Maria Montessori
Maria Montessori (1870-1952) was the first woman to qualify as a medical doctor
in Italy. Observing children in her work, she formed the idea that children learnt
by manipulating and adapting whatever they found in their natural environment, an idea
not dissimilar to what had been suggested by Friedrich Fröbel.
She went back to university to study
psychology and philosophy, and became a professor at the end of her studies.
But after 2 years she gave up her medicine and university work to open a school
for 60 children from a poor area in Rome. She called it the 'Casa dei Bambini' (Children's House).
There she developed what became known as the 'Montessori method'
of education. Children would learn doing what they did 'naturally', by themselves.
One of her early sponsors in North America was Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the
telephone, son of Alexander Melville Bell. Other early
sponsors included Thomas Edison, Helen Keller,
and Margaret Wilson, daughter of Woodrow Wilson, the American President from 1913 to 1921,
given the Nobel Peace Prize in 1919 and the only president to have had a PhD.
Montessori's work was recognised by the governments of Italy, Spain, Holland, and India.
She was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1949, 1950, and 1951.
Pigeon Post is the sort of thing which Maria Montessori would have approved of if
computers and email had existed in her lifetime. Pigeon Post doesn't require an adult to
show children how it works. If children want to, they can hear a friendly adult voice
telling them what they need to know. Or they can find this out
for themselves.