Maria Montessori
Her approach to education still bears her name: the Montessori Method. Born on August 31, 1870, in Italy, Maria Montessori was one of the earliest women to graduate from the University of Rome’s medical school in 1896. In 1900, she was appointed the co-director of a training institute for special education teachers. Maria began to experiment and observe which methods were the most successful.
Maria Montessori believed that children should have the freedom to choose their own materials to learn.
In 1907, she opened a day care centre in a poorer area of Rome, where she worked with children between three and seven years. As the children worked with puzzles and other materials, Maria watched how they taught themselves by observing their surroundings. With all this, she began to design a programme and tools to create a classroom that encouraged children to learn and the freedom to choose their own materials.
Sav itribai Phule
India’s first woman teacher and headmistress was born on January 3, 1831, near Pune. She was married off to 13-year-old Jyotirao Phule when she was just 10. Savitribai learnt from her husband and his friends and underwent training to be a teacher. With Jyotirao, she started the first school in India for girls.
Savitribai Phule was India’s first woman teacher and headmistress.
The couple also fought to establish a movement for equality between men and women and to fight the caste system. They also fought child marriage and supported widow remarriage. When it came to education, Savitribai focused on making the students capable of independent thought. She believed that “education should give one the ability to choose between right and wrong and truth and untruth in life”. As a tribute to her contribution to the field of education, Pune University was renamed Savitribai Phule Pune University.
Rabindranath Tagore
Most people know him as a poet but did you know that he was also a teacher? In fact he was known as Gurudev. Tagore was one of those who thought of the world as a global village.
Rabindranath Tagore stressed the need for freedom in education and for the study of arts.
While he stressed the need for freedom in education, he also felt the study of arts was crucial not only to develop a sense of empathy and sensitivity to others but also to keep a close contact with one’s own environment, both in terms of Nature and culture. Education, to him, meant staying rooted in one’s own culture while learning to appreciate others. In 1901, he began a small school at Santiniketan, which later developed into the Viswa Bharati University.
John Dewey
Born in Vermont, the U.S., on October 20, 1859, John Dewey’s views on education and teaching continue to be relevant even today. He believed in learning thorough a “hands-on approach” or that children must learn by doing.
John Dewey believed in learning by doing.
According to him, students would learn best only when they interacted with their environment and adapted to it. Another point he made was that teachers and students were both learners and should learn together. His work Democracy in Education emphasises that all participants in learning have an equal voice.
