Montessori Life Magazine 2004 Fall

ONTESSOR
VOL.
VOL.16/NO.
16/NO.4 4 AAPUBLICATION
PUBLICATIONOF
OFTHE
THEAMERICAN
AMERICANMONTESSORI
MONTESSORISOCIETY
SOCIETY FALL
FALL2004
2004
Spotlight:
Best Practices
ONTESSOR
L
A PuBLICATION OF ThE AMERICAN MONTESSORI SOCIETY

VOL. 16/NO. 4
Editors Kathy Carey & Carey Jones
Art Directors Martin Skoro & Ross Rezac
Copy Editor Joy Starry Turner
Editorial Advisory Board
ELIZABETH BRONSIL, Director, Montessori Teacher
Education, Xavier University, Cincinnati, OH.
JOHN CHATTIN-McNICHOLS, PhD, Asso. Professor, Education, Seattle University, Seattle, WA; Director, Montessori
Teacher Education Institute/ Pacific Northwest; past president, MACCESS and AMS.
CAROL CHOMSKY, PhD, Lecturer, Harvard Graduate
School of Education (retired), Cambridge, MA
ELISABETH COE, PhD, Teacher, School of the Woods;
Director, Houston Montessori Center, Houston, TX.
WILLIAM C. CRAIN, PhD, professor & chair, Psychology, City College of New York, New York, NY.
DAVID ELKIND, PhD, Professor, Child Study, Tufts University, Medford, MA.
ALICE STERLING HONIG, PhD, Professor Emerita,
Child Development, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY.
LILIAN KATZ, PhD, Director, Educational Retrieval
Information Center (ERIC), Champaign, IL.
MARGARET LOEFFLER, PhD, Director, Montessori
Teacher Education, Oklahoma City University, Oklahoma
City, OK.
SYLVIA O. RICHARDSON, MD, Distinguished Professor,
Communication Sciences/ Clinical Professor, Pediatrics, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL; past president, Orton
Dyslexia Society.
MARTHA TORRENCE, President, AMS
JOY STARRY TURNER, Founder, Montessori Greenhouse
School, Montessori Western TTP, Garden Grove, CA, former
executive director, MACTE; former editor, Montessori LIFE.
BRETTA WEISS WOLFF, Consultant, Albuquerque, NM;
National Director Emerita, American Montessori Society; past
president, Council for American Private Education (CAPE).
Montessori LIFE (ISSN 1054-0040), published four times a
year, is the official journal-magazine of the AMERICAN
MONTESSORI SOCIETY, a nonprofit organization. AMS membership includes a subscription. Through this publication,
AMS hopes to provoke thought, promote professional
development, and provide a forum for discussion of issues
and ideas in our field. In addition, calendar information and
milestone events keep readers abreast of the latest Society
news and opportunities. The opinions expressed in Montessori LIFE editorials, columns, and features are those of
the authors and do not necessarily represent the position of
the magazine or the AMS. Printed by Anderburg Lund,
Minneapolis, MN. Mailed at bulk rate in Minneapolis, MN.
Reprints Requests for permission to reprint material
from Montessori LIFE in another form (e.g., book, newsletter,
journal, electronic media) should be sent in writing to the
editors. Permission to reprint is not required for copies to
be shared with parents, teachers, or students; for library
reserve; or for personal use. Our copyright notice must appear
on each copy. Copyright 2004 by American Montessori
Society. All rights reserved.
Manuscript submissions: Exclusive submissions only.
Style guide is the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (5th ed.). ML is a refereed publication:
all feature stories submitted are read by three qualified reviewers. Guidelines available from the editors on request.
Advertising Acceptance of advertising does not represent AMS endorsement of any product or service. Rate and
size information are available from the editors or the AMS
Internet site: www.amshq.org.
Address changes/Postmaster Send all address changes
and inquiries about subscription to the AMS National Office,
281 Park Ave. S., 6th Floor, New York, NY 10010, 212-3581250, fax 212-358-1256.
Submit all advertising and editorial material by e-mail
to editor@amshq.org.
FALL 2004
CONTENTS
28
From the InterIm executIve DIrector

Embracing Our International Members
Marie M. Dugan
Letters
From the Ams PresIDent

Best Practices in Montessori Education
Martha Torrence
From the eDItors

Editing Roxx! Kathy Carey and Carey Jones
9 montessorI mILestones
10 An Interview with Joy Starry Turner
14 Pennies for Peace Christiane Leitinger
15 AccreDItAtIon
Accreditation: Big Work, Big Benefits! Mimi Basso
16 ArchIves
Another Voyager, Another Vision Marcy Raphael
heADs sectIon
18 Professional and Personal Life Balancing Act
Penny HildeBrandt Cichucki
36
teAchers sectIon
19 Sharing our Best Practices Donna Kaiser
PArents sectIon
20 Identifying Best Practices: What You See is
What You Get Catherine McTamaney
sPotLIght: Best PrActIces
24 Educating for Peace: A Montessori Best Practice
Sonnie McFarland
28 Defining Best Practices: A Goal for 21st-Century
Montessori Education Patti Tepper-Rasmussen
30 A Road Map: Montessori Curriculum and Learner
Outcomes Sharon Damore, EdD
36 Deconstructing Montessori: A Growing Problem
Jack Blessington
40
38 Best Practices: A Commentary Marlene Barron, PhD

40 Restorative Yoga and Silence Games for
Children and Adolescents: A Way of Knowing
the
World More Clearly Michael J. Rosanova, PhD
46
One Individual at a Time: Instruction in the

Montessori Classroom Susan Jones Jensen
50
ReviewsMusic, Film, Books
53 Applications and Opportunities
Cover: Yukis Garden, Princeton Montessori School
Montessori LIFE Fall 2004
FROM THE AMS INTERIM EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

AMS STAFF
Marie M. Dugan
Interim Executive Director
Fabiola Antzoulis
Receptionist
Mimi Basso
Vice President of Membership Services,
Director of School Consultation
& Accreditation
Charles Barker
Receptionist
Robert E. Bates
Webmaster
Philip Bienenfeld
Director of Systems
& Organization Management
Kate Gordon
embracing our
International members
Associate Director of Professional Services
Carla Hofland
By Marie M. Dugan
Director of Membership Services
Evelyn Jackson
Teacher & General Membership Coordinator
Ketty Joazard
Teacher Education Coordinator
Marcy Krever
Director of Communication
Maria Meyerovich
Bookkeeper
Carol Monroe
Vice President of Finance & Operations
Susana E. Ortiz
School Membership Coordinator
Additional Support
Kathy Carey, Carey Jones
Editors, Montessori LIFE
Kenny Fedrick
Mailroom Supervisor
Doris Sommer
Consultant for Teacher Education Programs
Letters
Dear Editors,
Congratulations on being chosen
by the AMS Editor Search Committee
to fill some very fine shoes. I know that
I speak for thousands of Montessorians
in saying thank you to Joy Starry
Turner for her devotion to and constant
effort with Montessori LiFE during her
4
In 1956, when Nancy McCormick

Rambusch joined her friends Janet and
John Bermingham to plan a Mon-tessori
class for their children, she could not
have imagined what their humble
efforts would have become by 2005!
With the help of the Berminghams,
Mary M. Begley, and Georgeanne
Skakel Dowdle Terriene, Nancy established the American Montessori Society
in 1960. By the time of her premature
death in 1994, our AMS had grown to
include Montessori schools not only in
every state in the nation, but also in the
world beyond.
That's right. We might be the American Montessori Society, but we are truly
an international organization. China,
Japan, haiti, Bolivia, India, Canada,
Russia, Brazil, The Dominican Republic,
Korea, Switzerland, and Mexico are just
long stint as editor of the magazine.

Through more years than many of us
have been certified, Joy was relentless
in pursuing stories, interviewing public
Montessori students, prodding teachers to write of their classroom experiences, needling advertisers, taking pictures, planning layouts, dreaming up
themes, tracking down every last bibliography source, and often writing the
some of the countries that boast members in the American Montessori

Society. This is a tremendous source of
satisfaction to me, for our mission
of supporting Montessori education
knows no geographic boundaries. I am
passionate in my desire to bring our
services to every member school, parent,
teacher, or teacher educator who needs
our help, no matter where they reside.
At our conference in Chicago this
spring, we expect to play host to a significant number of our international
members. Many will hail from AMSaffiliated teacher education programs.
Others will be teachers who were educated in AMS programs and are using
their credentials to work in AMS-member schools outside of this country. Still
others are followers in Dr. Rambusch's
footsteps who have started, or are planning to start, AMS schools of their own.
With their help, we hope to be able to
increase our own outreach efforts to
provide Montessori teacher education
and establish schools in underserved
areas for all children, regardless of age,
socioeconomic status, or geographic
area.
If you are a domestic member of
AMS, we hope you will join us in helping to make the conference a warm and
welcoming environment for our international members. They, like you, are
vitally important to AMS.
MARiE M. DUGAN is interim executive
director of AMS. Marie can be reached at
marie@amshq.org.
articles herself all under quarterly

deadlines. her efforts were recognized
with EdPress Awards. For her years of
patience and persistence and demands
of excellence we applaud Joy, and our
wish is for many more years of being
at home enjoying her grandchildren.
To our new editors, I offer faith and
confidence in your ability to make this
journal, the voice of our Society, into a
FROM THE AMS PRESIDENT

Best Practices in
montessori education
AMS 2004-2005
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Executive Committee
Martha Torrence, President
By Martha Torrence
Judith Bauerlein, President Elect

Amy Henderson, Past President
As Montessorians, we are most certainly a part of the greater educational

picture in this country and in the world.
We have a responsibility to continue to
develop and to challenge our ideas of
best practices through reflective participation in internal and external dialogues. This topic is rife with questions
and possibilities. Our engage-ment in this
process will ensure that the Montessori
movement remains fresh, relevant, and
viable as we grapple with the complex
educational challenges of the 21st century.
Nearly 100 years ago, Dr. Maria
Montessori challenged the world to craft
a new vision of the child, whom she
viewed as humankinds most sensitive
link between its evolving future and its
past. She challenged the world to truly
see the child, not as miniature adult or
curriculum receptacle but rather as
potential peacemaker, change agent, and
evolutionary nexus. her ideas challenged educators and the world to look
at the child and his development first.
Seen through this frame, decisions about
curriculum and assessment are reorganized as outcomes of child study, rather
than as boxes within which to force-fit
all.
As Montessori educators we breathe
life into Dr. Montessoris vision each day
new and exciting educational forum

for our teacher education centers,
schools, teachers, and families. I invite
each of our members to assist you. Two
editors do not a journal make. It will
require the willing work of good writers to assist you by sending stories, practices, ideas and concerns of interest to
all Montessorians both in and out of
the classroom. I know Kathy and Carey
Joyce Gersten Pariser, Treasurer

Marie M. Dugan,
Interim Executive Director
Fred Catlin
Michael Dorer
Renee DuChainey-Farkes
Tom Jankowski
through our work with children, schools,

and developing teachers. Given
Montessoris legacy of the scientific pedagogue for whom the classroom is a living laboratory of human development
and for whom the work of evolving pedagogy is never done, we continually
examine and reflect on this work.
In similar fashion, your AMS Board
continually works to transform our
organization, already effective and
strong in many arenas, into one that
exemplifies best practices for a nonprofit membership and educational organization.
Our current AMS Strategic Plan,
articulated in 2001, is a living document
that maps our goals as a Society. Your
board takes the implementation of this
plan seriously; we hold ourselves
accountable to you who have put your
trust in us. Our timeline for its realization coincides with AMSs 2007 celebration of the 100th anniversary of
Montessori education at our National
to be excellent editors and advisers and

through their work we will all be better
informed. Let's give them that chance.
Plan to submit your ideas now; both
you and we will be rewarded.
PATTI TEPPER-RASMuSSEN
AMS Past President
Sonnie McFarland
Marilyn Stewart
Kristin Whitlock
Representatives
Jean Marie Brown, Parent
Penny HildeBrandt Cichucki, Heads Section
Dr. Betsy Coe
Teacher Education Committee Chairperson
Donna Kaiser
Teachers Section Chairperson
Conference in New York City. In summary, the AMS Board has committed
itself to:
Serving our membership with diligence, consistency, and professionalism
Positioning AMS as the comprehensive Montessori resource for our members and the general public
Supporting and publishing research
that documents and validates outcomes
of Montessori education
Providing an array of professional
development vehicles that support a
best practices culture in our schools and
among our professional ranks
Collaborating proactively with Montessori and other educational groups in
order to amplify our impact on public
awareness and policy
Managing our organizations finances
responsibly in order to remain a stable,
viable force in the educational world.
In order to best serve our membership, we need effective leadership and a
talented, hardworking staff. The Ams
office staff, led by marie m. Dugan, our
interim executive director, is truly the

wind beneath the wings of our organizations progress. To visit the AMS office
on any given day is to witness a
buzzing hive of productive people in
action, each of whom is competent, dedicated, and professional. Marie, in her 7
months as interim executive director,
has streamlined processes and clarified
roles, supporting an attitude of responsiveness to our members while moving
the organization forward. By the time
you read this article we will likely have
a new executive director in place, as the
board interviewed final candidates for the
position in early November. We cannot
thank Marie enough for her willingness
to jump into this demanding position
and for moving us forward with clarity,
wisdom, and dedication.
You have told us repeatedly that
Montessori LiFE ranks high on your list
of benefits of AMS membership. An
award-winning educational journal, it is
a vital resource for teachers, schools, and
parents, with the potential to reach everwidening audiences. Those of us who
collaborated in the selection of the new
editors and production team viewed this
as an extremely im-portant charge. We
are excited about the energy and skill set
that our new team brings to the magazine. The editorial team of Kathy carey
and carey Jones offers the perspectives
of two generations as well as professional editorial and writing skills and years
of Montessori experience. Our new
design team, martin skoro and ross
rezac of martinross Design, brings a
fresh approach to magazine design
honed through years of award-winning
work in their hometown of Minneapolis.
We trust that this team will honor the
great success of the previous editor, Joy
starry turner, while guiding the magazine to the next level.
In April 2000, AMS held a research
colloquy in New York City. Organized
by Dr. Peggy Loeffler, the colloquy
brought together noted university scholars and Montessorians in an attempt to
outline a Montessori research agenda.
Dr. vito Peronne of Yale university and
6
Carey Jones and Kathy Carey,

new editors of Montessori LIFE
others commented that in all the

Montessori literature they had read,
they did not get a lived feel of
Montessori in action. Dr. margot ely
and her research associate Beln matas
of the NYu Depart-ment of Education
have recently completed a study entitled
montessori moments: voices of
teachers, students, and graduates.
This study (previous working title:
Voices from the Field) is a compilation
of vignettes from Montessori classroom
teachers describing Montessori principles in action through daily classroom
practice. Its publication adds a significant piece of qualitative research to the
existing research literature. It is also a
great read. This document will be available soon to our membership. Thanks to
marlene Barron and West side
montessori school for providing major
funding for this important project.
Please check the calendar page of
this issue as well as the AMS web site
(www.amshq.org) for locations and
dates for this years teachers section
touring symposia (Practical Life
through the Ages, with martha
mcDermott, holly stoehr, and shanna
honan, and Children, Learning
Differences, and Montessori, with
casey Barnett). Also, note that the AMS
school consultants training is offered
in five cities. Two of the trainings (in
Orlando, FL and San Mateo, CA) are
offered in conjunction with Touring
Symposia. heads of schools will want to
gear up for the heads section retreat in
Riviera Maya, Mexico, in January (a great

opportunity for networking). And, we
look forward to meeting and greeting as
many members as possible at the Ams
national conference, chaired by
Debbie Kelley (debbie.kelley@brickton.org) and molood naghibzadeh
(molood@yahoo.com) in Chicago this
spring (March 31-April 3). The theme:
montessori education: connecting,
giving, receiving, beautifully sums up
the synergistic nature of our work with
children and adults. No one of us can do
it alone. Perhaps this truth is at the very
heart of best practices.
Thanks to steady and conscientious
work from AMS board treasurer Joyce
Pariser and AMS vice president of
finance & operations carol monroe as
well as diligent board oversight, AMS is
in solid financial shape. We completed
fiscal year 2004 with a healthy surplus
(audited figures available in the Annual
Report, Spring 2005), putting over
$60,000 into our reserve account. having
passed a 5- year financial plan, we are
looking for ways to boost membership
in all categories while improving services to members. We have planned sites
for our national conferences through the
year 2010, ensuring good locations as
well as ample planning time for local
committees.
Your AMS board continues to work
hard to support your best practices as
we move forward with organizational
goals intended to bring Montessori education and AMS into the educational
forefront.
MARTHA TORRENCE is AMS president.
She formerly served on the AMS Board of
Directors (1995-2004) as Teachers Section
chair. Martha is a teacher at The New School
in Cincinnati, OH, and a teacher education
program faculty member for CMTE/NY.
She can be reached at mltorrence@earthlink.net.
FROM THE EDITORS

editing roxx!
By Kathy Carey and Carey Jones
Welcome to our first issue of Mon-tessori
LiFE. With humility and some trepidation, we set out our instruments (pencils,
laptops, dictionaries, style guides, and
cell phones) and begin this adventure
with full knowledge of the eminent and
accomplished individuals who have
preceded us and in whose path we dare
to walk.
hope is an audacious virtue because it
moves us to act in spite of the uncertainty of the future. We hope, in the spirit of
Maria Montessori, to deliver a magazine
that will inform, inspire, educate, and
provoke lively discussion.
But this is not a journey upon which
we embark alone. We, too, are members
of the Montessori community, and, as
such, need contributions from all corners of the membership if we are to
serve the needs of the community. We
have in mind some very specific ways
you can contribute:
1. Write articles for Montessori Life.
We welcome articles of interest to our
diverse membership. Each issue will
have a theme, but submissions need not
be limited to that theme. We believe our

readers are interested in research, practical classroom applications, human interest
stories, history, theory, and opinion.
Look for more detailed submission
guidelines to appear soon on the AMS
web site: www.amshq.org.
2. send frequent letters to the editor.
A vibrant dialogue is essential to the
health of any magazine. Letters let us
know what you want, what you think
about, what you disagree with, and
what you like or find useful. Letters are
a way of communicating with the
authors on topics of continuing interest
and a vehicle for expressing your point
of view to the larger Montessori community. Send your thoughts to editor@amshq.org.
3. contribute to a new humor column.
Send us anecdotes of humorous things
that have happened in the classroom or
in teacher education programs. Send us
cartoons by teachers, staff, and students.
Laughter is a most effective means of
building strong communities. Send your
funny stuff to editor@amshq.org.
4. Attend the Montessori Life session
at the Ams 45th national conference,
march 31-April 3, 2005. Meet the editors,
review submission guidelines, learn how to
present your ideas, research, or opinions

effectively in print, ask questions, give
us feedback, and eat chocolate. (We serve
chocolate at all our meetings.)
5. contribute to a section on montessori graduates. Montessori's desire was to
facilitate the development of lifelong
learners. We intend to feature, in brief
biographies,
adults
who
were
Montessori children. Send their stories,
including the influence Montessori has
had on their lives, and pictures to editor@amshq.org.
Before "roxx," we must thank all
those responsible for our being here: the
editor search committee, Joy Turner,
Bretta Weiss Wolff, Marcy Krever, Mimi
Basso, and all the amazing, competent
members of the AMS office staff, the
AMS board, and Marie M. Dugan. (We
were going to add our parents, our
agents, providers of our fair trade coffee...but it got to be a little too much.)
Now, about the roxx. Editing roxx
because we get to read everything first,
make new friends, live on the edge of
constant deadlines, create something
where once there was nothing (without
weight gain but certainly with labor
pains), make new friends, and, best of
all, reflect the "necessity" of Montessori.
Write for Montessori LIFE
Call for Photos
Do you have ideas and experiences you can contribute to Montessori LIFE? The magazine is soliciting
articles for upcoming issues:
Does your school have professional photographs of

students in the classroom? If so, they may be included
in a future issue of Montessori LIFE.
Spring 2005
Spotlight: Food/Nutrition
Submission deadline 1/15/05
We're building our archive of photos, and welcome

your submissions. We accept both hard copy and
electronic photos. Hard copy photos should be photographs, not negatives (include a SASE for return of
photographs). Photos on CD should be 100% size, tiff
for Macintosh, minimum 300 ppi (pixels per inch), RGB.
Summer 2005
Spotlight: Music
Fall 2005
Spotlight: Leadership
Please also include a credit for each image (name of

photographer, school, and location at which each
photo was taken), along with a release giving permission to reprint.
Please contact Kathy Carey at editor@amshq.org if

you're interested in writing or for more details.
To submit photos, please contact Kathy Carey at

editor@amshq.org.
AMERICAN MONTESSORI SOCIETY
45th National Conference

March 31 April 3, 2005
Join us along
the lakefront of
beautiful downtown
Chicago for four
thought-provoking
and congenial days
Photo courtesy Chicago Convention and Tourism Bureau
of workshops,
keynote addresses,
networking, and
special events.
CHICAGO
www.amshq.org
212-358-1250 p
212-358-1256 f
info@amshq.org
MARRIOTT
DOWNTOWN
CHICAGO
ILLINOIS
Co-chairs: Deborah A. Kelley,

Brickton Montessori School &
Molood Naghibzadeh,
Montessori School of North Hoffman
MONTESSORI MILESTONES
THE TEN
grant to Fund montessori

education in chicago
4. Outstanding Rambusch Lecture

Series speaker, Dr. Pedro
Noguera
Chicago Public Schools (CPS) has

received an $8.9 million grant to create
five new magnet schools over the next
3 years, one of which will be a new
Montessori program.
Drummond, a year-round elementary school in north Chicago, will offer
a Montessori program initially to
serve students in pre-kindergarten
and kindergarten, eventually building
to a pre-K through sixth grade enrollment. Midwest Montessori Teacher
Training Center (MMTTC), Evanston,
IL, under the direction of Louise and
Michael Kunert, is providing training
and consultation for the three early
childhood specialists and four administrators currently participating in
the program. The Kunerts were also
involved in the development stages of
5. Share peace with new friends,

harmonize with old friends
In memory
FIRST-CLASS* REASONS
TO ATTEND THE 45TH
NATIONAL CONFERENCE,
March 31 April 3, 2005
1. Meet old friends, make new

friends
2. Stimulating, all new, super-sized
sessions
3. Opportunities to gab with the
editors of Montessori LIFE
6. Distinguished, entertaining
speakers including AMS 2005
Living Legacy Celma Pinho Perry
7. Accumulate continuing education credits
8. Enjoy many photo ops with the
editors of Montessori LIFE
9. Occasion to burn the candle at
both ends and call it "fun"
10.The lake, the shopping, the
museums...oops, that's more
than ten!
*Coach not available at this time.
To register or for
more information:
www.amshq.org.
(go to Events and then to
National Conference)
sarah Jett Frost

Sarah Jett Frost died on March 18,
2004 at her home in Fluvanna County,
VA. Sarah was born in Norfolk, VA.
She was the founder and for 20 years
was head of the highly respected
Ghent Montessori School in Norfolk.
She is survived by her husband,
Laurence W. Frost, her brother, Rice
Arthur Jett, Jr. of Norfolk, her daughters, Sarah Eames of New York City and
Megan Tribble of Charlottesville, her
sons, Robert L. Frost of Raleigh, NC,
and Matthew W. Frost of Bluefield, WV,
and her nine grandchildren.
Donations may be made in her name
to Pancreatica.org, 5 harris Court,
Bldg. N, Suite 3, Monterey, CA 93940.
mark ross
Mark Joseph Moore Ross died
September 9, 2004, in Philadelphia. he
was born in West Grove, PA. he is survived by his wife Kathryn, their son
Will, their daughter Ariel, and his
brothers Timothy and Matthew.
Mark devoted his life to the sup-
the grant, providing both practical

and theoretical information.
Drummond will be the second Montessori school in the Chicago system,
joining Clissold Elementary School,
which currently has a waiting list of 25
students. These new magnet schools
are part of Mayor Richard M. Daleys
Renaissance 2010 plan announced in
June. Part of Renaissance 2010 provides for the creation of 100 additional schools over the next 6 years to offer
new educational options in underserved communities and to help relieve
overcrowding in communities experiencing rapid growth.
Chicago Public Schools is the
nations third-largest school district
and the second-largest employer in
Illinois. The school system operates
about 600 schools and serves more
than 434,000 students.
port of young children and the adults

who live and work with them. he
served as a Montessori preschool and
lower
elementary
teacher,
a
Montessori teacher trainer, a leader of
parenting classes, and a board member at the Colorado Rocky Mountain
School. he and his wife Kathryn cofounded the Mt. Sopris Montessori
School in Carbondale, CO, which he
directed for almost 20 years. he also
helped to start a Montessori program
within the public elementary schools
in Carbon-dale. In 2002 he became the
director of the Greene Towne School
in Philadel-phia and was an active
member of the local Montessori community for the last two years of his life.
In his memory, contributions may
be made to the Mark Ross Scholarship
for Teacher Training at the Mt. Sopris
Montessori School, 869 Euclid St.,
Carbondale, CO 81623, or the Mark Ross
Scholarship for Professional Development at Colorado Rocky Mountain
School, 1493 Co. Rd. 106, Carbondale,
CO 81623.
An Interview with Joy starry turner

Joy Starry Turner, a disciple of Maria
Montessori for 40 years, is best described as a
master classroom teacher and teacher educator (mentor to so many of us), and a
thoughtful and considerate leader who has
consistently challenged Montessorians of all
ranks to seek clarity and quality of belief
and practice. Mrs. Turner served as the editor of Montessori Life from 1989 to 2004,
earning awards from EdPress and inclusion
in the ERiC database. She has
also served on the AMS Board,
served as the president of the
Accreditation Council for
Childhood Education Specialist
Schools (ACCESS), and was the
first president and then executive director of the Montessori
Accreditation Council for Teacher Education (MACTE).
Kathy carey: The theme of this

issue of Montessori LiFE is Best Practices. What is your view of our best
practices?
Joy turner: I think of the Montessori
system as a unique and dynamic synthesis of three major elements:
the nature and development of the
children, which reflects self-construction, certain other universal characteristics, the influence of cultural circumstance, and the particulars of each individual and social group;
the role of the adult as planner,
observer, guide, and assessor; and
the environmentsphysical and
psychologicalprepared to provide a
safe space, support the needs of the particular children, and serve as means of
their growth.
While many chapters could be (and
have been) written about these elements and how they interact, I can list
some characteristics that I think are special strengths.
vertical grouping, that is, a mixed
age range over 2 or 3 years, gives the
younger children near-peer role models
and the older children opportunities for
10
mentoring and leadership.

