Maria was born in Chiaravalle, Italy in 1870. She was the first female to become a physician in Italy.

 

She began to work with disabled children in a way different than others did at that time, dissolving the traditional teaching method that included reading and reciting, she taught the children by using concrete materials. This proved to work very well.

 

Learning was not memorizing but sensing and experiencing things. Because the disabled children scored higher on the same test that the regular children took, she thought; “Why can’t the normal children benefit from the same method?”  As a result she opened the first Casa dei Bambini or Children’s House in Rome.

 

Her method is based on the principle that the child wants to learn; order and independence is the key.

 

For over the last 100 years, this method has been tested and has achieved success throughout the world due to the Montessori classroom being a land of opportunity for the child.