Maria Montessori

Maria Montessori was a woman far ahead of her time. As a child she was self-confident and ambitious. As an adult she was hard working and determined. Born in Italy in 1870, she was the first women to graduate in medicine with a doctorate degree. Her open-minded, humanist attitude led her to the greatest achievement of her life: a new educational philosophy, which is still highly relevant today and has been successfully practiced worldwide for over a century.

I finished my Montessori training in 1987 in Munich. Maria Montessori’s quote “teach by teaching, not by correcting” guided me in the classroom, throughout my private life with my own children, and as an artist.
Creating this quilt brought back a wealth of fond memories. The child in the image is my own daughter; the glass beads along the upper and lower borders are genuine Montessori classroom materials.

I selected teaching tools representing all four Montessori areas in the classroom: Practical Life is exemplified by the button frame, which partially hides a copy of my own Montessori diploma. The trinomial cube and the glass beads embody the Mathematical area. Sandpaper letters and the phonetic reading card stand for the Language area. For the Sensorial area I chose the pink tower. Several important quotes are stitched into the individual pink cubes transforming the tower into a symbolic manifestation of the “building blocks of Montessori philosophy.”

Maria Montessori was a woman far ahead of her time. Her educational philosophy has been successfully practiced worldwide for over a century.

Cotton fabric, Superior threads, glass beads, Quilter’s Dream Cotton batting.