Montessori education dates back to 1907, when Dr. Maria Montessori, one of Italy’s first female physicians, opened a child-care center in Rome. Drawing on her previous work experiences, including scientific observations of young children, Dr. Montessori designed a unique learning environment and materials that fostered the students’ natural desire to learn. They made gains that exceeded all expectations.
News of the success of the Montessori Method sparked the interest of educators worldwide and in the following decades, Montessori schools, for children of all ages, opened on every continent except Antarctica. There are now thousands of Montessori programs dotting the globe, with an estimated 5,000 Montessori schools, both public and private, in the United States alone.
The innovative premises that guided Dr. Montessori’s work over 100 years ago are still embraced by Montessori educators today and are continually confirmed by contemporary research:
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Children are to be respected as different from adults and as unique individuals, each developing at his or her own pace, according to specific developmental stages.
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The most essential life skills, such as language development, are acquired from birth to age 6 and honed in the elementary and secondary years.
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Children learn through purposeful activity.
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Children possess unusual sensitivity and cognitive abilities for absorbing and learning from the people and things in their environment.
People who have been touched by Montessori comprise a gloriously diverse group. Montessori alumni in the public eye include: Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page; Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon; Will Wright, creator of The Sims and Spore computer games; actors Lee Thompson Young and Helen Hunt; and singer-songwriter Taylor Swift.