Education is a natural process carried out by the human individual, and is acquired not by only listening to words, but by experiences directly acquired. ~ Maria Montessori 

The greatest sign of success for a teacher... is to be able to say, 'The children are now working as if I did not exist.' Maria Montessori

Dr Maria Montessori 

Maria Montessori was first and foremost a pupil and scientist but spent much of her life teaching and observing children and adults.  In a lecture she gave in the early 1900's she talked about schools which had two main points. One was that teachers should help rather than judge. She believed the teacher should be there to direct, guide and help children to learn with the attitude of love and acceptance. Secondly, she believed that true mental work is not exhausting but gives nourishment for the soul. Montessori believed in the ‘secret of childhood’ that all are born with potentials and the adult should help that potential. The adult is there to create the environment to stimulate the child and fulfil their needs.
As the fame of Maria Montessori and her method grew Montessori was plunged into the responsibility to further teach others of her method. She saw it as a duty on behalf of all the children in the world as a way to promote their rights and liberation. She left lecturing at the university and supported herself by training teachers and royalties from her books..

In 1914 Montessori went to America. She was welcomed by Thomas Edison and an American Montessori Society was formed with Alexander Graham Bell as its president. While in America she had a pupil, Helen Parkhurst, who arranged a glass classroom for observers to see her classrooms.  After the second world war, Maria Montessori continued to give lectures around the world with her son Mario. He followed her footsteps and had the task of protecting the sincerity of the Montessori movement. With the spread of the Montessori Method there was a danger of her principles being misunderstood and not practiced purely according to her beliefs. 

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