History
The origins of Montessori Education
Dr.Maria Montessori ( 1870-1952 ) was an Italian physician as well as an educator, her career was devoted to study of children.. During her early work with children with special needs, she developed learning materials to help them follow a normal academic program and enter the state school system. Maria Montessori was so impressed with the results from these children that she was inspired to continue her work on a much broader basis. Her aim was to show that if special needs children could achieve a standard approaching that of the national average, then other children using the same learning materials could achieve a standard higher than the national average. She discovered that the characteristics of each stage of human development are unique and 80% of the whole personality is laid during the early years of life of an individual. This discovery has been scientifically recognized and is now universally accepted.
During the first six years of life, the mind of the child is very different from that at any later stages of development, and Dr. Montessori called this “the Absorbent Mind”. During these years, the child’s mind absorbs all that surrounds him/her and builds knowledge and intelligence through this absorption both effortlessly and unconsciously In 1907, the first Montessori school opened starting the widespread adoption of the Montessori method of education.