#ThrowbackToday: The very beginnings of the Montessori Method

In today's #TBT, we remind you of Italian educator Maria Montessori who was born 151 years ago today. And blessed be the day that gave us the mind who changed education for the better. Here's to her!
A great mind | (Pic: Wikimedia Commons)
A great mind | (Pic: Wikimedia Commons)

One test of the correctness of educational procedure is the happiness of the child.

These great words were stated by Italian educator Maria Montessori. And needless to say, she made very many children happy and thanks to her legacy and ideals, continue to make them happy.

She was born on August 31, 1870, in Marche, Italy and with great difficulty, helped along the way by an endorsement from Pope Leo XIII, Montessori became one of the very first women to study in a medical school in Italy. She developed an interest in working with children with learning disabilities. And then she opened her first Casa dei Bambini (Children's House) where so much of what she had to offer to education was shaped.

In a Montessori Method, as the educator's technique is known, the classroom is all about the teacher, the child and the environment. Children are encouraged to work at their own pace. Children between the ages of 3-5 focus on tasks that build their cognitive abilities, children who are older focus on abstract tasks and their curricula is more interdisciplinary. In this way, the idea is to develop a child's whole self and that's why the method is all about child-centered development.    

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