Maria Montessori was one of Italy's first female physicians, and she went on to develop a new way of teaching young children that let them learn through hands-on exploration instead of just listening to lectures. She opened her first classroom, the Casa dei Bambini, in a poor district of Rome in 1907, and her approach, now called the Montessori method, is still used in thousands of schools around the world today. She was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize three times for her work promoting education and peace. She believed that children learn best when they are trusted to guide their own discovery.