Maria Montessori

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Maria Montessori, 1913
Signature of Maria Montessori

Maria Tecla Artemisia Montessori (born August 31, 1870 in Chiaravalle , † May 6, 1952 in Noordwijk aan Zee ) was an Italian doctor , reform pedagogue and philosopher . She developed the Montessori pedagogy .

Life

Maria Montessori at the age of ten, 1880

Montessori's family belonged to the educated middle class . Her father Alessandro Montessori worked in the Ministry of Finance and managed the state tobacco factory. Her mother's name was Renilde Stoppani. Her great uncle was the Catholic theologian and geologist Antonio Stoppani . In his theory of the connection between theology and the natural sciences lies the basic idea according to which Montessori developed her educational methods.

Maria Montessori was already interested in the natural sciences when she was still at school and therefore attended - against the resistance of her conservative father - a technical high school. After graduation she tried Medicine study. It was generally possible for women to study at universities in Italy since 1875. But she was rejected by the university because medical studies were reserved for men. That is why she first studied natural sciences at the University of Rome from 1890 to 1892. After completing her first university degree, she finally managed to study medicine - as one of the first five women in Italy. In 1896 she finally received her PhD from the University of Rome . However, the rumor that she was the first woman in Italy to receive a doctorate is not true. In the same year Montessori represented Italian women in Berlin at the International Congress for Women's Aspirations .

Education

During her studies, she was particularly concerned with embryology and the theory of evolution . Your scientific conception corresponded to positivism .

Already in her last two years of study, Montessori worked as an assistant at a psychiatric clinic in Rome . She specialized in paediatrics and continued this activity as an assistant doctor in the department of child psychiatry at the Roman university children's clinic. She was particularly interested in the mentally handicapped children who were only poorly cared for there . She was deeply moved by the undignified and neglected state in which these children lived and tried to remedy the situation. She came across the forgotten works of Jean Itard and Edouard Séguin , whose textbook on the physiological method she translated into Italian.

Scientific work

Like her two predecessors, Montessori was convinced that treating the “feeble-minded” or “idiots” is not a medical problem , but an educational one . She therefore called for special schools to be set up for the children concerned.

She wrote her doctoral thesis in 1896 on antagonistic hallucinations in psychiatry. She started work in her own practice. Then began her most important research years. By 1907 she developed her anthropological-biological theory and dealt with the neuropsychiatric foundations on which her pedagogy and practical experiments in children's homes are based.

Curative Education Institute ( Scuola magistrale ortofrenica )

Maria Montessori on the Italian 1,000 lire banknote issued between 1990 and 1998

In 1899 she was commissioned by the Italian Minister of Education, Guido Baccelli , to give a series of lectures to teachers in Rome on the upbringing of mentally handicapped children. From this course the Scuola magistrale ortofrenica ( Italian "Curative Education Institute") emerged, which she headed as director for two years. During this time she developed special didactic materials for language and mathematics lessons.

Pedagogical Institute in Rome

In 1901 Montessori left the institute and began studying anthropology , psychology and the philosophy of education. On the side she attended many schools and made anthropological studies there. In 1904 she gave lectures on anthropology and pedagogy at the Pedagogical Institute in Rome.

Children's house (Casa dei Bambini)

Contrary to popular belief, on January 6, 1907, Maria Montessori did not found the so-called Casa dei Bambini ( Italian children's house ), a day care center for sane children from socially disadvantaged families, in the Roman working-class district of San Lorenzo - she was the scientific director of the construction company Istituto Romano di Beni Stabili (IRBS). Montessori thought of calling the facility a laboratory for researching the nature of children . Originally, these should only be kept in a "people's home". When she was taking care of the children, she transferred the resources she had developed to support mentally handicapped children to the poor people's children. The results were so overwhelmingly good that they “filled them with the greatest astonishment and disbelief”, as she herself describes in “Children are different” and she developed her method from them step by step. A key experience from this time was her observation of a three-year-old girl who, completely absorbed in her preoccupation with operational cylinder blocks, did not allow herself to be disturbed by even the most massive distractions. She later described the expression of concentrated attention that Montessori observed in this child as the “ polarization of attention ”, the experimental exploration of which she devoted much of her further work.

Report in The New Student's Reference Work Chicago, 1914

From the experiences made during this time, she developed the Montessori method ( Il metodo della pedagogia scientifica , first version 1909, continuously expanded, and L'autoeducazione , 1916) for the education of children, which has become popular in many parts of the world today. After an encounter between Montessori and Italy's fascist leader Benito Mussolini , the Montessori method was introduced in Italian schools in 1924. Through this protection, the Italian Montessori Society was supported by the fascist government. In 1927 this support was even increased. The estrangement of Montessori from the fascist government did not begin until 1934, when the regime tried more and more to interfere in the daily work at the Montessori schools (e.g. the requirement to wear uniform). After Montessori pedagogy was banned, Montessori left Italy.

