Despite countless struggles that women have had to face in the past, today women are breaking barriers every day in every field imaginable, and we are rising stars in a world that is dominated by men. No matter the odds, women have strived to make it to the top, forcing the world to acknowledge them. Women have changed the world through politics, activism, science, and literature and have made lasting impacts on the modern world.
There are countless figures who inspire me today. They persevere through all difficulties and encourage me to be the best that I can be. But today, we will learn about Maria Montessori - Italy’s first female doctor, a leader in modern day education, and an advocate for all women and children.
Maria was born in Italy in 1870, at a time when children, especially girls, were ignored. While studying, Maria was met with enormous amounts of hostility solely because she was a girl. But her hard work paid off in 1896 when she became the first female doctor in Italy. She specialized in pediatrics and cared deeply about women and children's rights. Her first job was working at a clinic for children with learning disabilities. She discovered that the children did not need medicine to recover, but instead a better, kinder learning environment.
In 1906, Maria was invited to create a childcare center in a poor, inner-city district of Rome. Here she would be working with some of the most disadvantaged, previously unschooled children. Maria was determined to create a quality education center where these children could reach their full potential, even though many people believed that these children could not be educated. In 1907, Maria opened her first school, Casa dei Bambini, or the Children’s House. She designed unique learning materials for them, many of which are still in use in Montessori classrooms today and created a classroom environment that fostered the children’s natural desire to learn. She spent her life travelling the world to teach others about her discoveries on children and opening her own Montessori schools.
Her ideas of creating a way of education that is based on self-directed activity, hands-on learning and collaborative play, and encouraging teachers to stand back, and “follow the child” are known as the Montessori Method. As Maria once said, “The goal of early childhood education should be to activate the child’s own natural desire to learn.” This method of teaching was adopted by countless educators worldwide and made Maria a leader in educational thinking across the globe.
I look up to Maria because she is the exact replica of the kind of person I want to be when I grow up. She has blazed a trail so that girls like me can get an education and she inspires me to think out of the box. Her life has shown me that everyone should get the same opportunities because we are all born with potential. I have learned all these lessons firsthand, at an incredibly early age when I was a preschooler at a Montessori school. The Montessori classroom is indescribable, and you will only understand its impact once you have been there. All I can say is that the single year I spent in a Montessori classroom has been the foundation for all of my academic successes. There, I was instilled with a love for learning and taught advanced subjects in a way that I could easily understand. By the time I was in kindergarten, I could read and write proficiently and do addition, subtraction, and multiplication. I had been nurtured there by the caring teachers and lively learning environment. Maria Montessori has indeed impacted me in many ways.
Maria Montessori is just one example of an inspiring female figure in history. These women have shown us that we are all made equal, and the only way that we will ever get better is by accepting one another and working together. As Maria Montessori puts it so beautifully herself, “We shall walk together on this path of life, for all things are part of the universe and are connected with each other to form one whole unity.” Who is someone that you admire?
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