What is the Montessori Method?
A CONVERSATION WITH KELLY KRUEGER THOMAS & TIM SELDIN
In this interview, with Kelly
Krueger Thomas, Host and
Founder of Ingeniousbaby.com,
Tim Seldin, NewGate Head of
School, President of the Montessori
Foundation and Chair of the
International Montessori Council
(IMC), shares what we can all learn
from the Montessori approach
and its nurturing of creativity and
inventiveness.
Montessori school alumni include
Google’s founders Larry Page
and Sergei Brin, Amazon’s Jeff
Bezos, Wikipedia founder Jimmy
Wales, not to mention Julia
Child and rapper Sean “P.Diddy”
Combs, making it appear that the
Montessori educational approach
might be one of the surest routes
to joining the creative elite.
You can view the video
interview of this transcript at:
https://ingeniousbaby.com/
interview/what-is-montessori/
KELLY: Hi Tim. I am so happy to have you here. I
am a big fan of Montessori. Both of my kids go to an
AMI Montessori School here in California and I’m
also a big fan of your book, which I use with my children,
it has some great activities. I’m hoping you can
tell us what exactly Montessori is.
TIM: Montessori means many things to many
people. It’s best known as a system of education, but
it’s really a movement and philosophy of life. Its mission
is to change society to create a more peaceful
world that’s oriented to partnership. But in terms of
education, it is a strategy that says let’s look at what
we know about children from a scientific perspective.
Let’s attempt to consciously do what can be
shown to work best.
What we know about children is that they are all
different. They learn in different ways. They have
different personalities. They grow in different ways.
The idea of teaching one thing to an entire class is
really rather illogical.
Montessori is first designed for differences. It’s designed
to support each child as an individual. It’s designed
to be incredibly respectful and child honoring
and is designed to follow the child as they develop
from birth, ideally, all the way through high school
and beyond.
KELLY: You hear about all kinds of famous people
who have Montessori backgrounds, like the Google
founders and famous musicians. I think there are
a lot of schools that call themselves Montessori;
there’s AMS Montessori, there’s AMI Montessori.
What are the differences? Are they all considered
true Montessori?
TIM: Montessori is a movement and it’s not copyrighted.
There is no central authority. It’s not a franchise.
It’s something that can be studied and defined
by research. We know what authentic or fully implemented
Montessori is. But individual schools can’t
help but be themselves. Their programs, their approach
to life is created by the nature of the founders,
the nature of the teachers they hire, the culture
of the parent body, and the culture they live within.
It can have somewhat different faces.
To think that it is simply AMS or AMI is a serious
mistake because, while there are two large organizations,
the American Montessori Society (AMS) and
Association Montessori Internationale (AMI), the
reality is those are only two of hundreds of Montessori
societies. In this country, there’s give or take
around 13 Montessori societies. I happen to be the
chairman of the third largest: The International
Montessori Council.
I started in AMS. I’ve worked with hundreds and
hundreds of AMI schools. What I can say to you is
that you have to look at the individual school and
ask, “Does this school fit my understanding of what
Montessori should be? Is it a good match for me?
Is it a good match for my child?” I can’t really get
too caught up in brand loyalty, because one Montessori
school will be somewhat different from another.
Truthfully, we all have more in common than we
have differences. The differences are usually pretty
minor.
KELLY: What are some of the differences?
TIM: I think the major differences you’ll to find
in one school versus another are not based on the
brand, but rather on how faithfully this particular
teacher, this particular school, is implementing
Montessori.
This is what a parent should be looking at when
they’re thinking about a Montessori school for their
children. They should be asking, “Do I find the following
things? The first thing being, is every class led
by a fully qualified Montessori educator?”
Now this is usually a graduate-level course of study
that will typically take between one and three years.
There are different brands, but as long as they’re all
MACTE accredited, which would include AMI,
AMS, IMC (the group with which I’m connected),
or any of the others. As I mentioned, there are 13
organizations in the United States.
As long as they’re accredited by the US Department
of Education’s recognized accrediting body, the
Montessori Accreditation Council for Teacher Education
(MACTE), that’s the first definition of a fully
trained Montessori teacher.
By the way, more children in a Montessori class is
better, because the larger the class, the more children
will tend to learn from each other. The best
teacher of a child is another, somewhat older, child.
It’s the community of children covering a threeyear
age span that makes it work. Usually, Montessori
classes will have between 20 and 30 children
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