Summary of Montessori Approach

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Montessori: A Modern approach Chapter One: Historical Introduction to Montessori Early Professional Life • In 1896 Montessori became the first woman to graduate from the University of Rome Medical School and thereafter studied the works of Jean Itard and Edouard Seguin. • In 1898 she was named Directress of the State Orthophrenic School where she worked for two years and succeeded in teaching mentally challenged children to read and write. • The children were then presented to be examined alongside normal children in a public school and passed their exams successfully. • Montessori became convinced that applying her teaching methods to normal children would help them develop at a soaring rate. • In order to fully prepare herself, Montessori went on to study philosophy, anthropology and psychology as well as a more thorough study of Itard and Seguin. • During this time she also studied nervous diseases in children and published her findings in technical journals, practiced in clinics and hospitals within Rome as well as carried on a practice of her own The Casa Dei Bambini • In 1907 she accepted an offer to direct a day-care center in the slum section of San Lorenzo, Italy, as this was her opportunity to work with normal children. • In a bare room, sparsely furnished, Montessori provided the children with the same sensorial equipment she had used previously with the mentally defective children. • The sole purpose of the exercise was to compare the reactions of normal children to her equipment to those of the mentally challenged and to see if the reactions of younger children of normal intelligence were similar to those of children that were chronologically older, but retarded. • The first phenomenon observed was the immense concentration shown in working with the equipment that was not observed with the mentally defectives and seemed rested,

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