Large time blocks (also called the
integrated day) encourage a natural
rhythm of activity cycles and ample
time for exploration, use, and repetition
of activities.
Individualization made tangible by
a high number of one-to-one adultchild interactions around the learning
materials and classroom culture and by
the teachers great respect
for the children and
his/her careful observations, record-keeping, and
assessment. Montes-sori
called teachers directresses
and I find a great similarity
to what a director does in
the theater: prepares the
setting, watches from the
wings, provides guidance, and coaches
or models when necessary.
the curriculum is embodied in tangible, concrete materials. These didactic
materials isolate and communicate a
particular concept or related group of
conceptsand this sets them apart
from the use of hands-on materials
referred to in contemporary early childhood literature. Many hands-on materials may not focus so clearly on a conceptor may not focus on one at all.
Some activities in a Montessori class are
present all or most of the time, to meet
the need for repetition and a wide
learning range, and some introduce
novelty (for example, theme projects
and activities in all curriculum areas
that are theme-related, supplementary
1-10 concept exercises in the math area,
new things to do in practical life, creating language activities that complement activities in other areas, art projects, etc.). In our best practice, when a
teacher or another child shows another
member of the class a way to use an
activity, it is involving, flexible, and
adaptable to the individual.
A childs skills and concepts can
build on each other because the activi-
ties and guidance are linked in certain

ways (similar to what Vygotsky called
scaffolding). As a best practice in Montessori schools, this also is a dynamic
process tailored to each individual, not
a rigid sequence for all.
An especially strong practice is positive discipline, found in many
Montessori schools but Im afraid not
all. By positive discipline I mean that
consequences are structured so that the
child can come out of the experience feeling better about himself than before.
Performance-based
assessment
typically includes more than one measure of childrens progress: teacher observations distilled from daily record-keeping, samples of childrens work, assessment of work habits and social skills,
perhaps even videotaped behavior
episodes and/or standardized tests. At
elementary levels and above, children
participate with self-evaluation and parent-teacher conferences.
A Montessori class has the potential
for high input from both children and
teachers. I know there are several other
approaches that make this possible
(some constructivist settings, Reggio
Emilia), but they lack the balance that
Montessori offers. Teachers identify
goals and prepare the environment,
children have opportunities to share
their interests, make their own activity
choices, and participate in choosing
subjects for special study.
Kc: The Montessori Accreditation
Council for Teacher Education (MACTE)
has been in existence for 14 years. What
is your evaluation of its effect today? Is
it serving its original purpose? how has
MACTE evolved? Or has it evolved?
Jt: The original purpose of what
became MACTE was to attain federal
recognition for Montessori teacher education from the uS Secretary of
Education. As it happened, this became a
unifying activity that brought together
almost all Montessori groups engaged
in teacher education and certification.
This enabled them to determine a set of
standards based on values held in com-
mon and on the models provided by

other existing accrediting agencies.
MACTE met its goal of federal recognition in 1992. Theoretically, the selfstudy and peer evaluation required by
the accreditation process result in
improvement of institutional quality
and in some degree of protection for the
consumer, as well as unity within the
field through agreement and support of
standards. MACTE has met its original
goals, at least as far as its development
of what constitutes quality.
As its first president, my wish for
the future of the agency is that it gear its
research toward a system of internal
comparison that reveals which practices are essential to a high quality of
teacher preparation. Follow-up studies
also are important and might investigate differences and/or room for
growth based on lasting outcomes of its
different models of training. The danger, of course, is that the accreditation
process becomes something of a rubber-stamp operation in which rigorous scrutiny is lacking. Its a problem
for any agency, but especially so for
MACTE, which I believe encompasses
divergent levels of expertise among its
members.
Kc: how are we doing in the area
of research? Are there certain areas or
issues we should be investigating?
Jt: I wish I could answer this question! I recall that AMS made a research
plan several years ago. Data collection
for the first phase was initiated (teacher anecdotes about classroom experiences they considered significant), and
analysis is underway. The research
agenda may be, as one AMS board
member used to put things, going
around our elbow to get to our thumb.
Answering a research question often
requires us to back up because other
questions must be investigated first, but
if I have a concern it is that we may
have backed up too far in identifying
what should be investigated. Parents
want to know if Montessori is the best
for their child, and if so, why it is better
than the other options out there. To

compare Montessori with other
approaches would require us to back
up and identify the outcomes of childrens school experience with matched
groups in Montessori and other types
of schools.
In order to address that issue, we
must back up again and identify several elements: the outcomes desired or
expected, with input from both Montessori professionals and parents and
the characteristics that define a
Montessori environment, among others. Outcomes studies are typically difficult to carry out, primarily because
some of the important outcomes
claimed by Montessori schools are not
measurable with the tests in common
use. New instruments might have to be
developeda major project in itself.
Some work has been done in the
area of defining characteristics of a
Montessori environment and adult role
within the context of teacher education.
AMS standards contain a description
for each 3-year age range of certification;
these standards were agreed upon by
the group of experts who constitute the
teacher education committee.
Aside from this, Im not aware of
any recent or ongoing studies that
address these big issues. We are still
a long way from having answers.
Kc: In your 1997 interview with
Bretta Weiss Wolff, you talked about
how Montessori terms dont necessarily have the same meanings for all
Montessorians. has this changed at all?
has research helped us bring our practices more in line with the model? (Can
we really talk about a model?)
Jt: I think of a model as a static pattern to be replicated, rather than reinvented as one goes along. Thus I prefer
to talk about Montessori as a system,
where interaction among those three
basic elements is dynamic. Im not
aware of any research within the
Montessori community that has addressed the divergence or congruity of
meanings for Montessori terms. I think
it is still needed.
Kc: As a teacher educator, I have
struggled with the difficulties of creating a learning environment for adults
that is faithful to the Montessori model
and to the spirit of Montessori, but I
dont feel I am even close after all these
years. how do you see the issue? Any
suggestions?
Jt: What you have stated here is a
contemporary goal and an important
area for potential growth for teacher
education programs. I believe that Jane
Nielson pioneered the idea in the
AERCO-Ithaca program 30 years ago. I
know that my own program, Montessori Western Teacher Training, has carried on that tradition, and perhaps
some others have as well.
It appears that Maria Montessori
herself was not troubled by any discrepancy between the environment she
found desirable for children and the
way she conducted her teacher education courses. her classes reflected standard higher education practices of the
time (c. 1910): lectures to large groups
with the expectation that students
would take notes, compile albums (for
examples of contemporary teacher education, check out the botany notebooks
on display at the Smithsonian), and
pass examinations. her labs (sessions
for practice with the materials) were a
break with traditional teacher education, but reflective of vocational education, which was on the rise at the time.
however, when it came time to find an
exemplary teacher for the Pan-Pacific
Exposition of 1917, Montessori (1964)
could find only one, helen Parkhurst,
indicating that she herself was less than
pleased with her results.
If we expect fledgling teachers to
foster childrens independence, sense of
identity, and responsible participation
in a social group, then we have to exemplify that for our adult students. It is
very likely that their own education
modeled something quite different
which is what they will fall back on in a
pinch, if their Montessori education has
11
not taken steps to help them see and
break up the old leadership patterns
and guide the formation of some new
and different ones.
To make changes in this direction,
there are several things programs can do:
identify the goals with the faculty,
so that they are modeling the same general behaviors of respect and instruction.
integrate the schedule, so that academic content sessions are interspersed
with child curriculum areas.
start the academic phase with a
communications workshop (at least 2
days, and 3 is better) led by an expert
group dynamics facilitator. This has the
goal of exploring educational history,
identifying and comparing values, and
bonding the cohort into a support
group right at the beginning. A refresher day should be scheduled in the middle of the academic phase. (In an integrated schedule this often coincides
with the beginning of Math and seems
to be a tension peak.)
use instructional strategies that
pick up on and refine those introduced
in the communications section (e.g.,
processing information or objectives in
dyads or triads). Strategies in all course
components (e.g., child development
and philosophy, as well as curriculum
areas) can actively engage the students
12
(there are hundreds of ways, once one

starts thinking in Montessori terms:
how can I involve the students in active
participation?).
model individualization and flexibility of demonstrations by always presenting learning materials/exercises to a
child (one of the adult students).
set aside some special sessions on
the topic of discipline. After theories
and aspects of the teachers leadership
role have been explored, allow plenty
of time for the role-play of situations.
Make up some typical classroom problems teachers face, write them on slips
of paper, and invite students to draw
them out of a hat. The other students
are called upon to role-play children;
the instructor can play the part of the
lead teacher in the event a rescue is
needed.
Kc: We have had a changing of the
guard at Montessori LiFE but I must
admit I am standing in your shadow
and just a bit intimidated. You have
brought the magazine so far. What do
you think the magazine needs to be
now and in the future? Any advice?
Jt: Thank you. The challenge faced
by this thin little magazine is pretty
monumental! It tries to meet the needs
of four types of readers: parents of children enrolled in Montessori schools and
interested others, teachers, heads of
schools, and teacher educators. On my

watch it hovered somewhere between
magazine and journal, with more
weight on the journal side. Id like to
see an increase in the number of articles
written by teachersthe people in the
trenches, so to speak. Id love to see
research studies on Montessori populations, especially some by professionals
who are not Montessorians. I think
there is a high interest in letters to the
editor, so I encourage people to write
them.
I think ML needs and deserves a
new lookafter all, it has been 15
years since any major revamping
occurred, aside from moving to four
colors and a variety of headline types. It
could benefit from some new fonts, an
occasional bolder color, more illustrations and photos, more white space. I
was always well intentioned about
more white space, but when it came to
a choice between that or more content,
Im afraid content won out every time!
The content should continue to
reflect both new ideas and strategies
within the Montessori community and
rethinking of old ones. It also should
include more general issues within the
fields of child development, early education, and leadership.
I have no doubt that it will remain a
credible publicationa resource car-
ried in ERIC; a member of EdPress and

five-time award winner; but most centrally, as identified in the last two surveys of teacher members by AMS, the
resource they regard as their most
important benefit of membership.
Kc: You have been through many
life-changing experiences in the past
few years. have your views or feelings
changed in any dramatic way as a
result?
Jt: This question sounds a little like
an if-you-had-it-to-do-over-again! My
life has certainly changed, but basic
views or feelings? No, I dont think so. I
have always valued life, and that has
just deepened with getting older and
also with illness. The biggest change is
that my cherished business partner and
husband of 42 years passed away 2
years ago. I risked everything to save
our elementary and infant/toddler
classes when we lost their facility
because the lease ended. We built a
new facility, which could not have been
accomplished without the efforts of my
younger son, Geoff, his wife, Marci, our
wonderful staff, and the loan support
of a family in the school. If I had the
personal side of my life to do over, I
would first of all not smoke! I would sing
and dance more and have a little bit
more fun!
On the professional side, in the 40
years I have been a Montessorian,
thousands of children have passed
through my school and my life and
turned into adults! I am grateful to all
those families who have placed their
trust in my class or school and shared
their lives with me. Being a Montes-sori
teacher is one of the few jobs of which
one can say, this is worthy of my fullest
and best efforts, it is a way of making
an important contribution to the world
through each individual, and it is everchanging, new every day. Of course I
would do it again.
happy Anniversary!
Congratulations to the following schools on achieving significant anniversary
milestones! We wish them continued success in the future.
Diablo Valley Montessori School
Lafayette, CA
40th anniversary
St. Philomena Early Learning Center

honolulu, hI
25th anniversary
Laren Montessori School

South holland, IL
40th anniversary
Meadow Montessori School

Monroe, MI
20th anniversary
The Montessori Center of

South Dayton
Dayton, Oh
40th anniversary
Clark Montessori Junior

and Senior high School
Cincinnati, Oh
10th anniversary
Montessori School of Denver

Denver, CO
40th anniversary
If your AMS-member school or AMSaffiliated teacher education program

will soon be celebrating a decade or
quarter-century anniversary, we want
to know about it! Contact Carey Jones
at editor@amshq.org. Please include
your school name, city and state, and
head of school, and put school Anniversary in the subject line of your
e-mail.
Northwest Suburban
Montessori School
Arlington heights, IL
40th anniversary
Villa Montessori School
Phoenix, AZ
40th anniversary
Michigan Montessori Teacher
Education Center
Rochester hills, MI
35th anniversary
The Amelia Island
Montessori School
Amelia Island, FL
30th anniversary
The Greensboro Montessori School
Greensboro, NC
30th anniversary
The Elizabeth Ann Clune
Montessori School
Ithaca, NY
25th anniversary
Ghent Montessori School
Norfolk, VA
25th anniversary
Montessori Educational Center
Alexandria, LA
25th anniversary
Peach Tree Montessori School
Ann Arbor, MI
25th anniversary
congratulations
to recently Accredited schools!
Initial Ams Accreditation
ALEXANDER SChOOL INC.
James McGhee, head
Miami, FL
CRYSTAL LAKE MONTESSORI
SChOOL
Penny Cichucki, head
Woodstock, IL
Initial Ams Accreditation
with cooperating agency
PARK WEST MONTESSORI SChOOL
Dr. Kathy Roemer, head
New York, NY
(National Association for the Education
of Young Children)
RENAISSANCE SChOOL INC.
Kathleen Leitch, head
Fort Myers, FL
(Southern Association of Colleges
and Schools)
13
Pennies for Peace

By Christiane Leitinger
What happens when you cross an
extraordinary vision with extraordinary
Montessori mothers? You get Pennies for
Peace, a remarkable program in which
children across the country collected
pennies to build a school for their peers
in northern Pakistan. In November 2003,
Montessori School of Evergreen parents
Liz Little and Angel-ica Sorge (Sorge is
also a teacher at the school) had the
opportunity to hear Greg Mortenson
speak in Evergreen, CO. Mortenson is
the visionary behind the Central Asia
Institute (CAI), a small but vibrant nonprofit that builds schools for children in
areas of northern Pakistan and in
Afghanistan where, in many cases,
schools have never existed.
Little and Sorge were inspired by the
humanity of the stories that Mortenson
told: of people so eager to give their children the opportunity of education that
they donated their land and their labor
for new schools; and people who gladly
offer education to all of their children
not just to their sons (of the 8,200 children enrolled in CAI schools, 3,400 are
girls!). And these schools are a success:
CAI children perform better in school
than the average child in Pakistan (in
2003, fifth graders in CAI schools averaged 72% on standardized tests compared to the national average for Pakistan
of 44%).
Mortenson also recounted his experiences in Pakistan on September 11, 2001.
Most of the people in northern Paki-stan
have never seen a city, let alone skyscrapers of the magnitude of the World
Trade Centers twin towers. Yet when
they heard of the terrorist attack and the
resulting loss of lives, they gathered to
grieve with Mortenson. One very old
and poor woman brought him six eggs
to her, invaluable possessionsand
asked him to take them to the World
Trade Center widows.
CAI has a program called Pennies for
Peace, born out of the most significant
14
(and one of the first) donations the

organization ever receivedthe contents of the piggy bank of a little boy in
an elementary school in Minne-sota.
While a penny has no real value in the
united States, it can buy a pencil in
Pakistan. Little and Sorge decided to get
as many Montessori schools as possible
Montessori School, Nairobi, Kenya
together in a 12-state region to try to

raise 2.5 million pennies ($25,000)
enough money to build and endow a
school in Pakistan.
The idea took off! Children in
Montessori and even non-Montessori
communities discovered unique ways to
try and collect pennies. One child,
whose family was celebrating a wedding, asked if cards could be placed in
the invitations requesting that guests
bring pennies to the ceremony. An-other
child placed a jar on the counter at a deli
so patrons could leave their pennies.
This child kept patrons apprised of the
number of pennies collected by placing
a card next to the jar and updating it regularly. A second-grade girl invited
members of her congregation to donate
their pennies.
Eighteen schools across 12 states
signed on to collect pennies. Pennies
poured in, and children learned that
they could make a difference with something as small as a penny. Liz Littles
own daughter came to her in excitement
and exclaimed, Im going to build a
school, Mommy. I have never built a
school before!
The Pennies for Peace project dovetails beautifully with Maria Montessoris philosophy of cosmic education
teaching the child the interrelatedness of
the whole of the universe and his role in
it. When you explain to a child that he is
a piece of the puzzle of the universe,
and that his actions can affect others,
both near and far, he begins to
appreciate how the simple act of
collecting pennies can build a
school for children on the other
side of the world.
The 2003 drive raised $9,000 for
the Central Asia Institute. It was
not enough to build a school but
enough to help children half a
world away. This year, schools
across the country are embracing
Pennies for Peace and are hoping that the goal of $25,000 can
be met, so that a school built by children for children can become a reality.
Last year the mothers and children at
Montessori and non-Montessori schools
were not only attempting to build a
school, they were building a bridgea
bridge of humanity. They did not let
recent history sway them from understanding that each child in the world has
the right to an education. As our children learned more about the world
through this project, the children in
Pakistan learned that children here care
deeply for their well- being. Some day a
child from here and a child from there
may meetperhaps as scientists, perhaps as diplomats, perhaps simply as
travelers along the road of life, but they
will both be enriched because of pennies.
CHRiSTiANE LEiTiNGER heads the

Pennies for Peace drive. Contact her at penniesforpeace@hotmail.com or 303-674-7937.
More information about the Central Asia
institute can be found at ww.ikat.org.
ACCREDITATION
Accreditation:
Big Work, Big Benefits!
By Mimi Basso
I hear it often: I am too busy to
even think about accreditation. Or
Ill work on it as soon as I add the
elementary program, or finish the
building, or complete the capital campaign. I cant help thinking that these
are missed opportunities: opportunities
to gather the strengths within the
school community to reflect, collaborate, and strategize about the work
you do and aspire to do.
When was the last time you dedicated yourself to the process of selfassessment? And do you understand
that when it comes to accreditation,
process is as important as product?
Accreditation should be valued for
many reasons. It can be a symbol of an
elite status, as fewer than 10% of AMS
member schools are accredited. In
some states, accreditation is required
for licensing or necessary to be eligible
for funding. Parents see accreditation
as an assurance that the school meets
high standards.
In the educational community,

accreditation means trust. When a
school is AMS-accredited, it is recognized by the Montessori community
as an excellent institution that meets
high standards. It is also recognized as
a school that is true to its mission, and
a school that embraces the challenge of
looking critically at itself in order to
recognize strengths and opportunities
and to strategically plan for future
growth. Accredited schools are a
model for Montessori schools in particular, as well as for independent and
public schools in general.
Accreditation, as a process, is an
opportunity to think about, talk about,
and write about the uniqueness of
your school community. What are
your core values? how do they inform
school practices? how do your values
enrich the day-to-day experiences of
children in your school?
Accreditation is big work. It
requires an exhaustive self-study
process. A committee of stakeholders
including administrators, faculty, and
parents comprise the self-study committee. The committee begins with a
review of the Mission Statement. how
is the mission carried out in the daily
experience of the school? Does the

school live its mission? Does the
school do what it says it does?
There are several non-negotiable
elements in the Standards for American Montessori Schools that must be
satisfied in order for a school to become
accredited. The most important one is
the requirement that each classroom
have a teacher who is Montessori certified for the age level being taught. The
AMS Accreditation Commission works
closely with schools that are in the
process of meeting this requirement.
Another required standard addresses multiple-age grouping, an
essential element of an authentic
Montessori school.
It is important to review the standards and discuss your schools readiness for accreditation with AMS. Many
member schools are ready for this next
exciting step; if you are, please contact
Mimi Basso at mimi@amshq.org or
212-358-1250.
MiMi BASSO is AMS vice president of

Membership Services, and director of
School Consultation & Accreditation.
15
ARCHIVES
Another voyagerAnother vision

By Marcy Raphael
n the summer 2004 issue of

Montessori LiFE, the Archives column focused on one of Montes-sori's
first American admirers, Ellen Yale
Stevens. Stevens' observation of
Montessori's practices in Italy and her
admiration for Montessoris thinking
about children led her to believe in the
application of Montessoris principles
to the temperament of the American
child. Once back in the united States,
Stevens organized a summer class at
her home on Long Island. There she
observed the responses of a mixed bag
of personalities to the Method as she
had seen it in several Roman schools,
and she noted the changes she felt it
necessary to make for these American
children. Nancy Rambusch followed
this procedure in the late 50s, insisting, as Stevens did, that the American
child had an imaginative force and
energy that called for a slightly different response from the environment.
Thus from the start of American
Montessori practice, observation of
the individual child called for the
teacher to hew to Montessori's scientific approach. To these teachers, "look
to the child" is not a bumper sticker
but a clear and necessary directive to
be followed by sensitive and intelligent response.
In this issue we meet another early
enthusiast, Carolyn Sherwin Bailey.
Born in 1911 in hoosick Falls, NY,
Bailey was home-schooled until the
age of 12. After graduating from
Lansingburgh Academy she went on
to Columbia Teachers College, now
home to the American Montessori
Society's archives. Bailey served as
principal of a Springfield, MA kindergarten and also as editor of American
Childhood magazine. During her career
she wrote 60 books for children; in
1947, Miss Hickory was honored with
the Newbery Medal. Bailey died in
1961 at the age of 86.
Just like Ellen Yale Stevens, Bailey
also spent time visiting Montessori
16
schools in Italy. her main interest during these visits was to observe several
children and their responses to the different Roman schools they attended.
In each case the children were under
the guidance of superb teachers who
knew how to see. In most cases these
teachers trusted the "third side of the
triangle," the environment.
Bailey is elegant at setting a scene.
She describes her interview with
Montessori with such sensory detail
Roman street life, the apartment at 5
Principessa Clotilde, and the lady herselfthat the background of the
Method becomes alive. She does the
same with the settings of the schools
with which she became familiar. Each
school activity is intimately and logically related to activities that the children have seen and are eager to imitate. Bailey describes the hunger of
children to do as well as the limitations imposed by a rigid middle-class
ethic on one side and poverty on the
other will allow. She describes children coming into the class for the first
or hundredth time: Margherita enters
"making a soul search for that 'good
thing' which will be her first silent
teacher" (Bailey, 1915, p. 14). In the
garden she finds that the rose she had
watered as a seed has bloomed
overnight.
Otello: "From his first day (he)
showed an amazing inventiveness
along the lines of disorder" (p. 40). he
gradually found that there was in the
class no "You must not" that required
him to answer, "I shall" (p. 41). Bailey
witnessed Otello's first experience of
his freedom to choose and his decision
to select a material to work with.
Placing cylinders properly he experienced "right-wrong" not only as a
physical and mental exercise but also
as a moral understanding. "...(for) the
little child who persists in a piece of
work and completes it is taking the
first steps toward a properly directed
will" (p. 43). Bailey goes on to show
Otello returning a dropped marble to
another childthe marble was highly
attractive to Otello, but it was not his

own. This is followed by the statement
that "the American child has the
strongest will, his gift from a vital
heredity, of any child in the world"
(p. 51). She relates this to the parental
battle to break a child's will that
results in the "reform schools and prisons ... so full of strong wills, beyond
bending" (p. 51).
Other chapters in the book deal
with the child's hunger to touch, and
the need to understand color and to
make connections between color as
purely presented and color as manifested in the physical world. Bailey
admires the child's thrust to do and to
make a difference. She describes the
social child whose need is to organize
groups. She follows the progress of
group learning and child-teaching as
"the directress hovered outside the
group, suggesting but not forcing herself upon the children... their greatest
interest is in the joy and power of
working and learning together"(p.
139). And here is the beauty: "...the
children learned to live together," and
they were "good together" (p. 139140). Bailey completes her thought on
social development by calling the last
phase of Montessori collective work "a
kind of flowering."
After children learn how to live
together, after they have worked
out intellectual problems together,
they are suddenly discovered to be
very kindly disposed toward each
other. It is as if the ultimate development of cooperation were the
elimination of war. It is not necessary to say to a group of Montessori
children 'Be good.' They could not
be otherwise than good. (Bailey,
1915, p. 147)
In a wonderful chapter on silence,
which we as teachers should take to
heart, Bailey ends her book by saying:
May we not give our little ones an
opportunity to step across the
threshold of the present into that
great silence which begins life and
also ends it, and which is melodious
for those who are trained to listen?

