Maria Montessori (1890-1952) shaped the Montessori Method of Education. She became the first female physician in Italy and it was through this profession that she frequently encountered "wild and unruly" working class children. It was her belief that every child is born with a unique potential to be discovered as opposed to as a blank canvas, waiting to be drawn upon.

 

She embarked upon the set up of a system of daycare centres for these children in one of the poorest districts of Rome. Through her practice, she noted that children develop themselves by way of what they come across in their environment. It was at this stage she founded her first Casa dei Bambini, or "Children's Houses". In due course these Children's Houses developed into the Montessori Method of Education.

 

She discovered that young children were capable of long periods of quiet focus. Their reactions to a structured and placate environment were positive. Montessori found that the environment was a fundamental factor in attaining the outcomes that she had witnessed. She based every exercise, every piece of equipment, every method, on what she perceived children to do "naturally" and unaccompanied by an adult. Maria Montessori nurtured the open classroom and the individual's self-determining education.