education for children with learning difficulties.
On 31 March 1898, she gave birth to her only child, a son named Mario Montessori (31 March 1898 – 1982). Mario was born out of her love affair with Giuseppe Montesano, a fellow doctor who was co-director with her of the Orthophrenic School of Rome. If Montessori married, she would be expected to cease working professionally. Instead of marriage, Montessori decided to continue her work and studies. Montesano's family also opposed the relationship due to class differences and insisted that the child's birth be kept secret. Montessori agreed under the condition that neither of them would marry anyone else. The name in the child's birth registration was Mario Pipilli, born of unknown parents. When the father of her child was pressured by family to make a more advantageous social connection and subsequently married, Montessori was left feeling betrayed and decided to leave the university hospital. She was forced to place her son in the care of a wet nurse living in the countryside, distraught to miss the first few years of his life. She would later be reunited with her son in his teenage years, where he proved to be a great assistant in her research.
Work with children with learning difficulties
After graduating from the University of Rome in 1896, she went into private practice and was accepted as a surgical assistant in the university. Montessori also continued with her research at the university's psychiatric clinic. In 1897, as part of her work, she visited asylums in Rome where she observed children with mental disabilities, observations that were fundamental to her future educational work. She also read and studied the works of 19th-century physicians and educators Jean Marc Gaspard Itard and Édouard Séguin, who greatly influenced her work. Montessori was intrigued by Itard's ideas and created a far more specific and organized system for applying them to the everyday education of children with disabilities. When she discovered the works of Itard and Séguin they gave her a new direction in thinking and influenced her to focus on children with learning difficulties. Also in 1897, Montessori audited the university courses in pedagogy and read "all the major works on educational theory of the past two hundred years".
In 1897, Montessori spoke on societal responsibility for juvenile delinquency at the National Congress of Medicine in Turin. In 1898, she wrote several articles and spoke again at the First Pedagogical Conference of Turin, urging the creation of special classes and institutions for children with learning difficulties, as well as teacher training for their instructors. In 1899, Montessori was appointed a councilor to the newly formed National League for the Protection of Retarded Children, and was invited to lecture on special methods of education for children with intellectual disabilities at the teacher training school of the College of Rome. That year Montessori undertook a two-week national lecture tour to capacity audiences before prominent public figures. She joined the board of the National League and was appointed as a lecturer in hygiene and anthropology at one of the two teacher-training colleges for women in Italy.