International effects

From 1913 onwards, a strong interest in their educational methods developed in North America , but this later waned. It was not revived until 1960 when the American Montessori Society was founded by Nancy McCormick Rambusch .

In Germany in the 1920s, Clara Grunwald in particular and, after 1945, Helene Helming, made the Montessori pedagogy known and disseminated.

Time in india

In 1939 Maria Montessori traveled to India at the invitation of the Theosophical Society to give lectures and training courses. She was accompanied by her son Mario, who translated her lectures into English. After the outbreak of World War II , the Montessoris were interned by the British as hostile foreigners. During this time Maria Montessori held a number of training courses. She left India for the first time in 1946 and did not finally return to Europe until 1949.

Old age in the Netherlands

Until the end of her life, she spent her time in the Netherlands , which is now the headquarters of the Association Montessori Internationale (AMI).

Son Mario Montessori

Montessori's illegitimate son was born on March 31, 1898 and entered in the birth register on April 2, 1898 under the name Mario Pipilli with the note "Parents unknown". The child's father was her colleague Giuseppe Montesano (1868–1951). Shortly before his marriage to Maria Aprile in 1901, Montesano agreed that Mario should have his family name, but demanded that the child's existence be kept secret. Mario grew up with his milk brother Liberato Olivero and was frequently visited by Montessori. Liberato Olivero, who later became mayor of Passo Corese, remained connected to his milk brother even as an adult. After the death of her mother Renilde Montessori, she took him in the spring of 1913 and Mario took his mother's name. In public he called himself Mario M. (for Montesano) Montessori. He later served his mother as a secretary until her death and sometimes also as the manufacturer of the development materials she had devised. In addition, he is assigned an essential role in the development of the educational concept of Cosmic Education (Montessori pedagogy for ages 6 to 12). It was only when he was over 40 that Maria Montessori confessed to him as his mother.

After the death of his mother in 1952, Mario M. Montessori headed the Association Montessori Internationale (AMI) until his death in 1982.

See also

Fonts

  • Il metodo della pedagogia scientifica. (1909; 3rd edition 1926); German: Self-directed upbringing in early childhood. Digitized ed. also under the title: La scoperta del bambino. (1950; 7th edition 1966); German: The discovery of the child. (1969; 4th ed. 1974).
  • Antropologia pedagogica (1910).
  • The self-education of the child ( The School of Life - Series of writings of the Federation of Decided School Reformers , Issue 12, 1923)
  • Dr. Montessori's own handbook. 1914; German: My manual. (1922; 2nd edition 1928). Digitized
  • L'autoeducazione nelle scuole elementari. (1916; 2nd edition 1940; new edition 1962); German: M. education for school children. (1926); Child's school. Montessori education in primary school. (1976).
  • The child in the church. (1929; 2nd edition 1965); dt .: children who live in the church. (1964).
  • Il segreto dell'infanzia. (1938, ed. 1950; 9th ed. 1966); German: Children are different. (1952; 8th edition 1967).
  • Formazione dell'Uomo. (1949; 5th edition 1955); dt .: About human education. (1966).
  • The absorbent mind. (1949; Italian: La mente del bambino. 1952; 5th ed. 1966); German: The creative child. The absorbing mind. (1972).
  • L'Educazione e Pace. (1949; 1972); German: Education and Peace. (1973).
  • De l'Enfant à l'Adolescent. (1948); dt .: From childhood to youth. (2nd edition 1973).

Movies

  • Maria Montessori - A life for the children. Miniseries, 2 parts, 180 min. Italy 2007. Paola Cortellesi as Maria Montessori.
  • Maria Montessori. (= Extraordinary women. Episode 14). BBC . Documentary, 45 min. United Kingdom 2010.