(p. 188)
My "collective work" on this article
has been completed with the joy of
doing, alone at the typewriter, but not
alone. Otello, Margherita, and the others who showed Carolyn Sherwin
Bailey how to see are here around the
large oak table, ready to hand me the
Wite-Out while keeping silent about
the need for it.
MARCY RAPHAEL is a former Montessori teacher at the Whitby School in Greenwich, CT. She works with the AMS
Archives Committee doing oral histories
of early Montessorians. She wishes to
thank Gerard Leonard for lending her the
book Montessori Children.
reference
Bailey, C. S. (1915). Montessori Children.
New York: holt.
Montessori Teacher Education Center

San Francisco Bay Area
American Montessori Society Credential Courses:
Infant and Toddler (ages Birth-Three)*
Early Childhood (ages 3-6)*
Elementary I and II (ages 69, 912 and 6-12)*
Administration / School Management
Satellite Early Childhood Programs:
Pensacola, FL and Vancouver, Canada
Undergraduate and Graduate Credit Available
EXCELLENCE IN TEACHER EDUCATION

Montessori Philosophy Faculty Extensive Curriculum Materials
For Information:
Pamela Zell Rigg, Ph.D.
16492 Foothill Boulevard
San Leandro, CA 94578-2107
(510) 278-1115 Fax (510) 278-1577
MACTE Accreditation*
AMS Affiliation
Approved by the
State of California BPPVE
17
Heads
PUTTING OUR HEADS TOGETHER
Professional and Personal Life Balancing Act

By Penny HildeBrandt Cichucki
y middle school students are

studying Seven Habits of Highly
Effective Teens, by Sean Covey,
as the basis for their Personal World
Curriculum. I am fortunate to be the
facilitator of that curriculum and as I
was preparing a presentation, I came
across the following quote from the
book in their daily journal: "Renew
yourself. You've got to take time for
yourself, to renew and to relax. If you
don't, you'll lose your zest for life."
This is an important life lesson to
share with adolescents, but an equally
important reminder for us, as heads of
schools. We all know it is important to
take time for ourselves, but how do we
find a way to do that with our busy lives
and with so many others depending
upon us? how do we encourage the
teachers in our schools, who dedicate
such long hours to providing wonderful
Montessori experiences for our children,
to take time to renew and relax? how do
we find a way to balance our personal
lives with our professional lives?
This is not an insignificant dilemma.
I'm sure many of us have experienced
some symptoms of burnout and have
witnessed it among our colleagues.
Recently I was reminiscing with some
dear friends, experienced heads of
schools, about how challenging it was
when our children were young and we
were trying to balance our responsibilities at home with our responsibilities at
school. I mentioned something that I
started when my daughter was young
and they suggested that I share that idea
with the readers of Montessori LiFE.
Years ago, a friend was giving a talk
on the topic of professional and personal balancing and her words profoundly
affected me. She said simply, "Take one
day a week and dedicate it to your family." At the time my daughter, Kate, was 2
18
years old and I had just started my

school. I was constantly in conflict about
time: time I wanted to spend with my
child, time I needed to spend on school
responsibilities, and time I
wanted to give my husband. I took my friend's
words to heart, and I chose
Sundays. I promised myself, my husband, and my
daughter that on Sundays I
would devote my time to
them. We would plan
something special to do
and they could count on my being there
in body, mind and spirit for that day. No
school work. No household chores. We
made special plans for each Sunday. We
would go to early church services, and
then go picnicking, biking, hiking, to the
zoo, sledding, canoeing, take a train ride
into Chicago, go to concerts, plays. A
favorite activity was spending the afternoon at the Art Institute of Chicago, but
it could be something as simple as baking bread together. The point was that it
was a planned activity, anticipated all
week, and it allowed me to feel comfortable devoting the rest of the week to my
school work.
My daughter is grown now, and living in Peru. She usually e-mails or calls
home on Sundays. I still use Sun-days as
a special day. My husband and I like to
use it as a special day to relax and spend
time together, or I use it as my personal

renewal time. As Montessori teachers
and administrators, we have a tendency
to give so much of ourselves professionally we need to encourage
each other to take time to
revitalize our personal "zest
for living" and restore balance to our lives.
Those of you who are
joining us in sunny Mexico
for the heads of Schools
Retreat the weekend of
January 14-17, 2005, will be
able to experience that balance firsthand. The workshop "The Development
of Montessori School Leadership: What
You have to Know to be Good at the
Work," with Jack Blessington, Bretta
Weiss Wolff, and Marie M. Dugan, will
be enlightening and invigorating. There
will be time for rest, time for exercise,
and time to reconnect with friends and
share ideas. What a treat in the middle of
winter! I look forward to seeing you
there.
PENNY HiLDEBRANDT CiCHUCKi is
chair of the AMS Heads Section and head of
Crystal Lake Montessori in Woodstock, iL.
She can be reached at pjk13@mc.net or
815-338-0013.
REFLECTIONS FROM THE FIELD

Teachers
Sharing Our Best Practices

By Donna Kaiser
hen the topic best practices in

Montessori education was
presented to me for this issue I
thought, what Montessori teacher, parent, or student doesnt know that
Montessori is the best practice! It seems so
simple to us as we embrace this amazing
philosophy and method every day in our
classrooms and homes.
I feel so fortunate that my school district implemented the Montessori
method in a public setting 14 years ago
and that I have been a part of it since the
beginning. Watching a staff come
together and a school grow is very
rewarding. I have always believed that
one thing that has helped Bunche
Montessori School succeed is that my
peers and I have not been afraid to
share, listen, and help each other. We

bring different views, strengths, beliefs,
and, yes, weaknesses to the school, but
we respect those differences and have
agreed to disagree as well as
to support one another.
My challenge to all of
you is to share your own
best practices boldly and
assiduously. You have them;
I know you do! Maybe you
have tweaked a key lesson
or come up with a challenging or enriching activity
go ahead, spread the word! A college
professor once told me that the highest
compliment he could be given was
when another teacher used an idea of
his. Now that Im a teacher, I find this
holds true for me as well.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu said,
The fundamental law of human beings is

interdependence. A person is a person
through other persons. This interdependence is a rich part of the Montessori
philosophy and whether
we are from a private
school, a charter school, or
from the public sector, we
all have our own best
practices and we need to
come together as a
Montessori community to
share and learn from each
other.
DONNA KAiSER is the Teachers Section
chair of AMS. She is a 6-9 teacher at Bunche
Elementary School in Fort Wayne, iN. She
can be reached at dgmkaiser@aol.com.
).&!.4 !.$ 4/$$,%2 4%!#(%2 %$5#!4)/.
#-4%.r9)NFANTAND4ODDLER&ACULTY
&ROM,EFT*UDY*OYNT6IRGINIA6ARGA,YN9ANUCK
#-4%.r9 STARTED THE FIRST -ONTESSORI )NFANT AND

4ODDLER4RAINING0ROGRAMINTHE5NITED3TATESUNDER
THE LEADERSHIP OF 6IRGINIA 6ARGA %VER SINCE THEN
WEVEBEENSETTINGTHESTANDARDFOR)NFANTAND4ODDLER
EDUCATION7ORKINGWITHOUREXPERIENCEDSTAFFYOULL
DEVELOPSKILLSTOOBSERVEUNDERSTANDANDRESPECTTHE
NEEDSOFCHILDRENFROMBIRTHTOTHREEYEARS9OULLLEARN
TECHNIQUES TO SUPPORT FAMILIES BUILD TRUST AND NUR
TUREDEVELOPMENT9OULLGAINTOOLSFORDESIGNINGAND
PROVIDINGBEAUTIFULSAFEDEVELOP MENTALLYAPPROPRI
ATE ENVIRONMENTS AND YOULL LEARN ABOUT YOUR OWN
LEARNINGANDDEVELOPMENT
.ATIONAL0ROGRAM 3UMMER)NSTITUTE .EW2OCHELLE.9

$URINGTHE3UMMER)NSTITUTEIN.EW2OCHELLE.9LIVEOBSERVATIONCLASSESAREHELDATTHE#-4%.r9SMODEL
CHILDCARECENTER4HE-ONTESSORI#HILDRENS#ENTERAT"URKE2EHABILITATION(OSPITAL7HITE0LAINS.9
#ALLUSFORINFORMATIONABROCHUREANDTOURDATES
#ALL&OR)NFORMATION

#ENTERFOR-ONTESSORI4EACHER%DUCATION.r9-AMARONECK!VE7HITE0LAINS.9
&AX sEMAILCMTENY BURKEORGsWEBSITEWWWCMTENYCOM
19
Parents
Identifying Best Practices:

What You See is What You Get
By Catherine McTamaney
ontessori classrooms are different. They look different
from other classrooms. The
curriculum is different from other curricula. The teachers are different from
other teachers. With all the ways in
which Montessori programs differ
from traditional schools, how can they
still reflect contemporary understanding of "best practices" for education?
If they did, wouldn't they look more
the same?
Not necessarily. Our current understanding of best practice includes in it
wide variations to serve the
developmental needs of individual children, particularly in early
childhood programs. The National
Association for the Education of
Young Children (NAEYC) contends that quality care for young
children must be age-appropriate,
culturally appropriate, and individually appropriate. Further, NAEYC
offers guidelines in five primary
areas for assessing the activities
that should be available for children in
high quality educational settings: grossmotor, fine-motor, language, cognitive,
and social development. understanding
how these standards are met and
exceeded in Montessori classrooms
can help parents to better understand
their own children's experiences.
Best Practice Allows for

gross motor Development
NAEYC asserts that, in order to
assure the proper development of children's gross-motor skills, certain types
of experiences must be available for
each child. First, the child must be permitted physical activity throughout
the day. In Montessori classrooms,
that translates to free movement
20
throughout the room. You may see

children sitting at tables, lying on the
floor, or climbing to a loft. You may
see children carrying heavy trays,
moving furniture, or handling cumbersome equipment. Consider the tiny
4-year-old who so diligently carries a
basin of water to the sink. The grossmotor coordination that is required for
daily activities is pervasive in
Montessori classrooms, instead of
being limited to the playground.
The Montessori Method values
children's freedom of movement as a
necessary precursor to their intellectual
development. Children aren't limited
Montessori Center School
to a few tables or chairs or asked to

remain still for long periods of time.
Children's natural impulse to move
and explore is respected as an inherent
indicator of their curiosity and their
developing self-control.
Likewise, NAEYC standards recommend that children be free to
move, explore and act upon objects in
their environment. Montessori is
clearly a hands-on curriculum! The
Montessori materials invite children's
exploration and experimentation.
Montessorians believe that children
far beyond the preschool years must
be able to experience concepts concretely before they understand those
concepts abstractly. Think about the
Binomial Cube: This seemingly difficult concept is offered as a puzzle to

young children, then named as an
equation for older children, and finally understood as an abstract algebraic
concept. The grossmotor activities of
the Montessori classroom are
designed to develop the confidence
and competence upon which children's further learning will be established. It's far more than just moving
around the classroom.
Best Practice Allows for

Fine motor Development
NAEYC requires that activities with
corresponding tools be provided
for children to develop finemotor skills. Montessori classrooms offer many of the same
tools as do traditional schools:
crayons, pencils, scissors, and
paints. But Montessori classrooms bring that development
further by increasing the range
and variety of fine-motor activities, often using tools that surprise parents with their complexity. Consider Practical Life, in
which children's fine-motor skills are
systematically supported through the
careful sequencing of activities.
Pouring large beans, then smaller
ones, then sand or salt requires an
increasing aptitude and developing
fine-motor skills. using a screwdriver
or peeling a carrot supports muscular
development in practical, applicable
skills. Sensorial materials provide
small knobs, tiny pieces, and figures of
various shapes and sizes. Further,
NAEYC requires opportunities for
practice. Montessori classrooms protect children's desire to repeat activities and to select materials that are
appropriate to them. Children are
encouraged to practice skills not only
Best Practice Allows for the

Development of Language and
communication skills
Teachers in high quality programs
universally value language development and communication skills.
National standards call for opportunities for children to talk and interact
with their peers and with adults.
Montessorians list among the essential
freedoms of the child "Freedom of
Language." In high quality classrooms, children are encouraged to
speak with adults and other children.
Best practices include teachers who
understand the development of language and use appropriate moments
to help develop and correct children's
language. Montessori classrooms are
filled with practical language development, from the nomenclature cards to
named objects within formal lessons,
to the assurance that adults in the
classroom will not speak down to children or use baby talk.
National standards also encourage verbal generation of ideas by children. Watch Montessori classrooms
during community meetings and
when children are problem-solving
with each other. During these times,

children's ideas are easy to notice. But
watch more closely and you'll see
them present throughout the day, as
children master materials and explain
how they did so to their friends or
teachers, and as children share with
each other lessons they've received or
make plans for activities to do together.
Because Montessori classrooms allow
for the natural development of social
networks among children, language in
these classrooms is spontaneous, rich,
and varied.
of muslin. Children imagine that the

knobbed cylinders are families, or that
the cubes of the pink tower are stories
in a building. There is no less dramatic
play in Montessori classrooms. Rather,
the imagination of these children
emerges from the children themselves
rather than from a teacher telling them
who they need to pretend to be each
day. The spontaneous creativity of
children in Montessori classrooms is
quite profound, and far surpasses the
stories or costumes adults could provide.
What About Dramatic Play?
Best Practices support

cognitive Development
National standards for early childhood education require that classrooms provide opportunities for
dramatic play. Parents rarely see
dramatic play in Montessori classrooms, though. Where are the dress-up
boxes? Where is the play kitchen? If
Montessori classrooms focus on the
individual development of the children
they serve, shouldn't dramatic play be
more present there?
Montessorians haven't abandoned
dramatic play. Indeed, Dr. Montessori's
own writings describe children's
inherent desire to practice the activities they observed in adults. But while
traditional classrooms may select a
theme for dramatic play, Montessori
classrooms allow this "play" to be created by the children instead of the
teacher. The materials of Practical Life
allow for children to practice the skills
they've seen their parents perform.
Listen carefully, though, to the language children use when they're
working with these materials, and you
may be surprised by how much more
is happening in the children's minds
than the simple pouring of water.
Montessori teachers describe watching children explore imaginary contents to the Opening and Closing
Containers lesson, or pretend to be
pouring tea for a guest, or imagine
stitching a button on a beautiful gown
when they're really working with
empty jars, pitchers of water, or snips
Children's cognitive abilities should

be supported in high quality classrooms through a variety of activities
designed to meet an equally wide
span of development. These activities
should support symbolic thought,
which Montessori provides through
the deliberate sequence from concrete
to abstract concepts and representations. Children understand first the
name and purpose of the object they
hold in their hands. From there, they
transfer that name to its picture, then
its outline. Finally, the child understands that a simple image can represent that original object. This sequence
is present in every area of the Mon-tessori classroom, from recipe cards in
Practical Life to grammatical diagrams
in Language.
Activities should also allow for
the development of concentration,
which is highly valued and protected
in the Montessori classroom. Children's activities are not interrupted by
adults and are protected from the
interruption of other children.
Activities should also allow for
concept acquisition and the development of reasoning. The self-correcting
materials of Montessori classrooms
support children's individual problemsolving skills while providing concrete
concepts for the child to master.
Likewise, each of these activities,
according to NAEYC, should provide
21
Parents
through repeated experiences with the

same materials, but also through constant exposure to diverse and enticing
materials that develop similar skills.
National standards require appropriate expectations of fine-motor
development from teachers. The Montessori teacher, who has been well
educated in the many ways in which a
child can show mastery of skill, is
attentive to each child's development.
Montessori classrooms provide ample
and various means by which children
can develop the muscles in their
hands, for example, long before the
children are ever expected to hold a
pencil or write their names. Again, the
careful sequencing of activities which
increase in difficulty and complexity
as the child develops supports the
emergence of children's skills at a pace
appropriate for each child.
Parents
opportunities for information processing through meaningful activities,

without an expectation of rote memorization and within an organized
structure. Montessori classrooms are
filled with meaningful activities, with
an expectation that children would prefer to do "the real thing" rather than
pretend. The natural exposure to concepts without heavy memorizing and
the consistent and predictable structure
of Montessori allows children's cognitive development to unfold rapidly.
Best Practices Allow for social

and emotional Development
Social-emotional experiences in
early childhood help form a child's
sense of self and his ability to interact
and to be successful with unpredictable situations in the future.
Among the ways that both NAEYC and
Montessori classrooms value this
social-emotional
development
is
through open support for cooperative
play (visible in small groups of children working together), alternatives
to aggression (Montessori community
meetings or peace tables), adult awareness of children's fragile self-concept
(apparent in the deep respect and
compassion shown children by their
Montessori teachers), and appropriate
discipline. NAEYC asserts that quality
classrooms will help individual children develop a sense of self-reliance,
independence, responsibility, success,
and problem-solving. What accurate
terms to describe a Montessori child!
Is montessori consistent
with Best Practices?
There are a few complaints sometimes
levied against Montessori programs.
People suggest that Montessori is too
structured, that creativity or social
interactions are limited. Others complain that Montessori is too free, that
children learn bad habits or that teachers allow children to do whatever they
want. But healthy Montessori classrooms allow for enough structure to
provide the predictability that benefits
22
children's developing sense of their

environments, and provide freedom
within that structure for children to
explore, make mistakes, develop new
ideas, and test boundaries. healthy
Montessori programs provide abundant opportunities for children to
socialize with each other and share
their joys and challenges. The buzz of
an active Montessori classroom is the
sound of children enjoying their experiences and enthusiastically relating
those successes to others.
Because Montessorians use the
language of "work" instead of "play,"
people sometimes assume that Montessori classrooms aren't fun. This is
far from the truth. Montessorians use
the word "work" to describe every-
and their frustrations seem surmountable. Children take responsibility for

each other not because it is "the rule,"
but because they are supported in
developing inter-reliant relationships
in which they are deeply invested. In
short, Montessori may be the most
ideal representation of best practice
because, when educated teachers follow individual children's development in carefully prepared environments, Montessori proves, each day,
that children are more creative, more
compassionate, and more capable than
any standard could define.
The buzz of an active
CATHERiNE MCTAMANEY is a doctoral candidate in the Department of

Leadership, Policy and Organizations at
Vanderbilt University. Her work has been
published in Mothering magazine and
the NCME Montessori Reporter.
Montessori classroom is the
Bibliography
sound of children enjoying

their experiences and
enthusiastically relating
those successes to others.
thing the child does, because the
child's "work" is to learn about the
world and find his or her place within
it. healthy Montessori classrooms are
visibly joyful. Children are peaceful
not because they are being forced to
be, but because their needs are met
Bredekamp, S., & Rosegrant, T. (1992). Reaching

potentials: Appropriate curriculum and assessment
for young children. Washington, DC: National
Association for the Education of Young
Children.
Bredekamp, S., Copple, C., & members of NAEYC
(1997). Developmentally appropriate practice in
early childhood programs. Washington, DC:
National Association for the Education of
Young Children.
Puckett, M.B., & Black, J., (2000). The young child:
Development from prebirth through age eight.
New York: J. Prentice hall.
Lillard, P. (1997). Montessori in the classroom: A
teacher's account of how children really learn.
New York: Schocken.
"EINGACHILDISTOFEELTHEJOYSOFLIVING
4EACHINGACHILDISTOKNOWTHEDELIGHTSOFLIFE
%DUCATINGANADULTTOTEACH
ISTOGENERATETHEPROMISEOFHUMANITY
&07(
1<
,QIDQW 7RGGOHU
(OHPHQWDU\,
(DUO\&KLOGKRRG
(OHPHQWDU\,,
(OHPHQWDU\,,,
6FKRRO0DQDJHPHQW
!-3!FlLIATED
&HQWHUIRU0RQWHVVRUL7HDFKHU(GXFDWLRQ1<KDVEHHQZRUNLQJZLWKQHZDQGWHQXUHG
WHDFKHUV SXEOLF DQG SULYDWH VFKRROV FKLOG FDUH FHQWHUV DGPLQLVWUDWRUV FRUSRUDWLRQV
DQGSDUHQWVVLQFHWUDLQLQJWHDFKHUVOHDGLQJZRUNVKRSVDQGFRQVXOWLQJSURJUDPV
:HFRQGXFWDIXOOUDQJHRI0RQWHVVRULWHDFKHUHGXFDWLRQFRXUVHVIURPELUWKWRDJH
DVZHOODVDSURJUDPLQ6FKRRO0DQDJHPHQW2XUPRGHOFKLOGFDUHFHQWHUSURYLGHVOLYH
REVHUYDWLRQH[SHULHQFHVRIEHDXWLIXO0RQWHVVRUL,QIDQW7RGGOHUDQG(DUO\&KLOGKRRG
HQYLURQPHQWV
1DWLRQDO3URJUDP6XPPHU,QVWLWXWH1HZ5RFKHOOH1<
,QIDQW 7RGGOHU(DUO\&KLOGKRRG
(OHPHQWDU\,(OHPHQWDU\,,(OHPHQWDU\,,,
6FKRRO0DQDJHPHQW
$GGLWLRQDO/RFDWLRQV$OVR$YDLODEOH
(DUO\&KLOGKRRG
3KRHQL[$=:DOGZLFN1-+ROOLGD\VEXUJ3$
(OHPHQWDU\
3KRHQL[$=/H[LQJWRQ0$
&DOO)RU,QIRUPDWLRQ
&HQWHUIRU0RQWHVVRUL7HDFKHU(GXFDWLRQ1<
0DPDURQHFN$YH:KLWH3ODLQV1<
)D[HPDLOFPWHQ\#EXUNHRUJ
ZHEVLWHZZZFPWHQ\FRP
23
Best PraCtiCes
educating for Peace:

A montessori Best Practice
By Sonnie McFarland
it is upon peace that the very life of the nation
depends, perhaps even the progress or decay

of our entire Civilization.
o said Maria Montessori 72 years
ago. She had experienced the horrors and ravages of World War I
and was speaking to the Inter-national
Office of Education in Geneva,
Switzerland about the necessity of consciously educating children for peace.
She believed that the seeds of war and
violence begin with young children
who are not recognized for their intrinsic value.
When the independent life of the child is

not recognized with its own characteristics and ends, when the adult man
interprets these characteristics and
ends, which are different from his, as
being errors in the child which he must
make speed to correct, there arises
between the strong and the weak a
struggle which is fatal to mankind. For it
is verily upon the perfect and tranquil
spiritual life of the child that depends
the health or sickness of the soul, the
strength or weakness of the character,
the clearness or obscurity of the intellect.
(Montessori, 1986, p. 20)
She went on to say,

