Maria Montessori was born on 31 August 1870 into a wealthy Italian family.
Her father worked for the civil service. She was brought up with strict rules, but with a mother who always respected her freedom. This would make her a free woman, a woman of character.
Her parents would have liked to see her pursue a career as a teacher. But in 1884, she discovered a passion for mathematics and decided to go to a technical school for boys. Her discovery of biology was a revelation and led to her becoming a doctor.
She obtained her engineering diploma and wanted to go into medicine, which at the time was the exclusive preserve of men. Medicine for a woman was totally forbidden at the time. After several refusals, in 1892 she met the Pope, who agreed to write her a letter authorising her to enter medicine.
Discord with her father grew, and he decided to lose interest in what she was doing. Her father cuts her off Destitute, she applied for scholarships and won them all.
As a woman, she was not allowed to attend certain courses. So she went alone at night to take them (Dissection, for example).
In 1896, at the age of 26, Maria Montessori became one of the first women to graduate from medical school in Italy. She graduated top of her class. She was recognised as an extremely talented doctor.
She then worked for two years at the psychiatric clinic of the University of Rome. There she studied the behaviour of young ‘mentally retarded’ people. It was there that she discovered that these children had no games at their disposal, even though they needed action to progress and needed their hands to develop their intelligence. She observed the human instinct to get to work and the child’s natural need to acquire new knowledge.
At the same time, she discovered the research of Jean Itard (1774-1838), a doctor and inventor of otolaryngology, who worked with deaf-mutes, and in particular his writings on Victor, the wild child of Aveyron, as well as those of Édouard Séguin (1812-1880), a French pedagogue working with ‘idiot’ children at Bicêtre, and author of ‘Hygiène et éducation des idiots’ published in 1846.
In 1898 Maria Montessori had a child out of wedlock, named Mario, with Giuseppe Montesano, her psychiatric colleague. At the time, having a child out of wedlock was inconceivable. Maria’s pregnancy was therefore kept secret with the support of her mother. She gave birth abroad and placed her son on a farm. She would get him back 12 years later.
Urged on by her mother, Maria Montessori decided to resume her work. She returned to Rome, resumed her research and from 1900 decided to devote herself to education. She used her research to provide her little ‘deficient’ patients with teaching aids. She entered her children in the school competition She was summoned on the day of the results, and discovered that her patients obtained better results than the so-called normal children.
In 1901 she began to take an interest in ‘normal’ children. She began studying psychology and philosophy. In 1906, at a turning point in her life, she took charge of ‘normal’ pre-school children, for whom she created her teaching method.
Maria Montessori was one of the first active feminists She demonstrated at the turn of the century with the slogan ‘Equal pay for equal work’.
In 1907 Maria Montessori was asked to set up a school in the San Lorenzo district of Rome – a deprived area where the workers rebuilding Rome lived and where the children were left to fend for themselves all day.
Maria Montessori opened the first Children’s House (Casa dei Bambini). An organisation began building two blocks of flats to house the slum-dwellers. The director asked Maria Montessori to organise the lives of the children in these buildings.
Maria Montessori’s first problem was the lack of hygiene among the children arriving at school in the morning. She therefore created a hygiene lock for entering the classrooms Children had to wash themselves before entering The practical life zone is born
The Casa dei Bambini became a research base, an experimental laboratory where Maria Montessori built and tested her method. This was the starting point for the creation of Montessori schools. Today there are almost 20,000 of them throughout the world.

The best way to respond is through the pillars of the method:
– Mixed age groups to encourage children to help each other. Avoid competition. The younger children learn from the older ones and the older ones reinforce their knowledge.
– Free choice: Children should be free to choose the activity they want to do. They can therefore choose the activity they want to do as soon as it has been presented to them by their instructor.
– A long work phase: to encourage the child to concentrate, which means repeating the activity to achieve perfect movement.
– Montessori teaching materials: the materials have been designed down to the smallest detail to ensure that children learn effectively and as naturally as possible. Once the material has been presented, the child can use it and return to it as many times as he or she likes.
The material is self-correcting, so there is no need for adult intervention.
– Mistakes are not sacrosanct. The brain needs mistakes to learn. Montessori teaching methods do not penalise mistakes with a mark, so that children do not stop trying because they are afraid of making a mistake.
– A well-prepared environment: in each classroom / environment, there are clearly defined areas with progressive activities arranged in a specific order (from left to right and from top to bottom).

