international PHOTO: KEITH WHITESCARVER The Beechwood Estate in Scarborough, New York. The first Montessori school in the United States opened in this location in 1911 in the building on the far left. Right: Nancy McCormick Rambusch and Margaret E. Stephenson addressing a

Montessori study group, early 1960s UNIVERSITY OF LIBRARIES PHOTOS: AMERICAN MONTESSORI SOCIETY, Montessori in America: t In the first of two parts, Dr Keith Whitescarver explores the history behind the Montessori movement in the United States.

he United States was an Bambini bore little resemblance to this early adopter of Montessori first American school. She made her . Maria first experiments in the model Montessori opened her tenements of the San Lorenzo district in first school, the Casa dei Rome – a section which has the same TBambini, as part of an urban renewal relation to the Eternal City that the East project in the San Lorenzo district of Side has to New York... My children all Rome in 1907. By 1909, additional came from cultured families, whose schools were launched and news of greatest ambition it was to give their Montessori’s academic benefits spread children everything possible in the way throughout the European continent of education and rational enjoyment.” and then to the rest of the world. In other words, the American version In the United States, news of of Montessori differed dramatically Montessori education had spread far from its Italian forerunner. Where Dr. and wide by 1911. In an article Montessori’s educational experiment published in the highly popular grew out of a larger social initiative, it 1913 and 1915 to great acclaim and to McClure’s Magazine, Maria Montessori was the “miracle children” who (left) gives a packed lecture halls. She taught a lecture in Italian to was described as “an educational captured the attention of wealthy training course in San Francisco as part 5,000 teachers in American supporters. wonder-worker” and depicted the Los Angeles, of the Panama Pacific International students studying in her school as In this dazzling period of favorable California in 1915. Exposition in the latter tour. By the “miracle children” because of their publicity, additional Montessori schools The English 1916-17 school year, there were over opened around the country. translator is Adelia ability to read and write at such a young Pyle. 100 Montessori schools in 22 states. age. The American response to the Montessori’s American backers, Amazingly, the movement burned out article was intense and positive. including Mabel Bell and her spouse, in the United States just as quickly as it Latching on to the popularity, S. S. Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the had arrived. Language barriers, travel McClure, the owner/publisher of the telephone, were strong initial limitations forced by World War I, an magazine, assumed the role of supporters. She and her husband anti-immigrant sentiment, and public American promoter of both the founder opened a school in Nova Scotia in the criticism by a few influential and method. To this end, he ran letters summer of 1912, and they created a educational leaders, led to the decline. from the public commenting on second school in Washington, D. C. By the 1920s Montessori had all but Montessori’s ideas and created a column later that fall. Other progressive era disappeared. on Montessori education that became a reformers lauded the new educational While Montessori continued to regular feature. approach. In the years 1912–1914, flourish as a global movement for child- An American Montessori school there were 187 English language articles centered, peace-oriented learning for the opened in Scarborough, New York, in and books on Montessori education; remainder of Dr. Montessori’s life, the the fall of 1911 in the home of Frank almost all were published in the United movement lay dormant on American Vanderlip, one of the leading bankers in States. In the international training shores. By 1960, however, a distinctly the country. The teacher in this school, course led by Dr. Montessori in Rome in American version of the system began Anne George, wrote about the school 1913, sixty-seven of the eighty-seven to take shape. for McClure’s at the end of the first enrollees were from the United States. The leader of the American revival academic year: Supported, in part, by McClure, Dr. was Nancy McCormick Rambusch. Like “Externally, Dr. Montessori’s Casa dei Montessori traveled to the country in the movement’s founder, Dr. Rambusch