But, when the intrinsic value of the
child's personality has been recognized
and he has been given room to expand,
as in the case of our school (when the
24
(Montessori, 1986, p. 3)
child creates for himself an environment suited to his spiritual growth), we

have had the revelation of an entirely
new child whose astonishing characteristics are the opposite of those that had
hitherto been observed. We may,
therefore, assert that it would be possible, by the renewing of education, to
produce a better type of man, a man
endowed with superior characteristics
as if belonging to a new race... herein
lies the part that education has to play in
the struggle between war and peace...
(Montessori, 1986, pp. 20, 21)
Since Maria Montessori began her

first Children's house in Rome, we
have witnessed the unveiling of "new
children" who fulfill their potentials
and live from centers of integrity, with
positive regard for all life. Indeed, they
give us hope for a more peaceful world
in the future.
As Montessori educators we have a
great gift to offer the worldan educational philosophy and practice that
encourages children to be peaceful
within themselves, with others, and in
the environment. This is accomplished
first by respecting the intrinsic nature
of each child, secondly by preparing
learning environments to meet the
physical, intellectual, emotional, and
spiritual needs of the children, and

finally by providing sensitive, knowledgeable adults to guide the process.
With these three elements in harmony,
children thrive. They feel good about
who they are, what they do, and how
they relate to others. They desire peace
because they experience it within themselves.
While all the elements for peace are
inherent in the Montessori classroom,
there are ways to enhance and expand
its manifestation. In this same speech to
the International Office of Education,
Maria Montessori called for a conscious
effort to create a Science of Peace.
how strange it is therefore that there
exists no science of peace, no science
with an outward development comparable at least with the development of
the science of war in the matter of
armaments and strategy... We must
gather together all the elements of this
new world and organize them into a science of peace. (Montessori, 1986, pp. 3,
21)
her words challenged me to define

peace, and as I met with various audiences over the last few years, I raised
the question "What is peace?" Almost
everyone had a different idea about
what constituted peace. I then asked
myself: how can we systematically and
consciously educate our children for
peace if we have difficulty defining it?
Exploring these various aspects of
peace led to the development of a holistic model, my framework for peace
education from birth through adulthood. It is called the Flower of Peace Model
and is fully described in my new book,
Honoring the Light of the ChildActivities

to Nurture Peaceful Living Skills in Young
Children (McFarland, 2004).
Through this framework, we can
more clearly understand what constitutes peaceful activities, what activities
we are actually offering, and what
additional areas we need to include in
our classrooms. We can also observe
and measure the results of the conscious implementation of peace activities and more readily share these
results with others.
This model is a holistic model which
means that the outer world is seen as a
reflection of the collective inner world.
It is only through changing the hearts of
individuals that lasting peace can be
maintained. Political peace is only as
good as the personal peace among people.
The six basic elements of this model
are:
1) Spirit of Love
2) Basic Needs and human Rights
3) Self-awareness
4) Community Awareness
5) Cultural Awareness
6) Environmental Awareness.
spirit of Love
The Spirit of Love refers to the connecting love that resides deep within all
people, all of nature and throughout
the universe. This model focuses on the
interrelationship of all things with the
Spirit of Love as the common bond.
This is central to Montessori's Cosmic
Education with its deep reverence and
respect for all life. This is probably the
most important element of peace education. If we teach with love, awe and
wonder, we touch the heart and spirit
of children. And when the heart is
touched, peace emanates from it.
Basic needs and human rights

In order for peace to flourish and
human dignity to be sustained, people's
basic needs for food, clothing, shelter,
safety, health care, education, work,
and freedom must be met. In our
Montessori classrooms we focus on the
basic needs of people and encourage

the children to develop understanding,
empathy, and compassion for others.
This work often culminates in various
service learning projects where the children become involved in thoughtfully
helping others. Many of our Montessori
children become involved with various
united Nations Non-Governmental
Organizations (uN-NGO's) that work to
meet the basic needs and human rights
of individuals around the world.
self-awareness
Self-awareness activities are those
that bring greater understanding and
appreciation of the beauty, characteristics, talents, and creative potential within each individual. In our Montes-sori
classrooms, we seek to develop selfawareness through the reflection of the
light within each child, and through
personal care, grace and courtesy, selfmanagement skills, creative expression,
journaling, self-reflection, choice-making, fostering independence, character
education, and the lessons of silence.
community Awareness
Community Awareness activities
focus on developing safe and nurturing
communities that encourage respect for
others and facilitate effective interpersonal relationships. In our Montes-sori
classrooms we develop community
awareness through activities of grace
and courtesy, sharing, cooperative
learning, listening, empathy training,
problem-solving, group meetings, conflict resolution, service learning, mentoring, and acknowledgments.
cultural Awareness
Cultural Awareness activities recognize the connection or commonality
among people and attend to understanding and appreciating cultures,
developing compassion for others, and
encouraging commitment and involvement when responsible action is called
for. In our Montessori classrooms we
develop cultural awareness through
our work with the fundamental needs
of people, human rights, similarity and
diversity of other cultures, multi-cultural arts, service learning projects, cultural exchanges, and cultural immersion experiences.
environmental Awareness
Environmental Awareness activities
establish an appreciation for the interconnectedness and fragility of our global environment, including our place in
it. Furthermore, we emphasize care for
the environment, encourage responsible use of the environmental resources,
and promote responsible engagement
when action is called for. In our
Montessori classrooms we achieve
environmental awareness through the
study of the universe, the earth and its
elements, botany and zoology, habitats,
terrains, the care of plants and animals,
gardening, recycling, ecology, use of
resources, the food chain, and outdoor
education.
It is important that we become
aware of what we are presenting in the
area of peace education and do our best
to create a balance of activities within
Basic Needs and human Rights, Selfawareness, Community Aware-ness,
Cultural Awareness, and Environ-mental Awareness. It is also important that
we look at how we are presenting these
activities. Are we filled with the spirit
of love? Are we inspiring wonder and
awe in our students? The more we can
answer yes to these questions, the more
we touch the hearts of the children and
educate for peace.
In May 1999 over 10,000 people representing organizations from around
the world came together in The hague
in the Netherlands to organize a collaborative and cooperative global effort for
peace and against violence. Of the 50
resulting agenda items, the first and
most critical:
insists that peace education be
made compulsory at all levels of the
education system
demands that education ministries
systematically implement peace education initiatives at local and national levels
calls on development assistance
25
agencies to promote peace education as

a component of their teacher training
and materials production
Since that time, a global network of
individuals and groups committed to
the implementation of peace education
at every level throughout the world has
coalesced. The organization leading
this effort is the hague Appeal for
Peace in New York City. In 2002, Dr.
Betsy Coe, Pat Yonka, and I were invited to speak to a gathering of international peace educators at the hague
Appeal for Peace. Our purpose was to
share how Montessori schools implement peace education at all levels. We
used the Flower of Peace Model as a
framework to describe what we do.
We realized that Montessorians are
one of the few groups that address the
young child and recognize the importance of educating for peace at this most
sensitive stage of development. Most
peace curriculums are designed for elementary-age and older children.
The world today is in dire need of a
culture of peace and nonviolence. We

as Montessori educators have a great
gift to share with the worldour best
practice of educating for peace.
Parent Child Press (Peace Books)

www.parentchildpress.com
SONNiE MCFARLAND, a leader in the
field of peace education, has more than 30
years of experience as a Montessori teacher
and head of school. She is a member of the
American Montessori Society Board of
Directors and chairs the AMS Peace
Committee.
Peace resources
Peace and Education
by Maria Montessori
available at www.amshq.org
Peace Seed Connection Newsletter
www.amshq.org
AMS Peace Table (Peace Materials/uN
Materials)
patyonka@aol.com
7HDFKHU(GXFDWLRQ
6LQFH
(DUO\&KLOGKRRG
(OHPHQWDU\, ,,
6HFRQGDU\,
+286721
0217(6625,
&(17(5
$IODWHGZLWK$PHULFDQ0RQWHVVRUL6RFLHW\
$FFUHGLWHGE\0$&7(
$SSURYHGDQG5HJXODWHGE\7H[DV
:RUNIRUFH&RPPLVVLRQ
(OLVDEHWK&RH3+''LUHFWRU
.DW\)UHHZD\6XLWH
+RXVWRQ7H[DV

26
hague Appeal for Peace (free newsletter and materials)

www.haguepeace.org
Shining Mountains Press (Peace Books)

shiningmts@aol.com
Night Light Publications (Peace Books)
www.nightlightpublications.com
Cheryl Melody Productions (Peace
Songs) www.cherylmelody.com
references
Montessori, M. (1986). Peace and education.
Adyar, Madras, India: Visanta Press, 3.
McFarland, S. (2004). Honoring the light of the
child: Activities to nurture peaceful living skills
in young children. Buena Vista, CO: Shining
Mountains Press.
Columbus Montessori
Teacher Education Program
Early Childhood
(2 1/2 - 6 years)
Faces
of the
Future. . .
Infant/Toddler
(Birth - 3 Years)
A year long program - mostly weekend instruction

Next class begins August 2004
Preparing Teachers since 1989
MACTE Accredited
Angela Nicholson
979 S. James Road
Affiliated with
Columbus, Ohio 43227
American Montessori Society
614-231-3790
Your
Career
Today!
Make
a difference
with
www.columbusmontessori.org
MONTESSORI
WESTERN
TEACHER
TRAINING
PROGRAM
. . .the training
that helps you
grow too!
MACTE-Accredited Courses
Early Childhood (3 - 6)
Elementary (6 - 9)
5856 Belgrave 714-897-3833
Garden Grove, CA 92845
Directors: Cathy Smythe
Joy Turner
Montessori education. . .
still ahead of its time
27
Best PraCtiCes
Defining Best Practices:

A goal for 21st-century montessori education
By Patti Tepper-Rasmussen
ast fall the AMS Board's Centennial Fund Committee created a

case statement that outlines a
vision of Montessori education in the
21st century. This document is intended
as a major gifts umbrella and marketing
tool to capture the imagination of corporate and foundation boards. In addition,
several committees were formed to
identify projects in the areas of research,
public policy, quality assurance, teacher
education, and marketing that might
interest private grants organizations.
One such "charter team," as the committees are called, is Best Practices and
Knowledge Exchange. This committee's
task is to identify unique practices
describing the essence of what a
Montessori education offers to children
and design venues for sharing those
practices with other educational entities.
It is obvious that we have remained in
our cocoon too long. After nearly 45
years of a quiet revolution, the education community needs to hear from us.
With national attention focusing on
a school's ability to "leave no child
behind" and the reliance on testing as
the means of assessing schools, teachers,
and students, we as Montessorians have
much to offer our peers in traditional
settings.
The federal report 2003 National
Assessment of Educational Progress,
recently used in part to illustrate the
ineffectiveness of charter schools, is just
one example of the desperate need for us
to speak up. Interestingly, while the
media maligns charter schools for their
poor performance (only 25% of fourthgrade students have demonstrated proficiency in math and reading), the report
points out that traditional schools
reflected only a 32% math and reading
28
proficiency at grade level! Are they even

listening to themselves? As long as the
government mandates that we measure
children's learning with "bubble tests,"
parents will never understand the multiplicity of opportunities necessary for a
child to develop into a healthy, thinking,
and competent person. As our alumni
tell us daily, Montessori schools know
how to do that.
Maria Montessori taught us how
children learn best. AMS has summarized Montessori's practices into key
objectives, worth repeating here:
to foster competent, responsible,
adaptive citizens who are lifelong learners and problem solvers.
to promote learning in an inquiring, cooperative, nurturing atmosphere,
through self- and teacher-initiated
experiences.
to support learning through the
senses, by manipulating materials and
interacting with others, leading to the
abstract understanding of ideas.
to consider the individual as a
whole. Physical, emotional, social, aesthetic, spiritual, and cognitive needs and
interests are inseparable.
to respect oneself, others, the environment, and all life.
So what is the best we have to offer?
What demonstrates our ultimate belief in
the value of each child? Which practices
are most important to children? Which
practices are adaptable to other educational constituents?
What is it that
makes us stand out among other educational and/or child development
philosophies? What do we want the general public to think of when they hear
the name Montessori? What do we hope
parents will want for their children to
experience in a Montessori environment? And further, how can we enter
the public education conversation to
explain the value of Montessori practices?

Among the many best practices proposed in the committee were: multi-age
groupings; education for a more peaceful world; parent partnerships, small
school settings; multi-sensory approach
to learning; appreciation for hands-on,
concrete materials; understanding of
child development; uninterrupted, independent work time; the aesthetics of the
didactic materials; teacher education
and internship requirements; "follow the
child" observation techniques; developmental sequencing of materials; and
inherent trust in and respect for each
child.
As fundamental as each practice felt
to us, we found ourselves wondering
how we can separate one essential from
the whole and say that is our identifying
brand. If we say our best practice is
peace education, does that present a
model that takes away from the allinclusive cosmic learning that we also
advocate? Would your classroom be
diminished by the elimination of any one
of the practices mentioned above? Can
you imagine yourself explaining your
school to a prospective parent by discussing only the 3-year age span or the
beautiful, color-coded materials?
We have agreed that Montessori has
valuable peace education and conflict
resolution strategies that can be refit to
traditional classroom teachers. AMS will
be pursuing grants for that work under
the leadership of Sonnie McFarland and
her Peace Committee. however, we
need your assistance with the larger picture. The charter team is looking for a
model broad enough to include all parts
of the Montessori philosophy and practicea definition of the Montessori
"brand."
We may have our answer in
Princeton Montessori School
Montessori's "prepared environment."

Within this practice we encompass the
Montessori Triangle: the child, the adult,
and the physical environment. Each
child is viewed as a separate being within the whole community. The adults
include those in the classroom and those
at home. The physical environment
includes indoor and outdoor spaces,
classroom materials, and community
resources. Key to the triangle is the spirit in which the adult views the child.
Before designing a beautiful space in
which the children will work peacefully
alone and together (every teacher's
dream), one must believe in the uniqueness of each child and his capacity for
auto-education.
Joanne Alex of Old Town's Stillwater
School and the 1998 Maine Teacher of
the Year reminds us of the six roles of a

Montessorian: setting attitude, observing and recording scientifically, offering
the lessons, acting as the physical and
spiritual custodian of the environment,
modeling for each child, and preserving
order in the environment. In their efforts
to assist fellow public school teachers in
implementing the mandates of federal
educational guidelines, Joanne and other
Montessorians have been invited to consult with local programs. Perhaps we
need to evaluate the effectiveness of this
model in other areas.
You can help by declaring what you
think Montessori does best, and what
defines our "brand." What do you think
parents and teachers need? how can we
communicate our message? The 100th
anniversary in 2007 of the first
Children's house provides the opportune moment to present a time-tested

answer to the national educational crisis.
Please let us hear from you at
ptr1@cox.net.
The members of this charter team are
Patti Tepper-Rasmussen, Joanne Alex,
Kathryn Carey, Kate Gordon, Sonnie
McFarland, Bee Pape, ReJeania Steiner,
Janie Thompson, and Bretta Weiss
Wolff.
PATTi TEPPER-RASMUSSEN is a past

president of AMS.
29
Best PraCtiCes
A road map:
montessori curriculum and Learner outcomes
By Sharon Damore
he pervasive approach to educational evaluation today is to

judge children, teachers, and
schools by test scores. In Montessori
schools, we find ourselves perpetually
defending de-emphasizing standardized tests. We explain that Montessori
methodology is different from curricula found in public schools where the
tests are perceived as essential indicators of school quality. In order to
respond to the politically driven, testbased atmosphere, I propose that
Montessori schools must develop and
use mission-based learner outcomes.
We must outline what children should
know and be able to do as a result of
their Montessori education. unfortunately, this is a time of great public mistrust in schools; parents often require
reassurance that their children are
receiving quality educations. Montessori teachers and administrators who
defend lack of emphasis on test scores
must take action. They must develop
research-based learner outcomes and
appropriate measures of student
achievement that reflect a whole child,
lifelong knowledge approach: a Montessori approach to learning.
This article is intended to serve as a
road map, a guide in designing and
using learner outcomes. For clarity,
learner outcomes are also referred to
as learning standards or learning
expectations. Development of learner
outcomes will result in a holistic, balanced, "more Montessori" approach to
communicating expectations of student achievement. School leadership
will have the strength and veracity not
30
to succumb to measures of standardized tests, tests that were never designed

for judging teacher or school quality.
The work will strengthen teacher credibility and communication with parents
about how well children are performing in school. This process paves the
way for Montessori school communities to advocate proactively for a better and more authentic way of measuring student achievement.
In 1999, I learned of Dr. Kathy
Roemer's dissertation. It showed that
98% of elementary Montessori programs
administered standardized achievement tests. however, a high percentage of these schools also indicated
they did not value standardized test
results. As a result of the research, AMS
leadership determined that discussion
of authentic assessment was timely
and added the topic to the AMS
Touring Symposia. To provide common language in this article, the definition used for authentic assessment,
also referred to as alternative or nontraditional assessment, is curriculumbased measures of student achievement.
Authentic assessment typically takes
the form of student performances,
journaling, portfolios, and exhibits
using scoring rubrics.
Before lecturing as part of a Touring Symposium, I was immersed in a
separate world of learner outcomes,
working with Chicago charter schools.
These schools were committed to the
development of learner outcomes and
authentic assessment for public school
accountability plans. By committing to
put practice into doctrine and report
nontraditional assessment, the char-
ters' hopes were to replicate successful

school assessment reform. Since 1998,
having presented to hundreds of
teachers nationally in both charter and
Montessori schools, and exploring the
common topic of how to begin the
process of authentic assessment, I
always found the answer to be the
same: begin with the development of
school-based learner outcomes.
My service for the past 6 years as
an AMS national school accreditation
commissioner has had a significant
impact on my belief that Montessori
schools must develop their own learner
outcomes. In 1992, Nancy Rambusch
and John Stoops co-authored The
Authentic American Montessori School to
guide schools through a holistic,
school-improvement process for accreditation. however, the language in the
guide has been best described as
metaphorical and not always perceived as user-friendly. As a result,
the commission developed alternative
and joint self-study protocols to aid
schools in receiving accreditation.
Regardless of the protocol chosen, certain sections of The Authentic American
Montessori School continue to be
required for AMS accreditation protocols. These sections have tremendous
value when a school begins the
process of defining learner outcomesthe Educational Nature and
the Nature of the Outcomes. The
development of the Nature of the
Outcomes, or a school's learner outcomes, is the focus of this article. hopefully, some of the ideas will help those
of you who are currently considering
or pursuing school accreditation.
There are two ways, as Montessorians, that we can choose to travel:

first class or coach. In my view, in
choosing the coach method, you
choose a "bare bones" approach to
solving this problem. Schools and
teachers will be forced to continue
defending testing without methodically developing a well-articulated system of defining and reporting outcomes of the educational process. If
one chooses first class, then a Montessori school will begin a journey through
an analytical, thoughtful process that
systematically defines learner outcomes and assessments based on a
Montessori education.
Most teachers will be able to relate
to the uncomfortable disharmony
between Montessori learning outcomes and standardized testing. Experiences with progress reporting to parents or faculty discussions about what
should and should not be reported to
parents immediately come to mind.
There is also the issue of mismatch of
expectations between school classes:
69 teachers lament the promotion of
6-year-olds who have not met the
learner expectations for the 69 class,
for example. have the teachers from
the two programs discussed what
those outcomes look like? how have
they attempted to build consensus?
What is important is the dialogue
that starts in the school to convince the
constituents, beginning with the teachers, that the articulation of learner outcomes is a necessary step, the vital first
step in the development of a Montessori educational accountability system,
and an unprecedented opportunity for
Montessori schools to be perceived as
publicly accountable, with the power
to direct content that reflects developmentally appropriate teaching and
learning.
Development of learner outcomes
takes many forms. It may begin with
an accreditation steering committee
developing the Nature of the Outcomes section of the accreditation selfstudy. In a small school, the owner or
director may draft a list of outcomes
for each of the curricular areas. This

list would be submitted for review to
teachers and board members to develop consensus. An AMS school consul-
As a school begins the process of

clarifying learner outcomes, its leaders
should always start with the school's
values, belief systems, and mission
Princeton Montessori School
tation might lead a school to establish

a curriculum task force for the specific
purpose of improving consistency
across programs, from expectations of
learning to progress reporting. A middle school program might need exit
learner outcomes for graduates to
assure parents that promotion criteria
meet or exceed the requirements of
local high schools.
No matter what form the learner
outcome development may take, supportive leadership should be present.
Sometimes the head of school is
involved; other times, another administrator assumes the role. Teacher leaders can provide the needed initiative
to support this curricular work.
Consul-tants can be hired to facilitate
and give feedback on the outcomes,
but I believe that consultants should
be used sparingly and that teachers
must have ownership in order for the
results to be meaningful. For ownership and investment in the outcomes,
teachers need to participate actively in
the school's process.
statement. Montessori schools have

many commonalities, but they are all
unique in their own right, particularly
in the realm of values and beliefs.
Opportunities should be created for
community members to give input
about the school's values and beliefs.
Community and faculty values and
beliefs should be evident in the daily
life of the school. Value statements
should express clearly what has been
determined as important to that individual school community. The statements should reflect a commitment to
student learning as the school's priority
and will illustrate how class environments lead to learner outcomes. Also,
a commitment to continuous school
improvement will help sustain faculty
during this process.
The first valuable source for defining learner outcomes is the school's
mission statement. Most mission statements describe the quality of graduates that the school expects to produce,
whether they be 6, 14, or 18 years old.
The adjectives chosen should describe
31
Montessori learning outcomes, which

emphasize cognitive and social/emotional development, consistent with
programs rich in experiences that
meet the needs of the whole child.
however the mission statement is
phrased, most school communities
articulate a love of learning, respectful interaction with others, and the
ability of students to make critical,
competent, thoughtful decisions in life.
In the school's mission statement,
what language refers to the preparation of children? What words are held
in high esteem and embedded in the
school's belief systems about learning?
here you should find the foundation
for developing the school's unique
learner outcomes.
After completion of the mission
study, review The Authentic American
Montessori School book. use the original American Montessori agenda of
learner outcomes and consider adoption or adaptation of them for the
school's planned outcomes. The book
states that Montessori education
develops children who are moral
beings; who are confident, competent
learners; who are independent; who
are autonomous; who are intrinsically
motivated; who are academically prepared; who are socially responsible;
who are free within limits; who are
spiritually aware; who are able to handle external authority; who become
citizens of the world; and who become
stewards of the planet. how will
these outcomes be reflected in the
school's outcomes? Again, the decision needs to result from analytical,
thoughtful, and school-wide dialogue
based on a school's mission.
The Authentic Montessori outcomes list is a great beginning, but for
a school to be deemed educationally
accountable, other credible, researchbased sources should be cited. The use
of national, state, and district learner
outcomes should be reviewed and referenced as part of the development of
any school's learner outcomes. Montessori albums give us the best direction
in ensuring that outcomes are curricu32
lum based, remembering, of course,

that Nancy Rambusch encouraged
Montessorians to separate the outcomes from the Montessori activities
that lead to them.
Other sources for learner outcomes
I have found relevant and extremely
valuable in validating Montessori learner
outcomes include the Department of
Labor Work Entry Standards.
Although most Montessori school children are far from looking for employment, I find that these standards support some of the learner outcomes that
Montessori teachers hold dear, such as
the concept of lifelong development.
Certainly school-based outcomes should
not be narrowly and academically
defined. The Department's Standards
for work entry include the ability to
communicate orally, the ability to
cooperate, the ability to think critically, and the ability to view the human
experience and our constantly changing world from a global perspective.
The National Study of School
Evaluation's (NSSE) indicators of Schools
of Quality (Fitzpatrick, 1997) is another
excellent source with rich language
and descriptions of a range of learner
outcomes in communication, learning
to learn skills, thinking and reasoning,
interpersonal skills, and personal and
social responsibility. The NSSE features a data driven, school improvement protocol used for accreditation
self-studies. It is an invaluable tool to
guide a school in developing qualitative and quantifiable outcomes as well
as rubrics for reporting student
progress.
Other excellent, popular sources,
because of their authentic life connections, include Costa and Kallick's
Assessing and Reporting on Habits of
Mind. This work covers outcomes and
subsequent measures of 16 types of
intelligent behavior, such as thinking
flexibly or responding with wonder
and awe. Marzano's (1993) Assessing
Student Outcomes refers to critical
thinking and problem solving skills.
These authors support a more wholechild, balanced base of learner out-
comes. Gerald Bracey, in his book Put

to the Test (2002), includes another
good list of non-test-measured outcomes such as resilience, motivation,
persistence, reliability, enthusiasm,
self-discipline, empathy, leadership,
compassion, and curiosity. his list
reinforces valued dispositions that
Montessori schools can use to validate
further their choices of learner outcomes. The Omnibus Guidelines (Jablon,
Marsden, Meisels, Dichtelmiller) features personal development language
that closely approximates outcomes
expected from Montessori Grace and
Courtesy lessons, such as "child responds to the needs of others" or "child
can establish friendship with peers."
Table 1 summarizes the aforementioned sources. The reference section
gives more information for location of
sources.
Table 1
sources for Development

of Learner Outcomes
National, state, and district outcomes
The Authentic American Montessori
School
indicators of Schools of Quality (NSSE)
Assessing and Reporting on
Habits of Mind
Omnibus Guidelines
Assessing student outcomes
To defend the validity of a school's
outcomes, statistics are not required,
but what is required is careful documentation of the dialogue, development, revision, and external review of
the process. We can settle for a little
psychometric imperfection if we have
been methodical in our processes and
validate our choices with literature
and research.
real Lives, real schools

two case studies
Lamplighter School, in Cordova,
Tennessee, developed school learner
outcomes several years ago. The school
used the NSSE protocol to lead them

through the process of studying their
mission, beliefs, and values. Their
approach was a holistic one in which
the school articulated both cognitive
and social/emotional learning. The
wording of their outcomes reflects
both the language of the authentic
Montessori agenda and NSSE, including the following: that students will
become confident, competent learners,
and independent, academically prepared, moral beings, able to communicate orally, in writing, and technologically. The school initially developed
exit learner outcomes for the eighthgrade graduates. Rubrics were designed
to assess the outcomes. As suggested
in the NSSE, the rubrics are administered to school community members,
including teachers and parents. Scores
reflect a school-wide perceptual rating
of student achievement. The rubrics
are used annually and look at perceptions of achievement over time.
Lamplighter now reports both standardized test scores and these authentic measures of social/emotional and
academic learning are in alignment
with the school's Montessori curriculum.
Brickton Montessori School, in
Chicago, IL, wanted to improve its
progress reporting to parents to make
learner outcomes more consistent
across teachers and programs. A curricular committee allocated the work
among the 3-6, 6-9, and 9-12 classes.
One teacher assumed a leadership
role, defining the 6-9 outcomes that
helped provide a structure for doing
the work. She categorized them by
academic and social/emotional learning. One source, considered quite useful when developing outcomes language, was the Omnibus Guidelines. To
validate academic outcomes, the
teachers reviewed the Illinois learning
standards as well as the Chicago
Public Schools Academic Standards. A
consultant was used to give the teachers feedback on their work. Today, the
head of school is delighted with the
improvement in teacher communication about learner outcomes and
expectations of children, especially

regarding promotion to the next level.
The school's progress reports have
been redesigned based on the new
outcomes, which are more knowledge
and skills based vs. statement of the
child's proficiency in use of Montessori
materials. The teachers are using the
outcomes in parent conferences and
the school has developed a position
statement on student assessment that
includes a rationale for school-based
learner outcomes. The outcomes are
also presented in the annual parent
education program on student assessment. Teachers appear much more
confident in their defense of the limitations of standardized tests because
they have developed other standards
of learning that fit better with Montessori, the school's learner outcomes.
how Do schools use

