By Tony Traficante, ISDA Contributing Editor
An excited, beautiful, young Italian lady stood at the doorway of her future, ready to enter one of Italy’s primary medical schools.
As she eagerly approached, she was interrupted by a group of unfriendly students and professors. “Vergogna ti,” for shame they shouted! Maria ignored them. It wasn’t the first time she faced such abuse.
She was about to make Italian history as she stepped through the doors of what was once an all-male school. All she wanted was the opportunity to be a doctor.
Maria Montessori became a global icon thanks in part to the internationally-renowned Montessori schools. She was born August 31, 1870, in the town of Chiaravalle, Le Marche, Italia, to parents Alessandro and Renilde Stoppani-Montessori.
Maria was 7 years old before Italy permitted females to attend public schools. Before then, and even for a time after, clergy in the Catholic Church decided on the educational needs of the Italian female. Even Maria’s father did not favor her attending public school. However, Marias was not about to accept the educational limitations that constrained Italian women and girls.
At first she wanted to be an engineer, but Maria changed her mind after completing Italy’s secondary level of schooling. She decided to be a doctor and applied to the prestigious University of Rome Medical School. She failed the entrance exams on the first attempt. After much preparation and a second shot at the exam, she passed and was enrolled. There are reports that a Pope, most likely Pope Leo XIII, was instrumental in Maria being accepted into medical school.
When Dr. Montessori graduated from medical school in 1896, she became one of Italy’s first female physicians and blazed the trail for other Italian women to pursue the same. Her early medical practice focused on psychiatry, working mostly with special needs children. Extremely disturbed by the learning difficulties suffered by these special children, Maria set out to vastly improve the curriculum.
On January 6, 1907, Dr. Montessori established the first of her Montessori schools, in a ghetto of Rome. It was called “La Casa Dei Bambini,” the Children’s Home. Maria’s experiences, i.e., working with special needs children, became the foundation of the Montessori educational system. She later expanded the curricula to include all educational levels of students. As the success of the Montessori system spread worldwide, Maria gave up her medical practice to devote all her time to academic endeavors.
As the Montessori educational method grew in popularity, it attracted the attention of one Benito Mussolini. He became so enthused with the Montessori system that he agreed to serve as Honorary President of the Montessori Society of Italy. With Mussolini’s approval, Maria opened a teacher’s training college and a wide range of Montessori institutions throughout Italy.
As the years went by, Dr. Montessori’s ideological viewpoints, particularly as a pacifist, clashed with the Mussolini administration; and their relationship began to sour. Maria’s situation became worse in 1931 when she flat out refused to order her teachers to take the fascist loyalty oath. Furious, Mussolini closed the Montessori schools in Italy, forcing Maria to flee Italy in 1934 to escape political surveillance and harassment.
Maria Montessori lived through turbulent times. She was teaching in India when Italy and Great Britain became embroiled in war, and in 1940, Britain ordered the internment of all Italian nationals in the United Kingdom and its colonies. Although Maria was not confined, she was restricted to the Theosophical Society compound as a teacher. Not able to return to Italy, Maria lived in exile, in India, for the remainder of WWII.
Dr. Montessori was an extraordinary person: a physician, humanitarian, a highly respected educator, and an activist for women’s rights and peace. She, also, was the only Italian woman to appear on an Italian banknote. Even though Maria could have returned to Italy, she chose to spend her final days living with friends in Amsterdam. She died on May 6, 1952, at the age of 81.
There are hundreds of Montessori schools in the United States that are privately owned. Some former alumni of the Montessori schools include Larry Page and Sergey Brin (founders of Google), Jeff Bezos (founder of Amazon), George Clooney, Helen Hunt, Peter Drucker (a management guru), Jackie Kennedy Onassis, Julia Child, and Princes William and Harry of England.