18 Montessori International JULY – SEPTEMBER 2010 Rambusch as Mario Montessori’s personal emissary to the United States. As Montessori schools grew in number, AMI opened a branch office in the United States at Miss Stephenson’s request. AMI/USA was founded in 1972 and directed for its first ten years by Karin Salzmann. Currently, Virginia McHugh Goodwin is the Executive Director of the organization. In 2010 there were 180 AMI affiliated schools in the United States. The American Montessori Society is now the larger of the two organizations with over 1200 affiliated schools in 2010 and over 11,000 members and 90 accredited AMS-affiliated teacher education courses. Richard A. Ungerer he first 100 years is Executive Director. There are at least four other was charismatic, well-educated, and a Above left: its May 12th issue. For the second time, organizations through which a school Montessori L&A determined advocate. The young Nancy an article on Montessori education may be affiliated. Schools that wish to Wise Memorial Day McCormick became aware of the Care Center. galvanized the American public. identify themselves as Montessori writings of Maria Montessori while a Interest was so intense that Time schools without any organizational student at the in Above right: printed a special report shortly affiliation are free to do so as well. The Unidentified the late 1940s. It was not until marriage afterwards, and AMS received teacher and name Montessori is not protected by and the birth of her first child, however, students at the numerous requests from parents on copyright or patent. that she actively sought an alternative Whitby School, how to start schools and begin study In recent years increased attention to to traditional American schooling. In 1960 groups. Publicity generated by print the public sector has been a priority for search of answers, she traveled to Paris media, including Newsweek, the New both AMS and AMI. Both organizations in 1953 to attend the Tenth York Times, the Catholic Reporter, and view the extension of Montessori International Montessori Congress. The Saturday Evening Post, and the education to larger numbers of children There she met the new leader of the publication in 1962 of Rambusch’s as a key, mission-based, priority. Today international Montessori movement, book, Learning How to Learn, led to there are more than 240 public Mario Montessori. She was urged by dramatic growth in schools and Montessori programs in 32 states. The Mario to take Montessori training and students. highest concentrations of public to bring Montessori education back to the United States. While Montessori continued to flourish as a global Taking Montessori’s advice, Rambusch completed training in London in 1955. movement... for the remainder of Dr. Montessori’s life, the Afterwards she returned home and movement lay dormant on American shores”. prepared a Montessori classroom in her Manhattan appartment. Subsequently, From the beginning Nancy Montessori schools are found in the the Rambusch family moved to McCormick Rambusch and AMS states of Arizona, California, Florida, Greenwich, Connecticut, and Nancy, pursued a “transmuted” rather than Michigan, Ohio, and Texas—each with with the collaboration of a group of “transplanted” version of Montessori in more than fifteen schools identified. prominent Roman Catholic families, the U. S. Transmutation manifested The vast majority of these schools opened the Whitby School in ‘‘ itself most obviously in teacher report no affiliation with a Montessori September, 1958. education. AMS broadened the professional association (AMI or AMS). In June 1959 Mario Montessori curriculum for teachers and attempted In the last two decades the number of appointed Dr. Rambusch the to forge inroads into mainstream Montessori schools in the United States “representative of the Association schooling by running courses in has grown dramatically in both the Montessori Internationale (AMI).” Six Montessori instruction through public and private sectors. ࡯ months later, the American Montessori traditional university-based teacher In the second part of this series, Dr. Society (AMS) was born, becoming the preparation programs. Whitescarver delves into why this organizational representative of AMI for Mario Montessori disagreed with this resurgence is occurring and provides the United States. The goals of AMS approach, calling for a deliberate case examples of successful public were to support efforts to create schools, approach to innovation. AMI and AMS Montessori programs and schools. develop teacher education programs, parted ways in 1963, largely over Keith Whitescarver is an historian of and publicize the value of Montessori disagreements regarding teacher education living in Hartford, Connecticut. education. preparation. He is on the Archives Committee and The last goal got a huge boost in 1961 After the split, Margaret Elizabeth Research Committee of the American when the news weekly Time published a Stephenson, who had previously Montessori Society. He is director of story about Rambusch, Whitby school, worked with Rambusch to establish Grantify, a research, evaluation, and and the American Montessori revival in training courses in the US, replaced grant writing firm.

JULY – SEPTEMBER 2010 Montessori International 19 international Montessori in America: the current revival In the second of two parts, Dr Keith Whitescarver explores the resurgence of Montessori in the United States.

n April 30, 2010, the Right: Montessori White House named Magnet School Classroom Clark Montessori Junior and Senior High School Below: Students at of Cincinnati, Ohio, one the Annie Fisher Oof three finalists to President Obama’s Montessori School Race to the Top Commencement Challenge. Over 1000 public high schools in the United States chose to participate in the contest—a contest to highlight excellence in academics, the development in students of a sense of personal responsibility for their own education, and to showcase how graduating students were ready for to areas of a city that were populated college and career. The school winning predominantly by students of color. the challenge would have the honor of Beginning in the mid-1990s, President Obama delivering a policymakers acquired a renewed commencement address at graduation. interest in magnet schools, and their While the White House did not select similarly organized offspring charter Clark, students and faculty were schools, as a way to bring about school recognized throughout the country for reform through school choice. their success. U. S. Secretary of Consequently, as magnet and charter Education Arne Duncan, the schools acquired currency as a viable consolation prize, delivered the approach to school reform, public commencement address for the class of Montessori programs began to 2010. The school received plaudits for that consisted of students from public proliferate alongside other the quality of its program, teachers and and private Montessori schools from comprehensive reform models. students. The success of Clark also the greater Cincinnati metropolitan The greatest growth in public brought attention to the growing area. In each subsequent year an Montessori, however, is occurring at Montessori movement in the United additional grade was added until the the elementary and primary levels. States in recent years, especially in the school’s first class of high school Montessori schools in the city of public realm. The school also seniors graduated in 2000. Hartford, Connecticut, illuminate this highlights the modest but increasing This urban school mirrors the process. Hartford is an older industrial efforts to bring Montessori education to economic, racial and ethnic diversity of town famed for its former factories that the secondary level. In this sense, Cincinnati. A third of the school’s built bicycles, typewriters, and the Colt Clark serves as a symbol of three students receive free or reduced meals, 45 revolver. Today the city is known as important Montessori trends in the an indicator of poverty. 47% of the insurance capital of America. The United States in the past two decades: students are African-American, 45% are poverty rate in Hartford, currently at 1) Montessori schools of all types are Caucasian, and 8% are Asian, Hispanic, 34%, is the highest of any city in the increasing in number; 2) numerous Native American or multi-racial. country; 92% of the city’s children school districts are creating public Remarkably, since that first graduating qualify for free or reduced meals and Montessori schools as part of their class, 97% of all Clark’s graduates have one in six of these children have an efforts to reform urban schools; and 3) attended university. incarcerated parent. Hartford has the Montessori is being extended to Clark was, and still is, a magnet highest minority population (94%) of students in ages 12 to 18 and birth to 3. school. Magnets came into existence in any public school district in New Clark Montessori opened in 1994 in the 1960s as a method of bringing England. In sum, Hartford is a city in Cincinnati, a city in the American about desegregation to racially great economic distress with many Midwest with a history of both public segregated school districts. The idea children having unmet physical, and private Montessori. The school was that schools with innovative psychological, and emotional needs. began with only a seventh grade class programs would attract white students Amidst all of the human despair,