Learner outcomes?
One school viewed outcomes as an
invaluable tool for vertical communication between teachers at different
age levels. Familiar with complaints
that 3-6 teachers didn't know the
learner expectations of 6-9 and promoted children who were not prepared for the 6-9 level, the teachers
worked as a team to develop learner
outcomes across programs, building a
teaching and learning community that
resulted in increased understanding
about promotion criteria, communication about meeting special children's
needs, and learning about program
information for student retention.
A school community will view the
school's conscientiously developed
learner outcomes as proof of the need
for multiple measures of student
achievement. The outcomes will demonstrate to parents that this is not just a
school that disagrees with the overuse
of achievement test scores, but also
one that goes the second mile and
produces other assessment tools. The
outcomes and aligned measures
become a valuable part of the school's
parent education program.
I have had experience with schools
that attempted to use learner outcomes

in their assessments and progress
reporting. Most progress reporting is
qualitative but a few schools elect to
report quantitatively. I have seen
report cards, progress reports, rubrics,
lesson plans, portfolios, and student
work samples. Mostly, I have seen
attempts of reporting outcomes on a
more holistic, narrative basis, but a
few schools try to report outcomes
separately. It is exciting that
Montessori educators find it natural to
report social/emotional, physical and
cognitive outcomes. My work in public and charter schools is more challenging because the general public has
been convinced that accountability for
the development of the whole child is
reflected in standardized testing. The
standardized test emphasis on cognitive development blurs the picture
and, unfortunately, misleads parents.
When I help schools, whether the
audience is teachers or parents, I use a
comparison chart to present the authenticity of a school's choices for learner
outcomes. I compare a few of the
school's learner outcomes with other
influencing outcomes to depict graphically the school's knowledge of mainstream education and research to support their choices. In Table 2, you will
see an example of a Montessori school's
outcomes compared to NSSE outcomes,
the Department of Labor Standards,
the state learning standards, and the
regional achievement test. I have found
this type of graphic helpful in presenting
the outcomes contextually in comparison with public school accountability
requirements.
What Amount of time must Be

Dedicated to this "Learner
outcome" Work?
With a 9-month self-study, a
school can certainly agree upon its
graduate exit outcomes or program
outcomes. But to do this well, a school
needs to commit to continuous school
improvement generally through accreditation studies. use of a strategic plan
with action plans and timelines may
33
Montessori School(s)
Learning Standards
Confident, competent
learners
Independent and
autonomous
Intrinsically motivated
Socially responsible
Citizens of the world,
stewards of the
planet
Measurement
Authentic assessment (teacher
observation, student
work samples, etc.)
Generally a standardized achievement test
US Dept. of Labor
NSSE*
Illinois
IOWA Test
Workplace entry
level standards
Goals for
Student Learning
Illinois Learning
Standards
Ability to communicate orally.

Ability to cooperate.
Ability to think critically.
Ability to view the
human experience
and our constantly
changing world from
a global perspective.
Learning-to-learn
skills.
Expanding and integrating knowledge.
Communication
skills.
Thinking and reasoning skills.
Interpersonal skills
Personal and social
responsibility.
Language Arts, Math,

Science, Social
Studies, Physical
Development &
Health, Fine Arts,
Foreign Language
(with some applications in communications, problem solving, technology)
Measurement?
On the Job?
Measurement
school wide (rubrics)
consensus on student
learning
Measurement
by the Illinois
Standards
Achievement Test.
*National Study of
School Evaluation,
School Goals for
Student Learning
Aligned to a national
set of learning standards that doesnt
really exist one size
fits all test?
Test Measurements
Reading
comprehension
Factual meaning
Inferential meaning
Evaluative meaning
Mathematics
Concepts
Estimation
Math problem solving
Data interpretation
Computation
Science
Life Science
Earth Science
Physical Science
Social Studies
History
Geography
Economics
Political Science
Sjdamore/standards & assessment alignment chart 05/04
be the best avenue for future reflection

and formal revision of outcomes.
the road map or steps: Learner

outcomes Development
In development of a Montessori
school's learner outcomes, the steps,
or the road map as I prefer to call it,
include, but are not limited to:
1. Establish a need for school outcomes. Persuade constituents.
2. Begin with the school's values,
beliefs and mission statement.
3. With information from step 2
and The Authentic American Montessori
School, develop a list of outcomes
(make sure to separate Montessori
activities from outcomes based on
knowledge and skills).*
4. Determine the priorities and the
sequence. Determine the answers to the
following questions: Will you develop
school-wide outcomes? Will you devel34
op program or age-level outcomes?

Will you develop social or academic
outcomes first? Or simultaneously?
Curricular areas: Cultural Subjects?
Language? Math? Timelines? Action
plan? Who, what, when, where? Do
you need financial resources to do the
work? A consultant?
5. Research the world of learner
outcomes to refine or validate your
outcomes.
6. Determine and plan the use of
your outcomes: Promotion criteria?
Marketing?
Accountability?
Measures? Parent education?
7. Plan a process for revisiting and
refining outcomes over time.
* Jim Popham (2001), one of my favorite
authors on the design of standardized achievement tests and alternatives, recommends keeping your outcomes manageable, limiting the
number to those that are truly valuable for chil-
dren to know and be able to do; assuring they

are taught in the curriculum; and planning to
measure and report them. For example, the outcomes of 6-9 math could be: "Student knows
addition facts (sums to 20) and corresponding
subtraction facts." These are the learner outcomes:
observable, measurable, and understandable to
the child's future teacher and parents. To list
outcomes like Demonstrates knowledge of the
stamp game," is ambiguous and communicates little about a child's knowledge and skills.
summary
There are many critics of standardized tests who offer few practical solutions but school accountability is a
21st-century reality. In Douglas Reeves'
new
book,
Accountability
for
LearningHow Teachers and School
Leaders Can Take Charge, he suggests
that the time has arrived for "bottom
up" accountability action. Instead of
being confused and panicked about
the status of test-based decisions,
Reeves encourages educators to develop

student-centered accountability systems.
Schools with autonomy over learner
outcomes have an unprecedented
opportunity to reform current accountability practices. If we Montessorians
want reality-based, not test-based,
school accountability for teaching and
learning, we need to take action. We can
take the bare bones route or choose first
class and develop a system of reporting
Montessori learner outcomes.
SHARON DAMORE is an assistant professor of Elementary Education at DePaul
University, Chicago, iL. She has taught
and held administrative positions in both
private and public schools, preschool
through high school, including Montessori schools, for the past 25 years. She
holds the AMS 3-6 credential and serves
as a member of the AMS School Accredi-
tation Commission. You can reach Sharon

at sjdamore@aol.com.
Special thanks go to my colleagues for
their support and work in this significant field of Multiple Measures of
Student Achievement: Kathy Roemer,
executive
director,
Park
West
Montessori School and Riverside Early
Learning Center, New York, NY;
Debbie Kelley, head, Brickton
Montessori School, Chicago, IL; Judy
Beyer, middle school teacher, Brickton
Montessori School; Josh Shepperd,
research assistant, DePaul university.
references
Bracey, G. (2002). Put to the testAn educator's and
consumer's guide to standardized testing. Phi Delta
Kappan.
Costa, A. and Kallick, B. (2000). Assessing and
reporting on habits of mind. Alexandria, VA:
ASCD.
Fitzpatrick, K. (1997). indicators of schools of quality.

A research based self-assessment guide for schools
committed to school improvement. Schaumburg,
IL: National Study of School Evaluation (NSSE).
Jablon, J., Marsden, D., Meisels, S., Dichtelmiller, M.
(1998). Omnibus guidelines, preschool through 3rd
grade. The Work Sampling System. Ann Arbor, MI:
Rebus Inc.
Marzano R. J. , Pickering D. J., & McTigue, J. (1993).
Assessing student outcomes - Performance Assessment Using the Dimension of Learning Model.
Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
Popham, W.J. (2001). The truth about testingAn
educator's call to action. Alexandria, VA:
ASCD.
Rambusch, N.M., Stoops, J.A. (1994). The authentic
American Montessori schoolA guide to the selfstudy, evaluation and accreditation of American
schools committed to Montessori education. New
York: American Montessori Society.
Reeves, D. (2004). Accountability for learning
How teachers and school leaders can take charge.
Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
Roemer, K. (1999). Assessment practices used
by Montessori teachers of kindergarten
through sixth grade students in the united
States. unpublished dissertation. Memphis,
TN: The university of Memphis.
Expand your knowledge and

experience the Montessori difference!
Montgomery
Montessori
Institute
Shaping the future of education!
The knowledge. The experience.

The Montessori early childhood teacher
education course for you!
10500 Darnestown Road
Rockville, Maryland 20850
MMI prides itself on its history of successful graduates.
Call MMI
RIGHT away!
301-279-2799
MMI is affiliated
with the American Montessori Society
and accredited by MACTE.
35
Best PraCtiCes
Deconstructing montessori:
A growing Problem
By John P. Blessington
hen you hang out a shingle

that reads "Dentist," you
ought to practice dentistry.
When you hang out a sign that says
"Montessori School," you ought to provide a Montessori education. This is
called truth in advertising. Too often
today we find Montessori schools
yielding to parental pressure for academic competition and competition
from other conventional educational
programs. As a result some of our
schools begin to look more like traditional schools, losing sight of
Montessori principles and practices.
This is what I refer to as the deconstruction of Montessori.
A Montessori school is like an Italian
restaurant. When you go there you expect to find Italian food. Now, there
are other good restaurants around
town and we have choices. When we
enter the Italian restaurant, however,
we do expect an Italian meal. I argue
simply for truth in advertising for
restaurants and for schools.
For 12 years as head of the school
that revised Montessori in America, I
delighted in what this method did for
children. Since then, like so many others, Ive worked to keep the focus on
Montessori at any Montessori school
where I served as a trustee or consultant.
To remain a vital Montessori school,
rather than one that is deconstructed
and diminished, one must hold to a
steady course and be determined to
grow and change within a Montessori
framework. Too often, I find school
heads yielding to the anxious demands
of parents. Parents come to us seeking
something of Montessori. They want
what we offer but are concerned since
36
we are not like other schools. To manage

their concerns, they plead for small
changes, or demand them and work to
change a Montessori program until it
becomes like a horse that is more
wooden than real. To allay their insecurities they subtly or openly attack
the school head.
Furthermore, some Montessori
schools weaken when the school head
or the school board starts to talk about
"best practices." Too often I find the
term to be jargon used to cover certain
deeply held educational views. The
real question is, what practices are better or best and under what conditions?
A great automobile may be made less
efficient by installing the newest carburetor on the market because it does
not fit the configuration of the automobile's engine. Best is often best somewhere but not everywhere.
During my career as trustee and
consultant to Montessori schools, headmaster of two non-Montessori schools,
head of an educational foundation,
and producer at CBS, I have observed
that many individuals yield to social,
economic, or political pressure in
order to maintain executive positions.
I have also observed Montessori heads
of schools who wish to be the head of
a school more than the head of an
authentic Montessori school. When
parental and trustee pressures become
threatening or wearing, too many
accede. In other cases, some heads truly
believe some other approaches are
better and they tag certain changes
with the term best practices. I am not
convinced they are better or necessary,
given my exposure to so many strong
Montessori schools across the country.
If we want to keep Montessori
modern, and I believe we do, let our
practices be tested and debated by
truly committed practitioners. Dentists

seek other dentists to develop or
research their best practices. Italian
chefs turn to other Italian chefs for
ideas. To turn to conventional educational research and practices is a useful
step, but it is not the only option. My
years as head of school taught me to
develop the staff through formal, inservice Montessori education, year in
and year out. Parents and trustees
were also exposed to this same education. In addition, we worked to educate the community through regular
presentations and lectures by Montessorians and other educators who
supported our work. Dr. Montessori
examined and used insights from
others before she formed what became
known as her "method." Changes
require research, discipline, intellectual honesty, and sensitivity about how
the parts fit into a whole system. That
sensitivity toward the parts and how
they can be integrated is what makes
the Montessori method so effective.
For nearly 50 years, many students
have spent 10 to 12 years in our
schools. Today, these youngsters are
physicians, lawyers, business executives, artists, and workers in various
other fields. historically, our Montessori children do well in other schools.
We need to advertise that, not acquiesce to fears or opinions contrary to
our hard-earned history.
It is disconcerting to help build a
Montessori school, and then watch it
wither into some minor version of its
origin. It is difficult to consult with a
school and see it grow and accomplish
so much, then watch it backslide as a
new head yields to parental pressures
or trades his/her views for the name
on the sign. If we want to run schools
that use other methods, we are free to
Nancy McCormick Rambusch and Jack Blessington, Whitby School 1961-62
do so, but we are not free to do so at a

school built with the energy and
funds of founders who sacrificed to
build a Montessori school. No one has
the right to deconstruct a school out of
personal fear, professional ego, or culpable ignorance.
In order to run any school, its head
has to be an educator, a leader, a salesperson, and a politician. It takes all these
qualities and perhaps more to do the
job. Our parents need to feel secure in
our collaborative Montessori mission
so we must articulate our programs
and sensitively respond to their concerns. Parents need to know the Montessori method is respected, even if they
choose another school. Demonstrating
that respect and then securing it in
parents is a key task of the head of

school. Too often I find Montessori educators who work tirelessly and invite
numerous people to observe their
classes, but almost never go off campus to explain their mission to the
community. To succeed, we must
reach out to potential customers.
Every year at my school, we offered
a slide lecture at our town library and
opened it to the public. We told Dr.
Montessori's story, the story of a
physician who respected each child's
neurological and psychological development and believed in each childs
capacity to fulfill his potential, given the
right environment. As an excellent
diagnostician, she observed before she
prescribed. We promised to do no less.
We presented Montessori ideas

for the home and showed how
to trade school work for real
learning at home. We tried to
clarify how our programs at
school assisted a child's development. We indicated that we
respected the nightly realities of
busy and tired parents by not
intruding in their home lives.
We let them know we used testing enough to indicate we
understood objective measurements. And we told true stories
about
our
out-placement,
whether the student left at age
9 or graduated to high school.
We were always educating
ourselves, our parents, and our
community, and it worked.
We must educate Montessori
administrators, equipping them
for all their tasks. There are many
national and state educational
associations to help train administrators, but AMS needs to add
the refinements that are unique
to Montessori schools. Parents
need reassurance because they
are in new territory and they are
making a great emotional and
financial investment. When they
complain or worry, we need to
educate them without abandoning our method or watering
it down.
Finally, even though I have
run two non-Montessori schools
(and enjoyed my work and
appreciated each schools value), I
claim the advantage to children and
their families within the Montessori
system. It takes courage to have a
child in a Montessori school and it
takes energy and courage as a head of
school to maintain and modernize
within the tradition. As we approach
our centennial, we must celebrate
Montessori's vision and extol those
heads of schools, teachers, and parents
who perpetuate the "best" Montessori
learning environments for children.
JOHN P. BLESSiNGTON, former AMS
Board member, is headmaster emeritus of
Whitby School and Unquowa School, and
a writer, lecturer, and television producer.
37
Best PraCtiCes
Best Practices: A commentary

By Marlene Barron
ve started a campaign to get rid of
the term best practices. If I cant get
rid of it, I might be willing to rename
it. The new phrase might be practices
that worked for me in my setting, but
might not work for you.
The adjective best is elitist and
arrogant. It suggests an ideal that works
everywhere and with everyone. That
is just not possible. Children are different. They are born with different
temperamentsjust ask any parent
who has more than one child. Their
everyday experiences are different.
They learn in different ways. Most
importantly, the term best practices is
used by politicians, government
bureaucrats, and commercial vendors
to promote their versions of educational practices, which are currently
being driven by standardized tests. If
we as Montes-sorians are against standardized testing, shouldnt we also
examine the language being used to
describe it?
The term best practices originated in
the fields of law and business. There are
even companies designed to help
other companies determine and implement best practices. One such business
is Best Practices, LLC (www.best-inclass.com/about/). The founder and
CEO, Christopher Bogan, is the author
of the book Benchmarking for Best
Practices: Winning through innovative
Adaptation, published by McGrawhill. The book defines the term best
practices as documented strategies
and tactics employed by highly admired
companies. These companies are not
best-in-class in every areasuch a
company does not exist. Nevertheless,
the profiled practices have been imple-
38
mented and honed to help place their

practitioners as the most admired, the
most profitable, and the keenest competitors in business.
The company Fletcher Challenge
Petroleum defines best practices
another way: Management practices
and work processes that lead to
world-class, superior performance.
I see this use of a business term in
the field of education as another subversive attempt to pressure educators
to adopt business-type practices. I
believe that those who have control of
the language have the power. Language shapes everyones larger view
of the world. Thus the political game
in all fieldsis to gain control of specific terms and then define and redefine them to suit the advocates purposes.
My overarching goal in offering my
opinion about the term best practices is
to encourage adults to thinkto think
about their uses of language and their
understandings of children, families,
education, and Montessori, and to think
about their practicestheir day-to-day
behavior with adults and children.
Join my campaign to develop
thinking Montessorians. Question your

practices, question your assumptions,
discuss possibilities at staff meetings.
Robotic Montessorians should have
no future.
MARLENE BARRON is head of school at

West Side Montessori School (WSMS),
New York City; assistant professor at New
York University, Steinhardt School of
Education; director of the NYU-Montessori Teacher Education Sequence Program;
past president and treasurer of the
American Montessori Society; past treasurer of the international Association of
Montessori Educators (iAME); and an
international school consultant.
reference
Dogan, C., English, M. (1994). Benchmarking for
best practices: Winning through innovative adap
tation. New York: McGraw-hill.
Board Elections:
We Need Your Support!

2004-2005 Annual Fund
AMS members, your vote is important! This is your opportunity to select

AMS Board Members who will speak
for you. Watch for your ballot in the mail
and VOTE early! Ballots must be postmarked no later than February 17, 2005.
Patti Tepper-Rasmussen, Fund Chair
There has never been a more critical time

to make a gift in support of the AMS Annual Fund!
Correction:
In 2007, legions of Montessorians will mark the 100th anniversary of Montessori education.
AMS has seized the opportunity
to turn this milestone into a turning point by embarking on an
ambitious agenda of incentives
called the Journey to the Centennial. This agenda will allow us to
take Montessori education into its
next century in ways that will
impact all children, in all geographic
areas, regardless of age, ability,
or socioeconomic status.
An agenda as comprehensive
as this requires substantial
resources. We are asking every
member of the American Montessori Society to make a gift of $10
(or more) to the 2004-2005 AMS
Annual Fund.
Our goal is 100% participation.

