Ode to Maria Montessori | Your hardships, of course, are incomparable to my worries

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It is hard to put into words how you have inspired me and so many others and how you have managed to encourage me to do what I believe in, despite all those years separating us.’

It is also hard to imagine what it must have been like to become the first woman doctor in what was then very traditional Italy and, as an unmarried woman, to have a child and have to give it up temporarily. And you also found the courage to use your creativity, eagerness to learn and perseverance to become an educator and pass on your knowledge and skills. You set up a completely innovative education system from which Amsterdam - and the rest of the world - still benefits in the form of countless primary and secondary schools.

According to you, stimulating all the senses was the prerequisite for true learning and understanding. Not just book learning, not just looking and listening, but also smelling, feeling and touching was your credo. What an insight and how respectful and helpful to the student, who after all does not fit into a standard mould because everyone is ‘wired’ differently. You also thanked the famously deaf and blind Helen Keller - who nota bene completed a university degree by using the hand alphabet and harnessing her senses - for your boundless commitment. The photo with her signature is still on a cabinet in your former home in Amsterdam at Koninginneweg 161.

My challenges were a lot smaller than yours, but not negligible. I did my PhD during motherhood (and as an unmarried woman, but thankfully that is no longer a problem these days) and regularly had to hear ‘why did you have a child if you work so much?’, or ‘oh, does he go to childcare so often?!’ (something my partner, of course, never got thrown at the head). There were also the sleepless nights while I had to be on edge all day, every day and - it is sadly true - in a male-dominated world, I had to prove myself extra.
But with you as an example in mind - as a mother and as a scientist - I was convinced I could achieve my goal. I wanted to teach smelling, feeling and tasting at an academic level and use them as knowledge tools. I wanted to make it clear to people that stories do not have to consist of words alone and that learning about perception should not only be through language, but through the senses. And that through smells, tactile impressions and dance, it is possible to create more accessible, and inclusive, environments. From all sides there were cries of ‘no that's for children’ or ‘ only through language and theory do we arrive at intellectual insights’. But I persevered, and my course at the Free University ‘Knowing by Sensing’ has now been around for five years and is being taken by medical students, nurses, heritage specialists and museum professionals. I wanted you to know that without your legacy, I would never have succeeded.

I do have a single point I would have liked to discuss with you: you indicated in The Montessori Method that children cannot smell properly. You came to this conclusion because they could not name simple smells like violets. Nowadays, there are new scientific insights into smell. Not being able to name smell appears to be a common western phenomenon. There are even scientists (such as Ep Köster) who claim that naming smell can be counterproductive. After all, without words, smell often tells us at lightning speed exactly what we need to know and do. Language would only slow us down. I would have loved to have exchanged views with you on integrating smell into primary education.

Of course, your hardships are incomparable to my worries; I am aware of that. Fleeing Fascist Italy and dictatorial Spain, you - but who am I to tell you that - arrived in 1946 in the city where I now also live and work: Amsterdam. Your son, who was back in your life from the age of 15, came with you and he too became a Montessori teacher (it is quite hilarious that especially for him, on the pre-printed diploma, ‘her’ had to be manually replaced by ‘him’ because normally only women graduated from your school). The City Archives still holds your ‘foreigner's card’. It says you lived off your books and lectures. To do that, someone has to be very driven and successful. Those books - a whole cupboard full - are also on Koninginnenweg. And I swear there is a whiff of knowledge rising from them that I inhale to the fullest.

In great admiration, I abide,

Dr Caro Verbeek - sensory historian and curator