Adventures in Lower Elementary: Getting to know Maria Montessori
This week, our Lower Elementary class completed our first class biography study of the year! And who better to begin with than Dr. Maria Montessori herself?
To celebrate what would have been her 156th birthday this Monday, our little Montessori students spent part of their week together studying the fascinating life of the woman whose ideas continue to shape what happens in their classroom each and every day.
Rather than tackling an entire biography at once, we divided Maria Montessori’s story into five parts, exploring a little bit each day. We followed her journey from a curious and determined child growing up in Italy, through her education and her indefatigable resolve to enter the overwhelmingly male world of medicine and become one of Italy’s first female physicians.
From there, we learned about the observations and discoveries that led her to develop a revolutionary approach to education; the challenges she faced as her progressive educational philosophy collided with the rise of Fascism in Italy; her unexpected years in India during World War II; and, ultimately, her life as an internationally renowned educator whose ideas would spread around the world.
A biography study gives us an opportunity to practice much more than remembering historical facts. It invites us to ask bigger questions: What shapes a person’s life? What problems did they encounter? How did they respond? How can one person's curiosity, determination, and ideas create change far beyond their own lifetime?
That last question felt especially meaningful this week as we also talked about the idea of legacy. Following the recent passing of Dolly Parton, we discovered that while some of the children knew her music, many knew her best in an entirely different way: “She’s the lady who sent me books!” Through Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, children around the world, including many in our own classroom, received books in the mail throughout their early childhoods. The children were delighted to discover that their classmates remembered receiving and loving some of the very same stories.
That realization sparked a wonderful conversation: What does it mean to leave a legacy? What pieces of ourselves can continue to affect other people even after our lives have ended? The connection to our Maria Montessori study quickly became clear. More than a century after Montessori began developing her ideas about children and education, our school exists within the educational movement she helped create ... and these children walk into a classroom every morning that is directly connected to her life's work. Suddenly, history felt a little less like something that happened to other people long ago and a little more like a story we are still participating in.
There is something especially fun about studying Maria Montessori inside a Montessori classroom. It allows us to view the materials on our shelves, the freedom and responsibility children experience during their work cycle, and even the way adults and children interact, with a new clarity. The children can recognize that all of these elements have a story and a clear purpose behind them.
Over the long weekend, see what your child remembers about Maria Montessori! You might be surprised by which details captured their imagination -- I certainly was! 😊
I hope everyone has a wonderful, restful, and safe Labor Day weekend. We’ll see you next week for more learning, wondering, and adventures together! 🌿
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