If you and each of our other
members make a contribution,
our initiatives will be well on their
way to success!
If you have not already
returned your Annual Fund remittance envelope to us, save a
stamp and make your pledge
online at www.amshq.org. (On
the site go to The Society and
then to Development. To read
more about the Journey to the
Centennial, go from Development to Case Statement.)
Your generous support is at the
center of our continued success.
Your contribution is the heart of
the organization.
In the summer 2004 issue, the article

by Aline D. Wolf, Restoring Better
Reading to Our 212-6 Classrooms: Part
1 was printed in its entirety rather
than in two parts as indicated. The
editors regret any confusion this
error may have caused.
Write to us!
We value your feedback. Please send
letters to the editor, ideas for future
issues, and any other comments you
might have to editor@amshq.org.
Thank you.
s/PENINGA-ONTESSORISCHOOL
s7ONDERHOWOTHERSCHOOLHEADSDOIT
s7ANTTODOABETTERJOBRUNNINGYOURSCHOOL
s.EEDTOKNOWTHEHOW TOSOFSCHOOLMANAGEMENT
#-4%
. 9
#/523% &/2 -/.4%33/2) 3#(//, -!.!'%-%.4

0AT7ERNER#OORDINATOR*ULY
!COMPREHENSIVETRAININGPROGRAMTEACHINGCURRENTANDFUTURESCHOOLHEADS
THEARTOFDIRECTINGANDMANAGINGOUTSTANDING-ONTESSORISCHOOLS
2ECEIVEAN!-3!DMINISTRATOR S
#ERTIFICATETHROUGH#-4%. 9S
#OURSEFOR-ONTESSORI3CHOOL-ANAGEMENT
&OR-ORE)NFORMATION#ONTACT#-4%. 9
0HONE &AX
% MAILCMTENY BURKEORG
7EBSITE WWWCMTENYCOM
39
restorative Yoga and silence games

for children and Adolescents: A Way of Knowing the World more clearly
By Michael J. Rosanova
he usual approach to yoga in

contemporary America is to take
a class. In the class, the teacher
demonstrates poses. usually the poses
have a name. Some of the names bring
images of childhood to mind: cat, frog,
sparrow. Some suggest a sound or
movement which children might enjoy
imitatinga meow, a churump, a twitter. Its easy to assume that the way to
introduce children to yoga is through
the imitation of sounds and movements of storybook-character animals.
Its easy to conclude that the yoga
teacher should encourage the children
to perform.
unfortunately, in a Montessori environment, this approach is fraught with
pitfalls. One of the great dangers in
emphasizing colorful associations and
dramatic elements to small children is
that the associations tend to distract
them from the primary goals of yoga
practice: improvement of concentration,
improvement of balance and coordination, improvement of neurological
functioning, and, yes, a physically
mediated encounter with a spiritually
rewarding sense of meditative repose.
Performance art is a wonderful thing,
but in a Montessori environment,
performance yoga is a distraction
that hinders the very real contribution
to childrens development that yogic
practice offers.
In my last 15 years of yoga practice,
as a 3-6 teacher, as a student of adolescent programming, and as a 3-14 program administrator, Ive tried a variety
of ways of introducing yoga to children. Awkward and easily distracted
children in the preschool and kindergarten years are a particularly tough
audience for meaningful yoga. Yes,
they do like imitating cats, dogs, and
40
lions. And if they can master a pose,

they enjoy demonstrating complicated
and demanding stunts such as
wheel (a difficult and impressive
backbend) or shoulder stand.
But most distractible children are
equally interested in assuming a
standing pose halfway and then crashing dramatically to the floor. The
interesting thing, the point of interest, is the same: Its the show, the
attention. Its all outer-directed. Its
just a clever stunt, all about the sound
of the crash and the glory of attention
on demand.
That is not the promise of yoga for
the Montessori environment, nor is it
what is needed in an environment that
aspires to equip children with the
emotional and academic skills necessary to become self-directed, selfinitiating learners.
Yoga that is Immune to show-offs

In yoga the teacher generally
demonstrates a pose. In some forms of
hatha yoga practice, the teacher gives
specific advice on how to place ones
feet, how to press this or that bone in a
certain direction in order to align
the posture, and so on. Its all preparation for the big event. When the student is ready, he needs to s-t-r-e-t-c-h.
Yoga is all about exertion. After all the
exertion, theres a short pause for
repose in shivasana (literally, the
corpse pose). The only rest in most
yoga classes is the repose of the
corpse: Lying flat on ones back, arms
at rest at a forty-five degree angle
from the shoulders, palms of the
hands up, legs at fifteen degrees, comfortably open. Repose in many
approaches to yoga is a form of aprsski, probably disposable, not really
part of the main event. Thats the
impression that students may well
take away.
But in fact, thats not the only
option. In the approach to yoga developed by B. K. S. Iyengar (1918- ), there
is an alternative to the stretching
poses that is known as restorative
yoga. Perhaps the most thorough
exploration of restorative yoga currently available in the united States is
Relax and Renew: Restful Yoga for Stressful
Times by Judith Lasater, PhD, a practicing physical therapist.
tadpole
A nice example of the principles of
restorative yoga is a pose called tadpole.
For tadpole, a child needs a yoga mat
(or a normal Montessori work rug),
a cotton or woolen blanket, and a
bolster (a long, narrow cloth bag)
filled with foam or some other cushionlike material.
To begin the practice, the child first
folds the cotton blanket in half once,
and then in half once again so that the
top surface of the blanket is about a
quarter of an inch higher than the surface of the floor. he places it before the
front of the yoga mat (or work rug),
widthwise, and then smoothes it out
so that its symmetrical, attractive, and
bump-free. The child then places the
bolster lengthwise in the center of the
mat, just touching the place where the
mat touches the folded cotton blanket.
The setting is now complete.
First the child kneels on the mat,
just behind the bolster. The child raises
both hands to touch first the bottom of
his chin with the tops of his fingers,
left hand to left chin, right hand to
right chin. Then he touches the top of
his clavicle bones with the bottoms of
his fingers, left hand to left clavicle,
right hand to right clavicle. Then the
child opens his index fingers and
thumbs to match the distance between
the bottom of his chin and the top of

his clavicles. he takes a deep breath,
and tries to remember that distance.
he moves forward and lies face down
on the bolster, pulling himself forward
so that his clavicle bones just touch the
top of the bolster. he then rests his
forehead on the folded cotton blanket,
and measures the space between his
clavicles and his chin, drawing in
another deep breath to make sure it
all feels right. Finally, he rests his
hands on the folded cotton blanket, his
hands barely touching just above his
head (near the place that yogis call
the crown chakra, the seat of the
bright white light of wisdom). The
elbows rest comfortably on the folded
cotton blanket.
Because his forehead is resting on
the folded cotton blanket, the child is
naturally prompted to close his eyes.
This happens usually without any
specific instruction from the teacher.
The teacher may quietly offer to cover
the child with another cotton blanket,
because during extended repose, both
heart rate and body temperature begin
to fall.
Also, the teacher may remind the
child, your eyes are closed now, and
you may almost want to fall asleep;
but try not to fall asleep. (Does this
remind you of the instructions in the
Silence Game: As you pass the bell,
try to make the bell not ring? Does
it heighten the point of interest for
the childthe childs central motivation for undertaking and sustaining
this activity?)
Because the childs ribcage is resting
on the bolster, with his scapulars
opening slightly as he relaxes his muscles, his breath will begin to press
toward his outer ribs and the lower
ribs of his back. his breath, in short,
will rise and fall to a greater degree
than usual in the area around his
kidneys and adrenal glands, affording those areas a gentle internal massage. This is the physiological basis
from which the calming effect of the
pose arises.
Anyone familiar with the absorp-
tion of children in Montessori project

workhow it calms their nerves and
sharpens their attentionwill immediately recognize other sources of concentration, satisfaction, and peace in
tadpole as well. The childs preparation
of the work environment (the folding
of blankets, the setting out of the bolster
and the care for proper body-space) all
echo basic themes in the Practical Life
curriculum, including Lessons of
Grace and Courtesy.
the kind of highly sophisticated thinking of which most children are capable
long before they can successfully deal
with abstraction. For very young children and for distractible older children,
guided imagery narration may fail to
open the door to meditation. Guided
imagery stories may fail because they
demand more attention than the child
can muster, or simply because the
storytelling promotes teacher dependence, and summons up issues of sub-
The Tadpole
An obvious extension of tadpole in

Grace and Courtesy is the exercise of
hospitality. When the children finish
tadpole or a series of other restoratives, they have a perfect occasion for
serving each other cups of water. The
extended breathing exercises built into
restorative poses always call for rehydration (not juice or soda but pure,
cool water). A small cup of unsalted
nuts and dried fruit is another appropriate pleasure.
Artwork or other creative and
reflective tasks are also appropriate
segues. Such tasks are often fruitful
follow-up to meditation (herzog,
1990). After a round of restoratives,
few children are looking for disco
music and pep rallies.
Developmentally Appropriate
meditation
Restorative yoga is a physical introduction to meditation. It is a good example of concrete operational thinking,
mission and judgment, dynamics

which any Montessorian assiduously
avoids. But whole-body restorative
yoga poses are much more self-directed,
much freer of hidden agenda, and so
just may work.
When I was just beginning my work
as a Montessorian with young children,
I sometimes wondered why the precious Montessori project materials
didnt work. There were some children who just didnt seem attracted to
all that expensive didactic material, no
matter what I did. Twenty years later,
I know that the problem isnt in the
materials, and it wasnt in me. The
problem is in the readiness of the child.
Montessori was right. The childrens
encounter with developmentally crucial
issues is a source of great absorption
and deep healing in those children
lucky enough to be in the right place at
the right time. But some children are
not yet peaceful, in Donna Bryant
Goertzs wonderful phrase (Goertz,
41
2001). Some children are not yet ready

for the deeply therapeutic effects of
the flow experience described by
Mihalyi Czikszentmihalyi (Czikszentmihalyi, 2000).
In order to bring such children into
contact with the therapeutic effects of
sustained, engaged work with the
Montessori didactic materials, Goertz
recommends two ingenious strategies.
First, the teacher needs to re-frame
the odd behavior of eccentric or difficult children, recasting the behaviors
and the children themselves in as
positive a light as possible whenever
speaking with the other children.
Second, the teacher needs to recruit
the other children as co-therapists,
or as workmates sharing cooperative
Practical Life activities with each child
who is not yet peaceful. Through
such experiences with more normalized children, the eccentric or difficult
children are slowly exposed to rudimentary experiences of flow, bit by
bit, until something finally clicks, and
the not yet peaceful begin to find
authentic paths to peace which they
personally embrace.
Restorative yoga is an authentic
path to peace that may be open even
to some of those difficult children who
are not yet ready for the kind of
extended work with peers which
Goertz recommends. Restorative yoga
may help prepare children for the therapeutic path which Goertz describes.
A research Agenda
Various articles have been written
reflecting on the effects of therapeutic recreation (including restorative
yoga) among children with terminal
cancer, children with cerebral palsy,
and children with various developmental delays (Lamb, 2004; Sumar,
2000). In a recent search of the literature, I was unable to locate articles
linking restorative yoga to normal
development among children not facing such challenges (though there was
an interesting recommendation of
Lasaters work in a book entitled
Dealing with the Stuff that Makes Life
42
Tough: The 10 Things that Stress Teen Girls

Out and How to Cope with Them by Jill
Zimmerman Rutledge).
As one of the founders of the field
of special education, Montessori was
able to reinterpret the lessons of special ed for the benefit of children not
facing such challenges. This was the
significance of the work she initiated
at San Lorenzo in Rome with her first
casa dei bambini. The time has come for
Montes-sorians to follow Montessoris
example by asking a question apparently not yet proposed: what does
restorative yoga have to offer children
without developmental handicaps or
the immediate peril of life-threatening
disease? What does it have to offer
children with special challenges short
of irremediable medical conditions,
children who are not yet peaceful
but who, given the right support, really
could be? And what does it offer to the
rest of the children, the ones who have
to find a way to deal with the normal
stress of everyday life?
For younger children, research into
the potential of restorative yoga needs
to begin in the naproom. After the
nappers have nodded off to sleep,
those children who are unable to sleep
should be invited into the quiet, darkened yoga room, perhaps just one or
two at a time. Perhaps a normalized
child and a non-normalized child need
to form a two-person class. Perhaps a
previously non-normalized child needs
to become a partner and a mentor for
a currently non-normalized child. Or
perhaps a variety of children at various stages of normalization need to
dip into the experience one by one.
For adolescents, exploration into
the potential of restorative yoga needs
to begin at the point in the school day
after lunch, after proper digestion has
taken place. In Elizabeth Coes celebrated Montessori middle school and
Montessori high school models, that is
the time set aside for personal-world
work (self-improvement through
reflection, journaling, meditation, or
even, when appropriate, a brief,
refreshing nap).
Many practical questions come to

mind. What is the best way to prepare
the environment? What does an adequate Montessori presentation look
like? how can children best mentor
each other through partner work?
Which of the restorative poses currently in use with adults work best with
children with specific challenges?
how do we follow Montessoris famous
innovations in appropriately childsizing things like yoga blocks, eye
pillows, and belly bolsters? These are
empirical questions that only experience can answer.
some thoughts
About Adolescents
Boys dont like yoga, girls do
especially those girls who like ballet.
That seems to be the general consensus
among children who have been led to
believe that yoga is, like ballet, a kind
of performance art.
Its very difficult to think of restorative yoga as a performance art, however. In restorative yoga, your eyes are
usually closed. Often a light gauze
bandage or an eye pillow blocks
your sight as you settle into a pose,
and the cool entry of fresh breath at
the tip of your nose takes the place of
visual or aural images. You see no one,
and no one sees you. David Elkinds
personal fable (the adolescents
developmentally-rooted delusion that
the whole world sees every new little
pimple, the preoccupation that the
whole world is watching and waiting
to judge, waiting to pounce) can take a
rest (Elkind, 1984).
In any case, the vast majority of
boys assume that yoga just isnt for
them. how do we reach boys as well
as girls?
The most likely introduction to
restorative yoga for most boys is
probably a plunge into some very
demanding, very sweaty traditional
hatha yoga. Yoga is not an exercise
class, but some approaches to yoga do
offer some wonderful aerobic benefits,
and all the joys of sweat. A good
example is ashtanga or so-called
power yoga. Although most yoga

classes in the united States are attended by an overwhelming majority of
females, power yoga classes often
have a large percentage of males.
Ashtanga or other vinyasa approaches
to yogathose offering guided repetitions of a large number of physically
demanding posesare consistent
with most boys vision of masculinity.
After the strain and the sweat, the
boys need to settle into the deep calm
of restorative poses. It will not only
knock their socks off but will beat a
path all the way to the luxuriance of
gray matter in the neocortex that is the
triumph of cerebral development in
adolescence. Yoga will start to make
sense, even to the boys.
According to Jackie huxel, a yoga
teacher in suburban Chicago who specializes in working with girls in grades
7-12, the restorative poses that end her
sessions are the primary reason why
her young protgs return week after
week. In its Cool to Be Grounded (2003),
Colleen Morton Busch refers to
research showing that 1 in 10 adolescents suffers from a debilitating mental health problem, of which anxiety
disorders are the most common
(Busch, 2003: 96). At the same time,
yoga has been shown to be more effective than Valium and a variety of other
psychotropic drugs in dealing with
depression (Weintraub, 2004). Is it better
for adolescents to be exploring the
pharmacopeia, or is it better for them
to be getting into yoga?
victims of circumstance
A hallmark of adolescence is to see
oneself as a victim of circumstance.
Yes, youve acted badly; but there isnt
a judge in the world who would convict you. Life stinksexcept when
its deliriously wonderful. And then it
stinks again (Salinger, 1951).
A hallmark of humanistic psychological therapy is the idea that even
when one cant change the world, one
can change oneself. In other words,
even when there is no hope, there is still
the promise of hope, a pathway to hope.
In Sanskrit, the word hatha means

stubborn. The word yoga means
balance. Hatha yoga means stubborn
balance. For adolescents and for
younger children as well, stubborn
balance is the pathway to both clarity
and hope.
For Iyengar and in restorative yoga,
balance arises physically from the isometric opposition of muscles and
bones. Many approaches to yoga are
long on poetry and short on details:
reach upward, reach upward, reach
up to the stars; feel rooted, feel rooted
to the center of the earth. That is not
Iyengar. In Iyengar, you struggle to
press forward with your shins while
you press back with your femurs (the
thigh bones with the big ball joints
connecting into your hips), at the same
time that you press in with the muscles of your calves and out and back
with the muscles of your thighs. Then
you observe the feeling in the soles of
your feet. From your hips to your
heels and beyond, energy and warmth
is everywhere rising in the form of
physical relationship and mutual
implications, a sensation of mountainlike stability. Oh, you think, so thats
what it means to have roots.
J. D. Salingers hero, holden
Caulfield, complains at one point in
Catcher in the Rye:
Its such a stupid question, in my opinion. I mean how do you know what
youre going to do till you do it? The
answer is, you dont. I think I am, but
how do I know? I swear its a stupid
question. (Salinger, 1952, 276)
Well, no, its not such a stupid

question. As Erik Erikson would
argue, the ability to deal with impulse
is a critical component of the central
task in the development of personality
during adolescencethe establishment of a coherent identity, the ability
to recognize, Yup, thats me all
right. That me, that ego, needs to
be free of crippling unconscious contradictions. And it needs to make
sense in relation to other people significant in the adolescents life
(Erikson, 1964). The endpoint of adolescence is the achievement of true

responsibility. In mustering the
strength and resolve to assume true
responsibility, the adolescent bids
adolescence farewell.
And this is holden Caulfields
dilemma:
I keep picturing all these little kids
playing some game in this big field of
rye and all. Thousands of little kids,
and nobodys aroundnobody big, I
meanexcept me. And Im standing
on the edge of some crazy cliff Thats
all Id do all day. Id just be the catcher
in the rye and all. I know its crazy
And the dilemma is this: holden

himself is deeply divided, caught in
the stress of other peoples
hypocrisy, his own isolation, and his
impulsiveness: furiously rubbing out
obscenities from the walls of schools,
giving money away to nuns, socking
Strad-later out of nowhere because he
thinks that Stradlater, a kid twice his
weight, might have seduced a girl he
knows. holden doesnt understand
the implications of his own negativism, which springs not so much
from the phoniness of those around
him as from his own inability to create
reasoned and comfortable boundaries
around his own crazy urges, each one
more sincere than the next.
Before holden can save any of
those thousands of little kids from
falling off the cliff in that field of rye,
he has to learn how to catch himself.
What he needs to be saved from is that
stupid question he most despises: I
mean how do you know what youre
going to do till you do it?
As Montessorians, we need to ask,
what will save a kid like holden, or
the holden Caulfield in any adolescent? A prescription for a course of
psychotropic drugs? A stint in the
Marines? A religious cult? Incarceration or internment in some other
totalistic institution (Goffman, 1959,
1961, 1963)?
As Montessorians, we know very
well that what children and adolesMontessori LIFE Fall 2004
43
cents really need is not external control

but intrinsic motivation. We know
that they need an environment prepared by resolute and observant
adults, stubbornly committed to the
notion that the capacity for independence, intelligence, and compassion lies
deep and abundant within each of
those children.
And for this reason, we need to
consider very seriously whether at the
frightening edges of holdens field of
rye, there should lie here and there at
certain points a sturdy net woven of
blankets and mats, eye pillows, and
belly bolstersthe project materials of
restorative yoga. As Iyengar reminds
us, unless freedom is gained in the
body, freedom of the mind is not
possible.
MiCHAEL J. ROSANOVA is head of

interCultura Montessori School in Oak
Park, iL.
44
references
Busch, C. (2003, July/August). Its cool to be
grounded. Yoga Journal, 175, pp. 94-99,153.
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1991). Flow: The psychology
of optimal experience. New York: harper &
Row.
Elkind, D. (1984). All grown up and no place to go.
Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
Erikson, E. (1964). Childhood and society. New
York: W. W. Norton.
(1968). identity: Youth and crisis. New York:
W. W. Norton.
Farhi, D. (1996). The breathing book. New York: holt.
Goertz, D. (2001). Children who are not yet peaceful: Preventing exclusion in the early elementary
classroom. Berkeley, CA: Frog Press/North
Atlantic Books.
Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in
everyday life. Garden City, NY: Doubleday
& Company.
(1961). Asylums: Essays on the social situation
of mental patients and other inmates. Garden
City, NY: Doubleday Anchor.
(1963). Stigma: Notes on the management of
spoiled identity. Englewood Cliffs, NJ:
Prentice-hall.
herzog, S. (1982). Joy in the classroom. Boulder

Creek, CA: university of the Trees Press.
Iyengar, B. K. S. (2001). Yoga: The path to holistic
health. New York: Dorling Kindersley
Publications.
Lamb, T. (2004). Yoga and children: An annotated
bibliography. Prescott, AZ: International
Association of Yoga Therapists.
Lasater, J. (1995). Relax and renew: Restful yoga for
stressful times. Berkeley, CA: Rodmell Press.
(2003). Yoga for pregnancy. Berkeley, CA:
Rodmell Press.
Rutledge, J. (2003). Dealing with the stuff that
makes life tough: The 10 things that stress teen
girls out and how to cope with them. Boston,
MA: McGraw hill.
Salinger, J.D. (1951). The catcher in the rye.
Boston, MA: Little, Brown.
Sumar, S. (1998). Yoga for the special child: A therapeutic approach for infants and children with
Down Syndrome, cerebral palsy, and learning
disabilities. Buckingham, VA: Special Yoga
Publications.
Weintraub, A. (2004). Yoga for depression: A
compassionate guide. New York: Random
house.
Montessori Education Center

of the Rockies
4745 Walnut St. Boulder, CO 80301 (303)494-3002
www.mecr.edu
Infant and Toddler

Early Childhood
Elementary I-II
Teacher Education Courses
American Montessori Society affiliated
MACTE accredited
educating with excellence since 1978
IAMS
Certification programs
INSTITUTE
FOR ADVANCED
MONTESSORI STUDIES
Early Childhood Montessori Education (ages 2.5-6)

Elementary I and II Montessori Education (ages 6-9, 6-12, and 9-12)
Excellent facilities
The Institute is sponsored by Barrie School, one of the largest Montessori schools in the United States,
with facilites that include
a complete material-making center
a spacious and comfortable learning
a substantial professional library
environment
access to the museums and resources of
extensive Montessori curriculum
the nation's capital
resources
Dedicated faculty
Experienced, nurturing Montessori educators who presently guide classrooms of their own
Graduate credits available through Trinity College in Washington, DC
leading to a Master of Arts in Teaching
For more information, call or write
Visit the Institute at www.barrie.org
Hilary Green, Director

Affiliated with American Montessori Society
Institute for Advanced Montessori Studies
Accredited by MACTE
Approved by Maryland Higher Education
13500 Layhill Road Silver Spring, MD 20906
Commission
301-576-2866 Ext. 266; Fax 301-576-2801; hgreen@barrie.org
iams@barrie.org
45
one Individual at a time:

Instruction in the montessori classroom
By Susan Jones Jensen
s Montessori teachers, how

many times have we been
asked, What makes a Montessori school different? or, even more
generally, What does Montessori
mean? These are simple and appropriate questions from curious parents,
yet a meaningful answer could be far
from simpleand far too lengthy for
most circumstances. When I find myself
faced with these questions, as I have
been many times, I find that my first
concise response is simply that in
Montessori education we work with
each child at his or her level of readiness to learn: The focus is on the individual.
What could be more clearly selfevident to each of us than the fact that
we, and the children with whom we
work, are each unique individuals?
And whatever else parents may or
may not understand and acknowledge
about their children, each one is aware
of the individuality, the precious
uniqueness, of each and every child.
In introducing the Montessori philosophy to those inquiring about it, this
is a good starting point because one
of the great strengths of Montessori
education is that this quality of
uniqueness in the child is respected
and encouraged.
But how exactly are this uniqueness and this focus on the individual
attained in the Montessori classroom,
to make this ideal a living, working
reality? To answer that, let us look at
the role of many different factors: the
environment, the teacher, the parents,
and, most importantly, the child.
Montessori attached great importance to the prepared environment,
many aspects of which contribute to
46
individualized instruction. The classroom is arranged so that each child is

free to move about, to explore, to
choose, and to learn at his own pace.
There is no teachers desk in the front
of the room, facing rows of smaller
desks all neatly aligned. Instead there
are work tables and floor space; there
are shelves of learning activities
grouped meaningfully into areas
dealing with different parts of the
curriculum and, within these areas,
into sequences of activities. There is no
blackboard on the wall on which the
teacher writes instructions and assignments for everyone in the room;
instead, most lessons are given individually. No one child will work with
every available material, but for each
one there is a selection of learning
activities which is appropriately challenging and which can successfully
solve the problem of the match, that
is, of properly matching the child to
the right material so that she may continue to progress at her individual
level of readiness.
The classroom materials also foster
individualized instruction through a
diversity of subjects and kinds of
learning activities available to the
What could be more clearly

self-evident to each of us
than the fact that we, and
the children with whom we
work, are each unique individuals?
child. Not only is the child presented
with a core curriculum of math and
language, but he is also exposed to a
science curriculum with a wide range
of interesting subjects, a geography
and cultural curriculum, many arts

and crafts projects that may tie in with
the science or cultural studies, and a
wide range of practical life and sensorial activities. The child has much
from which to choose and the freedom
to follow his own interests. One child
may love to try a little of most every
area of science presented in the curriculum, for example, while another
might be particularly drawn to
insects and wish to pursue this more
intensively. There is flexibility in the
classroom to accommodate each of
these learning styles.
One series of lessons many children
find particularly enjoyable is the
Montessori timeline. As part of this
series my classroom included volcano
work, which serves as a good example
of the diversity and range of levels of
difficulty that can be presented. These
materials came out when we were
studying the prehistory of the earth in
the azoic period. The shelf activities
included a working model of a volcano, complete with vinegar and baking
soda to make it erupt, accessible to
even the youngest children. For older
children there were books with photographs and text about real volcanoes,
three-part vocabulary cards detailing
the parts of a volcano, and small
duplicated black-line pictures of a volcano for the most advanced children
to make their own parts of a volcano
book. To top it off, for all to enjoy was
a sizeable chunk of real volcanic lava.
And it was not just any lava: A parent
who had traveled to Japan had brought
back a piece of Mount Fuji for us!
The whole series of volcano work
was the center of attention at our fall
family open house. The erupting volcano model was in constant use (I
observed one little boy telling his
parents that he interrupted the vol-
cano). I also saw one little girl point

