Maria Montessori was born on August 31, 1870, in Chiaravalle, Italy; she was an educator, physician, and children's rights activist. She paved the way for other women by being one of the first women to graduate with a medical degree in Italy in the year 1896 from the University of Rome. Her early practice was in psychiatry, and she was involved in treating children with disabilities. This experience formed the basis of her approach to education, which is quite different from the conventional one. Montessori realized the importance of environment in the child's learning process, which made her come up with a method that involved the child learning on their own, through the manipulation of objects and playing with peers.

Montessori started her first school, Casa dei Bambini, in Rome in 1907, where she began applying and developing her methods. Her method became very popular and spread all over the world, and today there are Montessori schools all over the world. She lived her later years in the Netherlands, where she worked up to her death on May 6, 1952. Montessori was committed to the idea of children and their development throughout her lifetime, knowing that education was the solution to the world's problems.