Over the last 30 years, numerous studies have been carried out on the cerebral development of very young children. These discoveries support Maria Montessori’s work of observation and explain the success of this teaching method.
The human baby is born premature. The brain is not mature and will therefore develop after birth. All the relationships that the baby experiences will profoundly modify its brain. Each relationship will have an impact on the child’s neurons, molecules, synaptic connections, neuronal circuits and cerebral structure.
You therefore need to show your child a great deal of empathy and kindness in order to ensure that his brain develops to its maximum potential.
In children, the anterior prefrontal cortex is underdeveloped. This is the part of the brain that distinguishes us from the great apes and acts as an emotional filter. It allows us to control ourselves.
The child is therefore directed by its archaic brain and its emotional brain.
So a child who cries, screams, scratches or dies is simply responding to an emotional storm in the only way it can. His behavioural response is proportional to the emotional storm he is experiencing and which is causing him pain.
Once we know this, it’s easier for us to sympathise and empathise.
 The best way to support your child is not to shout or punish him – on the contrary, this would be totally counter-productive. Each negative event or emotional storm will slow down the development of the prefrontal cortex, which will enable the child to control himself.
As a parent, you therefore need to respond sympathetically to this anger, anxiety or fear.
To do this, the parent will play the role of prefrontal cerebral cortex prosthesis by verbalising and explaining to the child what he or she is feeling. By holding the child and, once the crisis has subsided, by putting the problem into perspective. In this way, we help very young children to understand their emotions. This process will help the brain to develop and, as a result, the seizures will diminish.

Maria Montessori identified four stages in a child’s development. Scientists have recently shown that these periods correspond fairly closely to the development of the anterior cerebral cortex.
Each stage has its own characteristics.
The period from birth to age 6, which corresponds to infancy, is the phase in which human characteristics are acquired and the personality is built.
From birth to the age of 3, the child’s need is ‘Help me to be myself’, from 3 to 6 it will be ‘Help me to do myself’, from 6 to 12 it will be ‘Help me to think for myself’.

Children have instincts that naturally lead them to take an interest in aspects of their environment. The child will therefore orientate itself in its environment to draw knowledge according to its needs. They will be more or less interested in, or sensitive to, certain activities. As parents, we therefore need to keep a close eye on our children so that we can offer them activities in their environment that will meet their needs.

Sensitive periods vary in duration and intensity from one to another and from one individual to another. There are six of them:

• The sensitive period of order (from birth to 6 years).
• The sensitive movement period (from 0 to 5-6 years).
• The sensitive language period (from 0 to 7 years).
• The sensitive period for sensations (from 0 to 6 years).
• The sensitive period for small objects (from 1 to 6 years).
• The sensitive period for social life (before birth, peaking at 6).

These sensitive periods are momentary and cease as soon as the desired knowledge is acquired. This attraction to an activity or experience is vital. It is even painful for children when their desire is thwarted. A child whose experience is restricted may experience a fit of sadness or anger.

The mixed-age classes are designed to encourage children to help each other and avoid competition. The younger children learn from the older ones and the older ones reinforce their knowledge.

Children must be free to choose the activity they want to do. They can therefore choose the activity they want to do as long as it has been presented to them by their teacher.

It depends on the child, his or her age and stage of development. The Montessori method works in three-year cycles, at the end of which the French Ministry of Education has established that a child educated in a Montessori school has acquired the same skills as a child who has been educated in the traditional system. Taking a child out in the middle of the cycle can lead to difficulties in adapting, as the level of skills will not be uniform.
What will really make the difference is the way in which these skills are acquired: by following the child’s pace and respecting his or her developmental stages, with a teaching approach that is adapted and individualised for each child. We don’t force children to be at the same level at the same time, but we help them individually to achieve the same results at the end of the cycle.

Yes, Montessori schools, at the end of the cycle, have demonstrated that they meet all the requirements of the national education system and go even further. The skills required by the national system are acquired and mastered throughout the cycle, at each child’s own pace.

Maria Montessori devised a teaching method that could be adapted to all children, regardless of their origin, environment, language or development.
She never limited this learning method to a specific group of children.