out a photo of Mount Fuji to her parents and show them a piece of that
mountain. They smiled indulgently,
not believing her, so I quietly assured
them that she was exactly correctit
really was a piece of Mount Fuji. They
were quite impressed, both with the
materials and with their daughters
knowledge.
Interesting and diverse as the
instructional materials are, the entire
selection and arrangement of activities
in the classroom is a direct consequence of the next critical factor in individualized instruction, the role of the
teacher. One of the teachers primary
functions is to create the environment,
and her choices for its contents are
based on her thorough knowledge of
child development and her welldeveloped skills of observation. She
gains an understanding of why each
child is doing what she is, the point to
which she has progressed developmentally, and what sort of learning
activities will next be most appropriate for her. her awareness of the students level of readiness will allow her
to intervene when it is appropriate to
present her with materials that are
challenging without being overwhelming.
The teacher will not, in most cases,
solve the problem of the match for the
child, but rather present him with a
range of choices that will enable him
to solve it for himself. Because the
teacher is willing to allow the child
this degree of self-direction, she conveys a sense of freedom to him, a
sense she is able to give him because
she respects his individuality and his
power of self-regulation. Naturally she
will balance this freedom with limits
that render it manageable and comfortable for him. For each child there
will then be a balance of self-direction
and teacher-direction, both aimed at
the same goal of maximizing his learning and progress.
Sometimes individualized instruction on the teachers part can be her
choice of learning materials for a child
but at other times it may be a simple

extension or variation of familiar
work. I remember as an intern observing one gifted teacher who was herself
observing a little boy working with a
geoboard. Jerome was a young 3-yearold and even though the work included
pattern cards with appealing pictures,
he just didnt get it. The colored rubber
bands he was using all stretched in
straight lines from one peg on the
geoboard to another. This continued
for many days. Finally one day, after
working with it for quite a while, he
brought his design to show the

teacher. She acknowledged his effort
quietly, then reached to the geoboard
and stretched one side of a rubber
band over a different peg so that it
formed not a line but a triangle. I could
almost see the light go on in Jeromes
head! Without a word, he took the
board and began making his rubber
band lines into two-dimensional shapes,
mostly triangles at first. With one simple wordless act Jeromes teacher had
opened a door for him that he was not
able to open for himself, but which he
joyfully walked through.
Maximizing the childs learning
and progress is a goal shared by the
teacher and his parents. The great
majority of parents of children in
Montessori schools are supportive of
the school and its philosophy. Some,
to be sure, have more time and inclination to be involved in their childs

education than others, and certainly
some are more knowledgeable about
Montessori and all that a Montessori
education implies. But whatever their
level of involvement and knowledge,
the overwhelming majority of parents
have in common the satisfaction of
knowing that their children are being
meaningfully challenged and that, in
the ongoing process of learning, their
children are neither at risk of being left
behind nor of being pushed to achieve
beyond their capabilities.
For parents who wish to be involved
in their childs classroom experience,
one good option is to invite them to
share their experiences after they have
traveled to interesting places. A little
boy in my class, William, once missed
several weeks of school when he was
about 5 years old because he and his
family traveled to India. The father was
a talented photographer and when the
family returned he volunteered to
share some of their experiences and
pictures with the class. We timed this
to coincide with the class study of
Asia, and William and his dad spent
most of one morning sharing their
treasures from India with us. The dad
set up a screen and projected slides of
his pictures onto it, while he and
William talked about their experiences. I remember them telling how
bad the rubber band factory smelled
and how good the special tea and milk
from a street vendor tasted. They also
brought some hands-on artifacts:
money, articles of clothing, and artwork. William and his dad were a
wonderful source of enrichment for
the geography curriculum that year
and William had the joy of sharing
his individual experiences with the
group and acting as a teacher to the
other children.
If you are fortunate enough to have
children in your class from diverse
ethnic backgrounds you have a built-in
resource for a multicultural curriculum. Most parents are happy to share
their personal histories and cultural
47
artifacts. I have found it helps to include

this kind of participation as an option
on my parent volunteer sign-up sheet
at the start of the school year. I remember one wonderful year when the
mothers of three Korean children and
one American-born mother of an
adopted Korean child combined their
resources to cook and serve the class
an authentic Korean meal for lunch.
That was my personal introduction to
kim chee, a treat I instantly loved!
We have talked about the classroom, the teacher, and the parents.
Finally, what is the role of the child in
individualized instruction? In a very
concrete sense, his education is the
building of his future, the construction
of his own knowledge. Both Montessori and Piaget believed that the child
must be an active learner because it is
the child himself who must construct
his own concepts. he will do this in
the context of growing and attaining
greater levels of developmental maturity, both physically and socially, as
well as increasing his store of social
(conventional) knowledge through
interacting with peers and adults in a
dynamic social environment.
A child in any given class, rather
than being with others who are all the
same age, will be part of a group that
falls within a range of ages. This
accentuates individual differences;
when the childrens ages span 3 years,
the typical Montessori arrangement,
no one expects that they will all be
learning the same things at the same
time. Individual differences in developmental ability are the norm. The
didactic materials accommodate this
range of abilities by presenting a range
of difficulty in each academic area to
assure that each child is appropriately
challenged.
In a Montessori environment that
respects and values children as unique
individuals, the individual child experiences a profound source of freedom.
It is a place where he is trusted to regulate his choices and where he has
been given the means to acquire the
self-control and self-direction to make
48
those choices. he joyfully solves the

problem of the match for himself over
and over in many different learning
situations as he explores the range of
learning materials available to him.
It would, of course, be unrealistic
to think that a child would always
without fail be able to choose appropriately for himself. how many times
have we seen a child return to playdough for what seems like the hundredth time in order to have work in
front of him while he socializes with
his friends, or seen a 3-year-old who
cannot yet recognize numerals to 9
drawn to a hundred board because all
those mysterious tiles are just so fascinating. These are times when teacher
intervention is appropriate and can be
a positive influence.
I remember one child, Annette, who
was having lots of trouble separating
from her mother, even though she was
almost 6 years old. Each day the two
of them would come to the classroom,
Annette would cling to her mother,
and they would look at a few of the
materials together, but nothing seemed
to really draw Annette to work in a
sustained manner. Then after a tearful
scene her mother would leave and
Annette would pull herself together,
wander about the room, and wait for
outside play time. After a few days of
this I observed them sitting one day in
a quiet spot looking at a book the
mother had chosen. I felt I really needed
to intervene, and because I suspected
Annette wanted to try the computer
but hadnt yet asked to use it I invited
her to come with me for a lesson. The
computer! she said, and dropped the
book. We had a short lesson and soon
she was engrossed in a simple, but for
her fascinating, game that let her complete a sequence to build a clowns
face. her mother was finally able to let
go and leave, and for Annette the computer work opened the door to a
world of other independent choices in
the classroom.
For Annette, it was the computer
work that really drew her out of her
anxieties and into school. For another
child it might be something completely different: dinosaur scrubbing for a

young scientist, or a special art project
for a child excited by color. Whatever
the specific work, for the child this
solving of the problem of the match
is a liberating experience, one which
encourages him to try more new
things and, ultimately, to expand his
horizon of choices.
In a well-functioning Montessori
environment, the primary source of
direction comes from the child. Maria
Montessori believed we should follow
the child and trust that his actions are,
on the whole, purposeful and appropriate. She believed that, given the
opportunity to choose from suitable
activities, the child is usually a very
good judge of which kinds of work are
right for him at the developmental
point he has reached.
One particular way this is manifested is through the childs sensitive
periods, times when a child is particularly attuned to an aspect of his environment and is able to learn readily in
that particular area. Even parents who
have never heard of sensitive periods
will recognize the phenomenon
demonstrated by language acquisition. It is indeed common knowledge
that a second language is most easily
learned at a very young age, and is
acquired with a fluency and correct-
ness, which may never be attained if

this learning is delayed too long. Most
of us learning a language as adults
truly, after the age of 13 or sowill
never speak it like a native or like a
child who learned it during the preschool years.
In addition to Montessoris sensitive
periods, children often have academic
areas in which they are stronger or
weaker than others. I once had in my
class a 3-year-old, Elise, who was an
only child and had spent most of her
time around adults who tended to do
many things for her that she might
otherwise have done for herself. She
was very attracted to the practical life
activities, though she avoided art
work. When she tried pencil and paper
it was clear that her fine motor skills
were still poorly developed. But what
made Elise different from most 3-yearolds was that she was a self-taught
reader. She sounded out words on her
own and remembered sight words
after being told once. Reading was a
real strength for Elise! She progressed
happily, and because using pencil and
paper was especially difficult for her,
using the moveable alphabet to do
word building proved a very positive
experience. Pencil-and-paper work
remained challenging, but a few art
projects proved irresistible to her,
and her fine-motor skills gradually
improved. Meanwhile she continued
to thrive on the practical life materials
that let her learn to do more and more
for herself, rather than seeking help
from adults.
Even though every child is different
and has unique strengths and weaknesses, every young child is capable of
absorbing much knowledge at an
early age and, given the opportunity,
will learn easily, joyfully, and eagerly.
In the Montessori classroom, the goal
is for each child to come to see that
the world of school and, by extension,
the larger world, is a fascinating
place, and one with which he can successfully engage.
The First Montessori Teacher Preparation

Center in Delaware, M.I.T.E. is conveniently
located to New Jersey, Pennsylvania and
Maryland. Situated in beautiful Northern
Delaware, utilizing exemplary Montessori
classrooms and meeting spaces, M.I.T.E.
offers AMS credentials at two levels:
Infant/Toddler (birth to 3 years) and
Early Childhood (21/2 through 6 years).
Classes meet on weekends to accommodate
busy lifestyles. ENROLL TODAY!
Tel: (610) 444-4643
Fax: (610) 444-3122
Email: mitedu@comcast.net
New
Millennium
Same Great
Prices!
M.I.T.E. is fully accredited through the MACTE Commission

(Montessori Accreditation Council for Teacher Education)
and affiliated with AMS (The American Montessori Society).
365 Days a year

24 Hours a day
7 Days a week
Since 1980, we have revolutionized the way Montessori
schools equip Montessori classrooms. Whether you need
to replace the smallest cube on your Pink Tower or order
enough to outfit 10 new classrooms, ordering Montessori
materials has never been this convenient before!
Now you can order Montessori materials in your pajamas!
Come visit us at www.thematerialscompany.com

to see our online catalog and secure online order processing center.
Made in America
No assembly required
No distributor mark-ups
No restocking charge
Replaceable parts for all materials
(Including individual beads)
Montessori consultant on staff
Friendly, responsive service

Print, Spanish & D'Nelian style letters in
sand-paper, moveable alphabets, and
double sandpaper
Math beads are ceramic-glazed nylon
beads on real copper wire-individually
constructed
NAFTA qualified for Canada and Mexico
Who says you cant have it all? Price Value Quality Service
The Materials Company of Boston

Manufacturer of authentic Montessori Materials since 1980 For Free catalog: 603-641-1339
P.O. Box 378 Salem, NH email: MaterialCo@aol.com
49
REVIEWSMUSIC
In a Classical Mode
Prokofiev, S. (1994). Peter and the Wolf.
Erato Disques S. A. $16.99.
Abbado, C. (2003). Childrens Classics.
Universal Classics Universal Music/
Deutsche Grammophon. $7.99.
By Warren Puffer Jones
In 1936, Sergei Prokofiev visited the
Moscow Children's Theater and was
encouraged by a young actress to compose a piece that would illustrate for
children how the various instruments of
the orchestra sounded. The result was
Peter and the Wolf, probably the most
popular, best-loved orchestral work for
children. The piece tells the story of a
young boy who, with the help of his
animal friends, captures a menacing wolf.
All the characters in the story are portrayed musically by a different instrument:
Peter by the strings, the wolf by the
French horns, and so on. A brief prelude
introduces the various instruments and
their corresponding characters before
the orchestra launches into the familiar
"Peter" theme, and the narrator into the
story. Though nothing can substitute for
experiencing the work performed live,
children and adults alike will enjoy this
fine music.
In the 1994 recording of the Orchestre
de L'Opera de Lyon with conductor Kent
Nagano, Patrick Stewart gives a fantastic
narration of Peter and the Wolf. His
voice displays a warmth and depth characteristic of an accomplished storyteller
as he modulates his way through the
narrative. He portrays the different characters with as much ingenuity and
sensitivity as Prokofiev has used with
the orchestra. Likewise, the orchestra
does a masterful job setting the stage
and interpreting the music.
On a disc entitled Children's Classics,
Sting narrates Peter and the Wolf while
conductor Claudio Abbado leads the
Chamber Orchestra of Europe. The
orchestra plays Prokofiev's music with
superb warmth and character, but the
narration pales in comparison to Patrick
Stewart's. Sting does a capable job of
telling the story, but he sometimes
attempts too many different voices,
50
rather than letting the music itself characterize the plot.

The remainder of this disc presents
two classic orchestral works for children.
French composer Camille Saint-Sans
wrote the Carnival of the Animals in
1886 as a grand zoological fantasy
intended to poke fun at the musical conventions of his time. In 1954, Ogden
Nash added intensely clever, humorous
verses for each of the fourteen sections
of music. Though younger children might
not immediately grasp the intricacies of
Nash's lyrics, the music is exciting and
varied, and a good contrast with the
Prokofiev. While Prokofiev used different instruments to stand for the animals
in Peter and the Wolf, making the piece
a wonderful musical teaching tool for
children, Saint-Sans employs more
complex (and perhaps less obvious)
devices like melody to represent the
carnival animals.
Benjamin Brittens Young Person's
Guide to the Orchestra, written in 1946
for a documentary film, is not nearly as
pedantic as the title might suggest. As
with Peter and the Wolf, the work begins

with an introduction of the various instruments and the orchestra as a whole.
Britten also addresses the act of composition, as the piece is a series of orchestral
variations on a theme by Henry Purcell.
Lorin Maazel conducts the French
National Orchestra while also narrating
the entrances of the instruments. Though
Britten's work lacks the plot and characters of the other pieces, the vivid writing
and clever orchestration clearly portray
the orchestra as a living ensemble of
musicians. Both of these discs present
some of the masterpieces of the orchestral repertoire for children. None of these
pieces, however, should be considered
background music. The works demand
active listening and thinking, and do a
superb job of introducing children and
adults alike to the wonderful world of
music and sounds that the orchestra is
capable of producing.
WARREN PUFFER JONES is currently

pursuing an MFA at Bard College.
Curriculum Manuals & Materials

Early Childhood (3-6) & Elementary (6-12)
SPANISH & ENGLISH
Leader in the Montessori Curriculum area since 1980

Five Kingdoms of Life Continents Land Forms Flags
Botany Zoology
Layers of the Earth
BC/AD Timeline
Volcano Clouds
Days of the Week
Language Arts
(510) 278-1115
Months of the Year Chemistry Planets Geometry
www.MontessoriRD.com FAX (510) 278-1577
Montessori Research & Development

16492 Foothill Blvd. San Leandro, CA 94578-2107
REVIEWSFILM
JOIN US. . .
A Familys Journey
In America
A film by Jim Sheridan
PG-13
107 minutes
2002
By Kathy Carey
And a little child shall lead them.
Well, not exactly. Ariel (Emma Bolger),
after her father sternly instructs his family
to tell the border guards they are on
vacation, leans across her older sister
and shouts, ahead of any question and
as only a 4-year-old can, Were on holiday! Her sister, Christy (Sarah Bolger),
probably about 9 years old, mortified by
Ariels outbursts, refuses to talk to the
guards at all. It is a moment with which
any parent can identify.
This seemingly simple story of a
poor Irish family immigrating to the
United States, opening with this bordercrossing scene, introduces the characters with a depth and accuracy we can
only appreciate at the films end. The
Sullivans sell their dilapidated station
wagon to set themselves up in a rundown New York tenement, populated
with other poor immigrants, drug
addicts, and one neighbor in particular
whose screams penetrate the paper-thin
apartment walls.
Sheridan masterfully contrasts the
familys wonder at seeing New York City
for the first time with the difficulties of
actually living there. He shoots the neon
signs and the pulsating movement of the
ever-changing panorama like a carnival
with the camera focusing up, as if the
action captured can only carry one to
greater heights. But as the Sullivans settle into their daily struggle for survival,
the camera shows us rain on the sidewalks, boots and shoes, and sweat. The
viewer looks down on Johnny (Paddy
Considine) as he fails another audition.
The daughters rescue the screaming
neighbor and he, in turn, rescues the
family. There is little suspense but much
emotion. In the DVD version of the film,
director Sheridan discusses scenes he
cut, speaking about the need to main-
tain an emotional tightness through the

characters. Instead of telling the viewer
everything, he simply lets the actors
work, which they do masterfully. These
days, when everyone tells all but real
feeling often seems somehow diminished, this film allows us to watch a
family bound together by grief and fear
slowly release itself from bondage,
through the guilelessness of two little
girls and the generosity of a dying man.
And in the end, Sheridan brings us back
to the meaning of life: pain, love, and
the joy of family.
The film contains one scene with
sexual content and one scene with profanity. Recommended for family viewing
with children 10-12 years and older.
KATHY CAREY is co-editor of

Montessori LIFE.
The Montessori
Teacher Education
Institute of
Bowling Green, OH
AMS Early Childhood Credential
Expert instruction, featuring
Sr. Anthonita Porta, O.P.
A Summer Academic Phase with
a one week break for students
Several scheduling options
available
A beautiful campus, designed
uniquely for Montessori education
For information
phone or write:
MTEIBG
515 Sand Ridge Rd.
Bowling Green,
OH 43402
419-352-4203
www.wcnet.org/
~montesso/
Classes begin June 14, 2004

AMS Affiliated - MACTE Accredited
51
REVIEWSBOOKS
A Path to Peace
Honoring the Light of the Child
By Sonnie McFarland
Shining Mountains Press, 2004,
$25.00
By Amy Henderson
Sonnie McFarland, a driving force
behind various AMS peace initiatives, is
a promoter and facilitator of peace
retreats and touring peace symposia. In
1993 she published Shining Through: A
Teachers Handbook of Transformation,
intended to guide teachers toward
deeper spiritual awareness and mastery
of body, mind, emotion and spirit.
Shining Through speaks to the preparation of the teacher while Honoring the
Light of the Child, McFarlands newest
book, is a collection of 22 activities
designed to facilitate a culture of peace
in 3-6 classrooms. This guide celebrates
the light and love dwelling within each
of us in a holistic model of peacefulness. The thoughtful lessons hold the
potential to profoundly affect communities of young learners by helping them
to live and work peacefully with others.
The cover of the book, depicting a
tranquil young child with a butterfly,
attests to the transforming nature of
peace. The activities within are vehicles
for children to experience a culture of
peace in their school and home communities. The eloquent introduction presents background information on peace
education in the context of normal child
development and describes the books
ultimate goal: to help children experience
life from a position of respect, understanding, and cooperation. The premise is
that children come into the world with
love in their hearts. When adults reinforce
their uniqueness and help them to understand how their bodies, minds, and emotions can be managed, then children can
make thoughtful choices.
52
McFarland draws on 35 years of

teaching experience to impart her most
successful activities to teachers and
parents. Each activity has a focus on at
least one of four levels of awareness:
self, community, cultural, and environment. Lessons are easy to implement
as they contain steps for preparation
and presentation with suggestions for
follow-through. Instructions are included
for making visual components to the
lessons as well as full descriptions to
complete the presentation. McFarland
offers ideas for creating physical environments to foster peace along with
prescriptions for maintaining essential
mental, emotional, and spiritual climates.
The text recommends group lessons to
help children identify and express emotions while learning to listen and to
empathize with others.
The books aim, to cultivate activities
related to emotional intelligence, conflict
resolution, effective communication,
self-confidence, cultural awareness,
cooperative behavior, environmental
awareness, and self-awareness through
concentration and centering, is an ambitious one. But peaceful children are the
heart of Montessoris philosophy, so what
better preparation for life can we offer?
Honoring the Light of the Child can be
ordered from AMS: Call 212-358-1250,
e-mail mariya@amshq.org, or visit www.
amshq.org (Go to Parents/ Public and
then to Publications). A portion of
all sales will be donated to the AMS
Peace Fund.
AMY HENDERSON is a former president

of AMS, and a teacher at Montessori
Childrens House in Fort Worth, TX.
References
McFarland, Sonnie (1993). Shining through:
A teachers handbook on transformation.
Buena Vista, CO: Shining Mountains Press.
(1999, Winter). Nurturing the Peace Flower:
A Model for the Science of Peace.
Montessori LIFE, pp. 31-35
Fun with Art History

When Pigasso Met Mootisse
By Nina Laden
Chronicle Books, 1998, $15.95
By ReJeania Steiner
Here is a children's book for all ages
with art, humor, and a little history
thrown into the mix. And what a mix it is!
Author and artist Nina Laden tells
the story of the competitive friendship
between artists Pablo Picasso and Henri
Matisse by casting each artist as an animalPicasso as a pig, Matisse as a cow.
Each page of When Pigasso Met
Mootisse captures the spirit of the
artists through color, line, and shape.
Through their animal alter egos, there is
a little name-calling which seems logical
in context. Being "pigheaded" or a "mad
cow" makes sense when Laden has her
characters throwing mud as well as
paint. The productive pig and the peaceloving bull play out the basic needs of
artists who are desperate to create and
be understood. In the end, "good fences
do make good neighbors" when the two
sparring artists collaborate to paint a
fence, each one covering a side in his
own distinctive style, which the "mooseum" purchases.
Children and adults will enjoy the
punning nature of the writing as well as
the animal caricatures of Picasso and
Matisse. The illustrations adroitly replicate in "barnyard" fashion the techniques
of the real artists. The summarized lives
of the artists at the end of the book
should satisfy the most serious-minded
of readers.
REJEANIA STEINER is director of

Westminster School Primary Division in
Oklahoma City, OK.
APPLICATIONS AND OPPORTUNITIES

281 Park Avenue South , New York, NY 10010-6102
phone 212-358-1250 fax 212-358-1256 www.amshq.org
Individual Membership
Application/Renewal
Name___________________________________________________________________________________________
Address_________________________________________________________________________________________
City _____________________________State __________ Zip _______________ Country ____________________
Telephone___________________________________ E-mail _____________________________________________
1. Your membership
Check all that apply:
I am a faculty member of an AMS-affiliated teacher education program (TEP)

TEP: _______________________________________________________________________________________
I am a Montessori-credentialed teacher
Credential Level
Month & Year Rec'd
Teacher Education Program
_____________
__________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________
__________________
_____________________________________________________
_____________
__________________
_____________________________________________________
Your name as it appears on credential(s) ____________________________________________________________
This is a renewal membership. My member number is _______________________

This is a new membership. My credential is from an AMS program
This is a new membership. My credential is from a MACTE program other than AMS. A copy is attached.
I do not have a Montessori credential
membership expires June 30, 2006. Includes subscription to Montessori Life magazine.
Select: $82 Membership purchased or renewed now through March 31, 2005
$70 Membership purchased or renewed April 1 June 30, 2005

$55 Membership purchased or renewed starting July 1, 2005
$545 Lifetime Membership (no expiration)
$146 Lifetime Membership in four annual installments of $146 (no expiration)
International membership (for members living outside the u.S.) expires June 30, 2005.
Select: $25 International Membership purchased or renewed now through June 30, 2005
$65 International Membership purchased or renewed now through June 30, 2005,
plus subscription to Montessori Life magazine
2. Payment Information
Enclosed is my check or money order payable to AMS in the amount of $_______________*

Charge $ ___________ to my: q MasterCard
q Visa q Discover
Cardholder _____________________________________ Card Number ___________________________________
Expiration Date ____________________Signature ____________________________________________________
* Payable in U.S. dollars and drawn on U.S. banks only.
Revised 11-3-04
53
APPLICATIONS AND OPPORTUNITIES

SAVE THE DATES! Professional Development Events sponsored by the American Montessori Society
JAn 1417, 2005
heads of schools retreat
The Development of Leadership for Heads of School
Jack Blessington & Bretta Weiss Wolff, presenters
Marie M. Dugan, facilitator
Club El Mandarin Resort Riviera Maya, Mexico
Penny Cichucki, pjk13@mc.net or 815-338-0013
FeB 26, 2005

touring symposium
Practical Life through the Ages
Martha McDermott, holly Stoehr
& Shanna honan, presenters
Origins Montessori Charter School
26 B South Willow Drive Orlando, FL
Chair: Julie Sanborn
jlsmontessori@yahoo.com 321-235-3739
FeB 26, 2005

school consultant training
Children, Learning Differences, and Montessori

Casey Barnett, presenter
Wilmington Montessori School
1400 harvey Road Wilmington, DE
Chair: Linda Zankowsky
Contact: Carolyn Fuhrman
carolyn_fuhrman@wmsde.org or 302-475-0555
APr 9, 2005
touring symposium
Practical Life through the Ages
Martha McDermott, holly Stoehr, & Shanna honan, presenters
St. Marys hall Montessori
9401 Starcrest Drive San Antonio, TX
Chair: Suzanne Weaver
210-483-9201 p 210-655-3000 f sweaver@smhall.com
Origins Montessori Charter School

26 B South Willow Drive Orlando, FL
321-235-3739
Mimi Basso mimi@amshq.org or 212-358-1250
mAr 30APr 2, 2006

Ams 46th nAtIonAL conFerence
FeB 27mAr 5, 2005

montessori education Week
mAr 14, 2007

Rosann or Peter Larrow

plarrow@neo.rr.com or 330-929-5581
Celebrate 100 years of Montessori education!

