Women in Education

This page includes summaries of biographies of women who contributed to the improvement of education through history. 

 1- Fatima Al Fihriyya (founder of the first degree-granting university in the world): Daughter of Mohammed al-Fihri, Fatima al-Fihriyya, is known for creating the oldest academic degree-granting university in existence today, the University of Qarawiyyin.

Fatima and her family were among several families who moved from Tunisia to Morocco during the reign of the Moroccan King Idriss II.

After her husband and her brothers died, she and her sister Mariam inherited a large fortune. Both women wanted to devote their money to pious work that would benefit the community in order to receive the blessing of God. To this end, Fatima built the Al Qarawiyyin mosque, while Mariam built the Al-Andalus mosque. From the 10th to the 12th century, the Al Qarawiyyin mosque developed into a university which became an important center of education and one of the first Islamic and most prestigious universities in the world. 

2- Lubna of Cordoba: Originally a slave-girl of Spanish origin, Lubna rose to become one of the most important figures in the Umayyad palace in Cordoba. She was the palace secretary of the caliphs ‘Abd al-Rahman III  and his son al-Hakam b. ‘Abd al-Rahman . She was also a skilled mathematician and presided over the royal library, which consisted of over 500,000 books. According to the famous Andalusi scholar Ibn Bashkuwal: “She excelled in writing, grammar, and poetry. Her knowledge of mathematics was also immense and she was proficient in other sciences as well. There were none in the Umayyad palace as noble as her.” 

Source: http://www.loonwatch.com/2014/03/15-important-muslim-women-in-history/

3- Margaret Bancroft (1854-1912): At the age of 25, she embarked on a courageous and lonely endeavor by opening the first private school in Haddonfield, New Jersey, for children with developmental delays.  She believed that disabled children needed special schools, adapted material, and well trained teachers rather than to be sent to institutions.  Bancroft’s students responded to her love and patience and individually-tailored instruction.  Under her influence, the medical profession began to awaken to their responsibility to help correct defects and disabilities in children.  Admirers of her skill came to train and later became leaders in the field of special education.

Source:  http://www.teachhub.com/top-12-pioneers-education 

4- Maria Montessori (1870-1952): Maria Montessori was an Italian physician, educator, and innovator, acclaimed for her educational method that builds on the way children naturally learn. Maria Montessori was born on August 31, 1870, in the provincial town of Chiaravalle, Italy.  She was well-schooled and an avid reader—unusual for Italian women of that time. Beginning in her early childhood years, Maria grew up in Rome, a paradise of libraries, museums, and fine schools. At age 13 she entered an all-boys technical institute to prepare for a career in engineering. In time, however, she changed her mind, deciding to become a doctor instead. She applied to the University of Rome’s medical program, but was rejected. Maria took additional courses to better prepare her for entrance to the medical school and persevered. With great effort she gained admittance, opening the door a bit wider for future women in the field. When she graduated from medical school in 1896, she was among Italy’s first female physicians.Maria’s early medical practice focused on psychiatry. She also developed an interest in education, attending classes on pedagogy and immersing herself in educational theory. Her studies led her to observe, and call into question, the prevailing methods of teaching children with intellectual and developmental disabilities. In 1907 Maria accepted a new challenge to open a childcare center in a poor inner-city district. The youngsters were unruly at first, but soon showed great interest in working with puzzles, learning to prepare meals, and manipulating materials that held lessons in math. She observed how they absorbed knowledge from their surroundings, essentially teaching themselves. Utilizing scientific observation and experience gained from her earlier work with young children, Maria designed learning materials and a classroom environment that fostered the children’s natural desire to learn. News of the school’s success soon spread through Italy and by 1910 Montessori schools were acclaimed worldwide. 

     In the years following, and for the rest of her life, Maria dedicated herself to advancing her child-centered approach to education. She lectured widely, wrote articles and books, and developed a program to prepare teachers in the Montessori Method. Through her efforts and the work of her followers, Montessori education was adopted worldwide.There are now more than 22,000 Montessori schools in at least 110 countries worldwide. Maria Montessori pursued her ideals in turbulent times. Living through war and political upheaval inspired her to add peace education to the Montessori curriculum. But she could do little to avoid being ensnared in world events. Traveling in India in 1940 when hostilities between Italy and Great Britain broke out, she was forced to live in exile for the remainder of the war. There she took the opportunity to train teachers in her method. At war’s end she returned to Europe, spending her final years in Amsterdam. She died peacefully, in a friend’s garden, on May 6, 1952.

Source: https://amshq.org/Montessori-Education/History-of-Montessori-Education/Biography-of-Maria-Montessori 

*Biographies are extracted from websites and modified for faster and easier reading. Information mentioned above is not based on my research; I collected them from online sources because I believe that women have played a major role in the field of education, which was reflected on all other domains of life.