literature

  • Günter Schulz-Benesch: The dispute over Montessori . Münster / Freiburg, Herder-Verlag 1962 - basic work by a pioneer of Montessori research
  • Christine Reentz: Maria Montessori (1870–1952). In: Henning Schröer , Dietrich Zilleßen (Hrsg.): Classics of religious education. Frankfurt am Main 1989, ISBN 3-425-07711-2 , pp. 197ff.
  • Ingeborg Becker-Textor (Ed.): Maria Montessori: 10 Principles of Education , 3rd Edition, Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau / Basel / Vienna 2010, ISBN 978-3-451-05917-9 .
  • Anne Dieter: Maria Montessori and the children's right to education. A contribution to the Montessori year 2007 . Potsdam 2007 ( full text )
  • Ela Eckert: Maria Montessoris (1870–1952) Cosmic Education. An answer to the world curiosity of elementary school children . In: Astrid Kaiser, Detlef Pech (Hrsg.): History and historical conceptions of general teaching . (= Basic knowledge of subject teaching; vol. 1). 2004, ISBN 3-89676-861-1 , pp. 118-121
  • Birgitta Fuchs: Maria Montessori - an educational portrait . Weinheim / Basel 2003, ISBN 3-8252-2321-3
  • Sigurd Hebenstreit: Maria Montessori - An introduction to her life and work . Herder, Freiburg 1999, ISBN 3-451-26784-5 .
  • Helmut Heiland : Maria Montessori. With testimonials and photo documents . 9th edition, Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 2003, ISBN 3-499-50419-7
  • Christine Hofer: The educational anthropology of Maria Montessori or the education for new people. Würzburg 2001, ISBN 3-933563-92-5 .
  • Michael Knoll: John Dewey on Maria Montessori. An unknown letter. In: Pedagogical Review. 50 (1996), pp. 209-219.
  • Friedrich Koch : The dawn of pedagogy. Worlds in your head: Bettelheim, Freinet, Geheeb, Korczak, Montessori, Neill, Petersen, Zulliger. Hamburg 2000, ISBN 3-434-53026-6
  • Rita Kramer: Maria Montessori . Life and work of a great woman (translated by Gudrun Theusner-Stampa), Fischer Taschenbuch 12455, Frankfurt am Main 2004, ISBN 978-3-596-12455-8
  • Hélène Leenders: The Montessori Case. The history of an educational reform concept in Italian fascism . Bad Heilbrunn 2001, ISBN 3-7815-1100-6
  • Hans-Joachim Schmutzler: Froebel and Montessori. Two brilliant educators - what differentiates them, what connects them. 3rd edition, Herder Verlag, Freiburg im Breisgau 1991, ISBN 3-451-22178-0
  • Marjan Schwegman: Maria Montessori. 1870-1952. Child of her time - woman of the world. Primus, Darmstadt 2000, ISBN 3-89678-220-7 .
  • E. Mortimer Standing: Maria Montessori. Life and work . New edition edited by Ingeborg Waldschmidt and Ela Eckert, Lit, Berlin / Münster 2009 (first edition Stuttgart 1959), ISBN 978-3-8258-1622-3
  • Ingeborg Waldschmidt: Maria Montessori - life and work . 3rd, updated edition, Beck , Munich 2010 (first edition 2001), ISBN 978-3-406-44774-7

Web links

Commons : Maria Montessori  - collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikiquote: Maria Montessori  - Quotes

Individual references and comments

  1. ↑ Francesca Polistina: The Pioneer and the Children. Retrieved September 1, 2020 .
  2. ↑ See Winfried Böhm : Maria Montessori. In: Heinz-Elmar Tenorth (Ed.): Classics of Pedagogy. Second volume. From John Dewey to Paulo Freire. 2nd Edition. CH Beck, Munich 2012, pp. 74-88.
  3. ^ Edouard Séguin: Traitement moral, hygiène et éducation des idiots et des autres enfants arriérés. JB Baillière, Paris 1846.
  4. ^ Renato Foschi: Science and culture around the Montessori's first “Children's Houses” in Rome (1907-1915) . In: Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences . tape 44 , no. 3 , 2008, p. 238-257 , doi : 10.1002 / jhbs.20313 .
  5. ↑ Marc Fabian Buck: Be careful step! To the criticism of development models of the human being in pedagogy . Berlin 2016, p. 60 , doi : 10.18452 / 17436 .
  6. ^ Maria Montessori. on the website of the “Montessori Landesverband Saarland e. V. "
  7. ^ A b Ela Eckert: Maria and Mario Montessori's cosmic education in the Google book search. Berlin / Hamburg / Münster 2007, p. 112.
  8. ↑ Here the duration and the contractual relationship would have to be clarified
  9. ^ Kramer, Rita: Maria Montessori. Life and work of a great woman , Munich (1977) p. 323f.
  10. ↑ The information comes from the book by Ela Eckert: Maria and Mario Montessoris Cosmic Education: Vision and Concretion. Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-8258-0242-4 , pp. 45ff (which in turn quotes Rita Kramer's Montessori biography)
  11. ↑ Herbst, Theresia (2015). Maria Montessori - The private woman in public . In: Klein-Landeck (Ed.) Questions to Maria Montessori. Still ahead of its time , Herder, Freiburg, Basel, Vienna pp. 157f.
  12. ↑ Harold Baumann (2005): Montessori Pedagogy and Fascism - A Response. In: Fischer Reinhard, Heitkämper Peter (ed.) Montessori pedagogy current and international developments , Lit, Münster p. 146.
  13. ↑ Maria Montessori - A life for the children. In: Fernsehserien.de. Retrieved March 25, 2020 .
  14. ↑ Maria Montessori (= Extraordinary Women. Volume 14). In: Fernsehserien.de. Retrieved March 25, 2020 .
  15. ^ Extraordinary women: Maria Montessori. In: Programm.ARD.de. March 2, 2014, accessed March 25, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Montessori, Maria
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Montessori, Maria Tecla Artemisia (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian doctor, reform pedagogue, philosopher and philanthropist
BIRTH DATE August 31, 1870
PLACE OF BIRTH Chiaravalle , Italy
DATE OF DEATH May 6, 1952
PLACE OF DEATH Noordwijk aan Zee , the Netherlands