New York Marriott Marquis New York, NY
info@amshq.org
mAr 5, 2005
touring symposium
Children, Learning Differences, and Montessori
Casey Barnett, presenter
North Shoreview Public Montessori School
1301 Cypress San Mateo, CA
Chair: Margaret Ricks director@bowmanschool.org
hyatt Regency houston houston, TX

info@amshq.org
march 69, 2008

Marriott Wordman Park hotel Washington, DC
info@amshq.org
February 26march 1, 2009

mAr 5, 2005
New Orleans Marriott New Orleans, LA

info@amshq.org
North Shoreview Public Montessori School

1301 Cypress, San Mateo, CA
march 2528, 2010

mAr 31APr 3, 2005
Marriott Boston Copley Place Boston, Massachusetts

info@amshq.org

Chicago Marriott Downtown Chicago, IL
info@amshq.org
mAr 31, 2005

AMS National Conference
Chicago Marriott Downtown Chicago, IL
54
APr 9, 2005
touring symposium
For the most current information, visit the AMS web site:
www.amshq.org
AMERICAN MONTESSORI SOCIETY EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES

AMS member schools are eligible to advertise
employment openings on the AMS web site. As your
service organization, we are delighted to help you
reach those candidates who are best qualified to
work in your school.
Position(s) Available: Be sure to include level (Infant-Toddler,

Early Childhood, etc.), start date, hours, qualifications, credentials, number of months, compensation.
Listings remain on the web site until the position is filled, or for up
to 3 months from date of posting.
Simply fill out this application and mail or fax it to:
American montessori society
281 Park Avenue south, new York, nY 10010-6102
Attn: susana ortiz
212-358-1256 fax
Attach a Brief Description of school & community: Size, cultural

life, sports, amenities, cost of living, benefits, etc. Tell why an
applicant might want to work at your school. (Limit 200 words.)
APPLIcAtIon For LIstIng oF teAchIng oPPortunItIes

School Name______________________________________________
AMS School Member #_____________________________________
School Address____________________________________________
City ________________________
State_____ Zip____________
Contact __________________________________________________
Phone _____________________
Fax ______________________
E-mail Address ____________________________________________
Web site Address __________________________________________
Type of Community: urban suburban rural
university corporate
Economic Level: low middle high mixed
For more information, contact Susana Ortiz: susana@amshq.org

or 212-358-1250 ext. 211.
www.amshq.org
Apply for Ursula Thrush Peace Seed Grant

Montessori educators who have formulated a project that
fosters education for peace are warmly invited to apply for
AMSs ursula Thrush Peace Seed Grant.
The American Montessori Society Peace Committee created
this $2,000 peace grant to honor the memory of the late ursula
Thrush. ursulas vision and dedication to fulfill Maria Montessoris vision for peace, through children, opened the doors
to many Montessori educators, inspiring them to include
peace education in their classrooms and schools.
ursula Thrush was the founder of the Maria Montessori
School of the Golden Gate and Teacher Training Center in
San Francisco and helped establish several Montessori
programs, including The Science of Peace Task Force and
the Montessori Peace Academy.
Persons interested in applying for the ursula Thrush Peace
Seed Grant must complete an application and send a copy
to each of the committee members electronically or by mail.
Completed applications must be submitted by January 31,
2005, and become the property of the American Montessori
Society. To secure an application, contact one of the committee members.
committee members
Judi Bauerlein: 2173 Oak Creek Place, hayward, CA
94541 mark.j.stephens@gte.net
Lesley nan haberman: 11 East 81 Street, New York, NY
10028 lesleynan@aol.com
sonnie mcFarland: PO Box 4155, Buena Vista, CO 81211
shiningmts@aol.com
selection criteria
Applicants must have a Montessori background.
The project must further education for peace.
The project must reach a significant number of children
and/or educators.
The recipient of the grant must share the results of her
project with the AMS audience.
The project goal must be accomplished in the year following
receipt of the grant.
The recipient must show how he will be accountable for
the use of the funds.
notification
Applicants will be notified by March 15, 2005. The recipient
will be announced at the AMS 45th National Conference, in
Montessori LiFE, and in the Peace Seed Connection newsletter.
55
E AST E R N R E G I O N
BARRY UNIVERSITY MONTESSORI
TEACHER EDUCATION
Early Childhood 212-6, Elementary 6-12
11300 N.E. 2nd Ave., Miami Shores, FL 33161
Satellite Locations:
Michigan Elem., 4312 Michigan Ave.,
Ft. Myers, FL 33905
Gulfport Montessori Elementary,
2350 22nd Ave., S., St. Petersburg, FL 33712
DR. IJYA TULLOSS, Dir. itulloss@mail.barry.edu
305-899-3736 FAX 305-899-3630
BUFFALO MONTESSORI TEACHER EDUCATION PROGRAM
Early Childhood 212-6
453 Parker Ave., Buffalo, NY 14216
EILEEN WILMS BUERMANN eileenmwb@aol.com
TEL & FAX 916-832-0042
CENTER FOR MONTESSORI TEACHER EDUCATION/NY
Infant &Toddler Birth-3, Early Childhood 212-6, Elementary 6-12
785 Mamaroneck Ave., White Plains, NY 10605
Villa Montessori School
(Early Childhood 212-6, Elementary 6-12)
4535 N. 28th St., Phoenix, AZ 85016
Village School for Children (Early Childhood 212-6)
100 W. Prospect St., Waldwick, NJ 07463
Lexington Montessori School (Elementary 6-9)
130 Pleasant St., Lexington, MA 02421
CAROLE WOLFE KORNGOLD cmteny@aol.com/www.cmteny.com
914-948-2501 FAX 914-597-2779
CHESTNUT HILL COLLEGE MONTESSORI TTP
9601 Germantown Ave., Philadelphia, PA 19118-2695
MARIE CONTI, Dir. contim@chc.edu/www.schc.edu
215-248-7123 FAX 215-248-7155
FLORIDA INSTITUTE OF MONTESSORI STUDIES
1240 Banana River Dr., Indian Harbour Beach, FL 32937
CYNTHIA THOMAS/HOLLY JEDLICKA
Cindy@montessorischools.org
321-779-0031 FAX 321-777-9566
INSTITUTE FOR ADVANCED MONTESSORI STUDIES
Early Childhood 212-6, Elementary 6-9/6-12
13500 Layhill Rd., Silver Spring, MD 20906
HILARY GREEN hgreen@barrie.org
iams/iams.htm 301-576-2866 FAX 301-576-2801
LANDER UNIVERSITY MONTESSORI TEACHER
EDUCATION PROGRAM Early Childhood 212-6
320 Stanley Ave., Greenwood, SC 29646
BARBARA ERVIN bervin@lander.edu
859-971-8539 FAX 859-388-8998
MONTGOMERY MONTESSORI INSTITUTE
10500 Darnestown Rd., Rockville, MD 20852
PAMELA TRUMBLE
montessori@hers.com/www.montessori-mmi.com
301-279-2799 FAX 301-762-4544
MTTI MONTESSORI TEACHER TRAINING
INSTITUTE/MIAMI
6050 S.W. 57 Ave., Miami, FL 33143
BEVERLEY McGHEE, Dir.
school@alexandermontessori.com
305-665-6033 FAX 305-665-7726
56
NEW ENGLAND MONTESSORI TEACHER

EDUCATION CENTER Early Childhood 212-6
30 Moose Club Rd., Goffstown, NH 03045
BONNIE LAMOTHE, Dir. MaterialCo@aol.com
603-641-5156 FAX (same)
NEW GATE CENTER FOR MONTESSORI STUDIES
5237 Ashton Road, Sarasota, FL 34233
KITTY BRAVO (WILLIAMS), Dir. kittywill@comcast.net
941-922-4949 Fax: 941-922-7660
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY MONTESSORI
TEACHER EDUCATION Early Childhood 212-6.
Dept. Of Teaching and Learning,
200 East Building, Washington Square, New York, NY 10003
DR. MARLENE BARRON 212-662-8000
DR. MARGO ELY 212-998-5464 FAX 212-662-8323
http://www.nyu.edu/education/teachlearn/
programs/index.html
NORTH CAROLINA CENTER FOR MONTESSORI
TEACHER EDUCATION
Infant & Toddler Birth-3, Early Childhood 212-6,
Elementary 6-12
4817 Johnson Pond Rd., Apex, NC 27539
CERES SCHROER YORK edwardyork@aol.com
919-779-6671 FAX 919-772-2646
NORTHEAST MONTESSORI INSTITUTEMASSACHUSETTS
Infant & Toddler Birth-3, Early Childhood 212-6
Site: Boston/North Shore. Mail: POB 68, Rockport, ME 04856
Satellite Location: Beijing, China
MARTHA MONAHAN nemontessori@yahoo.com
TEL & FAX 207-236-6316
ORLANDO MONTESSORI TEACHER EDUCATION INSTITUTE
901 Begonia Road, Celebration, FL 334747
HELEN DEVERE, Dir. montessori.school@celebration.fl.us
407-566-1561 FAX 407-566-1544
PRINCETON CENTER FOR TEACHER EDUCATION
Elementary 6-9/9-12 487 Cherry Valley Rd.,
Princeton, NJ 08540
GINNY CUSACK, Dir. pcte@pmonts.edu/
www.pctemontessori.org 609-924-4594 FAX 609-924-4166
SEACOAST CENTER
Elementary 6-9, 9-12, 6-12
POB 323, Greenland, NH 03840
GARY DAVIDSON, Dir. admin@seacoastcenter.com
603-772-0181
VIRGINIA CENTER FOR MONTESSORI TRAINING
499 Parham Rd., Richmond, VA 23229
RON ACKERMAN, Admin. Dir. rackerman@richmont.org
804-741-0040 FAX 804-741-5341
WEST SIDE MONTESSORI SCHOOLS
TEACHER EDUCATION PROGRAM Early Childhood 212-6
309 W. 92nd St., New York, NY 10025-7213
SYLVIA TOWNSEND/DR. MARLENE BARRON
212-662-8000 FAX 212-662-8323 http://www.wsms1.org/
Paid Advertisement
CENTRAL REGION
ADRIAN DOMINICAN MONTESSORI TEACHER
EDUCATION INSTITUTE Early Childhood 212-6
1257 Siena Heights Dr., Adrian, MI 49221
SR. ANTHONITA PORTA anthporta@yahoo.com
517-266-3415 FAX 517-266-3545
CANADIAN MONTESSORI ACADEMY MONTESSORI
TEACHER EDUCATION PROGRAM Early Childhood 212-6
70 Fieldrow St., Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K2G 2Y7
DARCEL BUTLER/SABENA DEMEL cma@montessoriacademy.com 613-727-9427 FAX 613-723-1035
CENTER FOR CONTEMPORARY MONTESSORI
1919 University Ave. Suite 165, St. Paul, MN 55104
MICHAEL DORER 651-646-3036
Northglade Elementary, 1914 Cobb Ave.,
Kalamazoo, MI 49007
Dr. Terina Harvey, Prin. 269-337-0700
Woodberry Hills Elementary, 614 Audubon Dr., Danville, VA 24540
Patricia Hawkins, Prin. 434-799-6466
COLUMBUS MONTESSORI CENTERCOMET
Elementary 6-9, 9-12, 6-12.
c/o St. Joseph Montessori School
933 Hamlet St., Columbus, OH 43201-3595
ANNE McCARRICK
dbarton@cdeducation.org/www.sjms.net/comet
614-291-8601 FAX 614-291-7411
COLUMBUS MONTESSORI TEACHER EDUCATION
PROGRAM Infant & Toddler Birth-3, Early Childhood 21/2-6
979 S. James Rd., Columbus, OH 43227-1071
ANGELA NICHOLSON, Dir. ainick@aol.com
614-231-3790 FAX 614-231-3780
DALLAS MONTESSORI TEACHER PROGRAMS
5757 Samuell Blvd. #200, Dallas, TX 75227
DINA/JAMES PAULIK 214-388-0091
FAX 214-288-3415
HOUSTON MONTESSORI CENTER
Early Childhood 212-6, Elementary 6-12, Secondary 12-15
9601 Katy Freeway, Suite 350, Houston, TX 77024-1330
DR. BETSY COE, Dir. drbcoe@aol.com
713-465-7670 FAX 713-465-8577
MECA-SETON TEACHER TRAINING PROGRAM
Infant & Toddler Birth-3,
Early Childhood 212-6, Admin.
5728 Virginia Ave., Clarendon Hills, IL 60514
CELMA/DESMOND PERRY
Meca1Seton@aol.com
630-654-0151 FAX 630-654-0182
MICHIGAN MONTESSORI TEACHER EDUCATION CENTER
1263 S. Adams Rd., Rochester Hills, MI 48309
THEO PAPATHEODOROPOULOS theoamc@aol.com
248-375-2800 FAX 248-375-3002
MID-AMERICA MONTESSORI TEACHERS TRAINING
Infant & Toddler Birth-3, Early Childhood 212-6, Elementary
6-9/6-12 10730 Pacific St., #234, Omaha, NE 68114
DR. LAVONNE PLAMBECK/BARB JENS
MECOFFICE@aol.com
402-393-1311 FAX 402-397-4958
MIDWEST MONTESSORI TEACHER TRAINING PROGRAM

2408 Orrington, Evanston, IL 60201
Mail: 926 Noyes St., Evanston, IL 60201
LOUISE/WOLFGANG KUNERT WMKunert@aol.com
847-573-0079 FAX 847-573-0162
MISSOURI MONTESSORI TEACHER EDUCATION PROGRAM
1100 White Rd., Chesterfield, MO 63017
CLAIRE KIM, Dir. ckim@cdsweb.org
314-469-6622 FAX 469-7889
MONTESSORI INSTITUTE OF BOWLING GREEN
515 Sand Ridge Rd., Bowling Green, OH 43402
MARIE PENDLETON mpendle@wcnet.org
419-352-4203 FAX 419-353-1914
MONTESSORI OPPORTUNITIES, INC.
Elementary I (Mobile Program)
2381 Plymouth Lane,
Cuyahoga Falls, OH 44221-3642
ROSANN & PETER LARROW
plarrow@neo.rr.com
330-929-5581 FAX 330-929-5581
MONTESSORI TEACHER ACADEMY/
INDIANA UNIVERSITY SOUTH BEND
1700 Mishawaka Ave., POB 7111, South Bend, IN 46634
ANGELA NICHOLSON cfermoyl@iusb.edu
574-237-4261 FAX 574-237-4428
NORTH HARRIS COLLEGE MONTESSORI TEACHER
EDUCATION PROGRAM Infant & Toddler Birth-3
2700 W.W. Thorne Dr., Houston, TX 77073-3499
SUE THORNTON, Dir. thornton@nhmccd.edu
281-765-7731 FAX 281-765-7747
OKLAHOMA CITY UNIVERSITY MONTESSORI
TEACHER EDUCATION
OCU Div. Of Ed., 2501 N. Blackwelder,
Oklahoma City, OK 73106
DR. MARGARET LOEFFLER/BEE PAPE
bpape@okcu.edu 405-521-5372 FAX 405-557-6012
PROVIDENCE MONTESSORI TEACHER
EDUCATION CENTER Early Childhood 212-6
1209 Texaco Rd., Lexington, KY 40508
SR. MARY CLETUS HEHMAN srccletustec@aol.com
859-255-7330 FAX 859-253-0886
XAVIER UNIVERSITY MONTESSORI TEACHER
EDUCATION Early Childhood 212-6, Elementary 6-12
3800 Victory Parkway, Cincinnati, OH 45207-6631
ELIZABETH BRONSIL, Dir. bronsile@admin.xu.edu
513-745-3424 FAX 513-745-4378
W E ST E R N R E G I O N
CHAMINADE UNIVERSITY OF HONOLULU MONTESSORI
TEACHER EDUCATION PROGRAM
3140 Waialae Ave., Honolulu, HI 96816-1578
NANETTE SCHONLEBER nschonle@chaminade.edu
808-739-4679 FAX 808-739-4607
Paid Advertisement
57
MONTESSORI TEACHER EDUCATION CENTER/SF

Elementary 6-12
16492 Foothill Blvd., San Leandro, CA 94578-2105
Satellite Locations: Fresno, CA (E I)
Mobile, AL (EC)
Palm Springs, CA (EC)
Pensacola, FL (EC) Taiwan (EC, E I)
Vancouver, Canada (EC)
DR. PAMELA ZELL RIGG pzr@montessorica.com
510-278-1115 FAX 510-278-1577
MONTESSORI EDUCATION CENTER OF THE ROCKIES

Elementary 6-12
Satellite (Infant & Toddler) Seattle, WA
4745 Walnut St., Boulder, CO 80301
DOROTHY THOMPSON, Dir. dt@mecr.edu
303-494-3002 FAX 303-494-6104
MONTESSORI EDUCATION INSTITUTE/
PACIFIC NORTHWEST
POB 16164, Seattle, WA 98116
MARY SCHNEIDER
trbemape@aol.com/www.meipn.com
206-937-3738 FAX 206-296-2053
MONTESSORI WESTERN TEACHER TRAINING PROGRAM

5856 Belgrave, Garden Grove, CA 92845
CATHY SMYTHE montgreen7@aol.com
714-897-3833 FAX 373-3422
MONTESSORI INSTITUTE OF ADVANCED STUDIES

22781 Canyon Ct., Castro Valley, CA 94552
MEHER VAN GROENOU wvangroe@csuhayward.edu
510-581-3729 FAX 510-581-6824
M. vanGroenou
SAINT MARYS COLLEGE TEACHER TRAINING PROGRAM

POB 4350, Moraga, CA 44575-4350
PATRICIA CHAMBERS pchamber@STMarys-CA.edu
925-631-4036 FAX 925-376-8379
Paid Advertisement
CLASSIFIED ADVERTISING
Head of School
Located in sunny Jacksonville Beach,
FL, Discovery Montessori School is
accredited by the American Montessori
Society and the Florida Kindergarten
council. 125 children, toddler thru 5th
grade, attend classes in DMS new facility on a beautiful wooded campus.
The new Head will have excellent
communications and relationship building skills. Prior school administration
experience is required. Ideal candidate
has hired and supervised faculty, managed enrollment and curriculum development and has excelled in fundraising,
marketing and financial management.
The individual must posses a Bachelor's
degree from an accredited university (a
graduate degree is preferred). Montessori
background strongly preferred.
DMS offers competitive salary/benefits, excellent team environment, and a
thriving parent community. Mail resume
and cover letter to:
DMS Search Committee, PO Box 246,
Ponte Vedra Beach, FL 32004
Learn more about DMS at www.
dmsonline.org.
Head of School
and Middle School Director/Directress
Upper Elementary Director/Directress
For 30 years, the Montessori School of
Anderson has stood for a quality Montessori education in South Carolina. Our
stable, well-established 11 acre school
has an enrollment of approximately 250
58
students ranging from infants through

8th grade. We are currently searching
for a Head of School who will help take
us to our next plane of development
beginning in academic year 2005/06.
With a Montessori-certified and teaching
faculty of approximately 50 men and
women, we believe the right administrator can lead and follow along with a
truly dedicated group of shape-shifters.
(We are also looking for a Montessori
Middle School Director and an Upper
Elementary teacher.) Anderson County
is a growing international area of
150,000 people located in the high tech
corridor that runs between Charlotte and
Atlanta. We are minutes away from
Clemson University, beautiful Lake Hartwell, and the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Charleston and ocean beaches are within an easy morning drive. Schools web
site: www.msasc.org.
Please submit resume to: Karen Holt,
Interim Administrator, 280 Sam McGee
Rd., Anderson, SC; or e-mail: kholt@msasc.
org with any questions.
Teachers
THOSE WHO TRUST US EDUCATE US
Palm Harbor Montessori Academy is
seeking teachers (all levels) whose trust
is in the child, whose joy is in preparing
the environment and presenting lessons
and whose hope is cultivating wisdom
and peace in children and themselves.
We provide continuous education for toddlers through the eighth grade. P.H.M.A.
is located on two lovely campuses, with
a Jr. Olympic size swimming pool. We

are also just minutes from Florida beaches,
high quality performing art centers, oldfashioned downtown neighborhoods, and
a major airport. Position requirements:
AMS or AMI certification. Palm Harbor
Montessori Academy offers a competitive salary with benefits. Visit our web
site at: www.floridamontessori.com.
Please contact: Main Campus:
Palm Harbor Montessori Academy, 2355
Nebraska Avenue, Palm Harbor, Florida
34683, Phone (727) 786-1854, Fax (727) 7865160, Principal: Maureen Sanders, e-mail:
msaund@gate.net.
Satellite location: Palm Harbor Montessori Academy, 1961 East Lake Road,
Palm Harbor, Florida 34685, Phone (727)
781-8980, Fax (727) 781-7610.
AMS Members:
Are snow, rain, heat, or gloom of
night preventing news of AMS special events from reaching you in a
timely fashion? Worry no more!
Send your e-mail address to
info@amshq.org and well make
sure you receive electronic announcements about American Montessori
Society newsas it happens! Its fast,
efficient, and totally weatherproof.
Please include your name and
put E-mail address in the subject
line of your e-mail.

281 PARK AVENUE SOUTH, 6th FLOOR
NEW YORK, NY 10010-6102
212.358.1250 T
212.358.1256 F
www.amshq.org
Change Service Requested
NONPROFIT ORG
U.S. POSTAGE
PAID
WACONIA MN
PERMIT NO. 65

Montessori Life Magazine 2004 Fall

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

You might also like

Montessori Life Magazine 2004 Fall

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Montessori Life Magazine 2004 Fall

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

ONTESSOR

A PuBLICATION OF ThE AMERICAN MONTESSORI SOCIETY

From the InterIm executIve DIrector

From the Ams PresIDent

From the eDItors

38 Best Practices: A Commentary Marlene Barron, PhD

One Individual at a Time: Instruction in the

ReviewsMusic, Film, Books

53 Applications and Opportunities

Cover: Yukis Garden, Princeton Montessori School

Montessori LIFE Fall 2004

FROM THE AMS INTERIM EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Associate Director of Professional Services

Director of Membership Services

Montessori LIFE Fall 2004

In 1956, when Nancy McCormick

long stint as editor of the magazine.

some of the countries that boast members in the American Montessori

articles herself all under quarterly

FROM THE AMS PRESIDENT

Judith Bauerlein, President Elect

As Montessorians, we are most certainly a part of the greater educational

new and exciting educational forum

Joyce Gersten Pariser, Treasurer

through our work with children, schools,

to be excellent editors and advisers and

interim executive director, is truly the

Montessori LIFE Fall 2004

Carey Jones and Kathy Carey,

others commented that in all the

Riviera Maya, Mexico, in January (a great

FROM THE EDITORS

be limited to that theme. We believe our

present your ideas, research, or opinions

Write for Montessori LIFE

Call for Photos

Does your school have professional photographs of

We're building our archive of photos, and welcome

Please also include a credit for each image (name of

Please contact Kathy Carey at editor@amshq.org if

To submit photos, please contact Kathy Carey at

Montessori LIFE Fall 2004

AMERICAN MONTESSORI SOCIETY

45th National Conference

AMERICAN MONTESSORI SOCIETY

Montessori LIFE Fall 2004

Co-chairs: Deborah A. Kelley,

grant to Fund montessori

4. Outstanding Rambusch Lecture

Chicago Public Schools (CPS) has

5. Share peace with new friends,

1. Meet old friends, make new

sarah Jett Frost

the grant, providing both practical

port of young children and the adults

Montessori LIFE Fall 2004

An Interview with Joy starry turner

Kathy carey: The theme of this

Montessori LIFE Fall 2004

#-4%.r9 STARTED THE FIRST -ONTESSORI )NFANT AND

.ATIONAL0ROGRAM 3UMMER)NSTITUTE .EW2OCHELLE.9

#ALLUSFORINFORMATIONABROCHUREANDTOURDATES

#ALL&OR)NFORMATION