Welcome

My first experience with Montessori education was as a new assistant thrust into a Montessori environment with little more than a few preconceived notions to guide me. In time I became a Montessori teacher with my own classroom, responsible for the training and supervision of assistants and for working with resource teachers, parents and support staff—all of whom had notions of their own and little, if any, Montessori experience themselves.

I am also a parent. All my sons and daughters were enrolled in a variety of Montessori schools including one of the first Montessori public schools in Minnesota. As both a parent and a teacher I have been part of public and private Montessori school communities struggling to maintain integrity and consistency with administrators and staff from a variety of backgrounds not always familiar with Montessori.

Throughout the past, I have experienced how Montessorians our­selves sometimes create barriers. Too often we keep out our most important allies—parents, administrators, assistants, support staff and resource teachers. Through our special, often isolated, teacher preparation programs, and through the Montessori mystique we create, we alienate others. Through the richly metaphori­cal and unique terminology we use and through our preoccupation with the classroom, “Montessori” literature and colleagues, and the children for whom we work, we risk building walls around us and excluding others.

In my roles of assistant, classroom teacher, resource teacher, parent and administrator I have felt the need for a tool to help introduce people to Montessori history, philosophy and practice.

The book, Together with Montessori, is intended to be such a tool.

I hope that, as a tool, my book will help open the doors to the world of Montessori education to a wide variety of people. It is written for par­ents and staff in public and private schools throughout North America so that they may better work together for themselves and the children in their schools.

A tool serves no worthy purpose unless it is used well. I recommend that Montessori certified and non-certified personnel both become familiar with this book and that they use it as part of a larger orientation program that includes the demonstration of materials, observations in Montessori environments and dis­cussions. I hope that it is used as a reference to find out about areas that interest you, as a background, and as a starting place from which to form questions for your observations, for your colleagues and for future readings. Most importantly, I hope that you use it in a way that works for you.

As you do, be advised that the book, this website and my blog, represent my own interpretation of what I have been exposed to and my own choices about what to emphasize and what to exclude. The choices have been very difficult and I have done my best to base them on accepted and tested Montessori theory and practice. I encourage you to find out what others think. Consult and learn from the Montessorians in your midst. Read the writings of Maria Montessori. Read the works of others as well.

Something or someone has brought you to the Montessori educational approach. I hope this is the beginning of a fruitful journey.