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You're listening to the Witness History Podcast from the BBC World Service.

I'm Anjadredico.

Today we're going back to 1907 and a revolution in the education of young children when Maria Montezori opened her first nursery school. Sorry,

it opened her first nursery school.

It's a very well-known, sorry motto.

Children want to be independent.

Two-year-old can dress themselves,

can do lots of things that parents and teachers otherwise would do for them.

The Montezori system of teaching children

is named after Maria Montezori, an Italian doctor and scientist.

In a classroom without a blackboard, children are presented with things like beads, colored wooden blocks, letters made out of

sandpaper, all carefully designed and all there for a reason.

Nan Abbott, now in her 90s, was a trainee teacher when she met Dr. Montezori in the 1940s.

Lots of materials, blocks of wood, she cut out the da desas of the alphabet in sandpaper the vowels on a blue background

and the consonants on a red background.

The idea is that children should learn independently through action.

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