20 Montessori International OCTOBER – DECEMBER 2010 however, the two public, magnet Montessori schools in the city offer genuine hope to families and children. The older of the two schools, the CREC Montessori Magnet School of Hartford (MMS), opened in 1992. The school functioned quietly until 1999 when it became a center of efforts to address the racial and economic isolation experienced by minority students in the city’s school system. In 1999 the school opened under new administration in a new location. The revived and renovated MMS developed a nationally recognized Montessori program for children ages 3 to 12. Fifty percent of the school’s 340 students come from Hartford and the other 50% of the student body are from 29 Reading outside in is still a tricky proposition. In addition realms. The key point, though, is that different, and more affluent, school the courtyard. A dry to the usual goals of Montessori Montessori programs are popular and districts in the Greater Hartford area. streambed serves , public schools are faced with growing in number, not only in The school is located in a beautiful, to stimulate a child’s imagination. meeting the demands of local, state, Hartford but also in Cincinnati, Denver, modern campus on a 16 acre tract of and national authorities. High stakes Brooklyn, and cities large and small land in downtown Hartford. The site, testing, mandated as part of federal across the country. From one school in known as The Learning Corridor, is an educational policy in the Bush the United States in 1959, to 355 urban redevelopment project that Administration and continuing under schools in 1970, to roughly 5000 eliminated a rundown, desolate block Obama, can distort both a school’s schools today, the growth has been frequented by gang members, drug mission and pedagogical practice as considerable. dealers, and prostitutes. In addition to teachers and administrators may place The surge in Montessori is due to the Montessori Magnet School, The achieving high test scores before several factors. First, as evidenced by Learning Corridor is home to a Magnet creating normalized children. bulging waiting lists in urban magnet Middle School, and two Greater Schools in the private arena continue schools, many parents have become Hartford Academies that teach high- to prosper even in the current dire disenchanted with public schooling and level Math, Science, and Arts. It borders economy. Hartford, for example, also is are looking for a humane, yet Trinity College, a small, urban, liberal home to nine independent, privately challenging, alternative. Second, recent arts college. funded and operated Montessori research into how children learn has The recently opened Annie Fisher Montessori Magnet School is in its third year of existence. Created in part Recent research into how children learn has confirmed the due to the success of MMS, and in part value of the Montessori approach. Parents feel comfortable because the district superintendent, formerly of Cincinnati, was familiar with the goals and outcomes of Montessori education when with public Montessori schools, Annie there is a scientific stamp of approval attached.” Fisher is situated in northwest Hartford in a newly renovated building located schools. Both tuition and the quality of confirmed the value of the Montessori next to a public housing project. The the Montessori programs offered at approach. Parents feel comfortable with school is the highest performing these schools vary greatly. The least the goals and outcomes of Montessori elementary school in the Hartford expensive has an annual tuition of education when there is a scientific Public Schools system, based on results ‘‘ approximately $7,000. At the high end, stamp of approval attached. Finally, from state-mandated tests of reading tuition can run to $18,000 for a student American urban school systems are and math. It is anticipated that by the in a full-day elementary program. The frantically attempting to improve time the entering three and four year- quality of teachers and their training practice and outcomes while offering old students reach age 12, they will also varies greatly. Some schools have families a choice in options. The have the option to continue their only in-house, apprenticed teachers, successes of Montessori schools in a few public Montessori School experience in who frequently diverge from high profile locations have led to an Erdkinder Program and, eventually, Montessori pedagogy. Other schools pay additional districts attempting to a Montessori High School in Hartford. strict attention to Montessori practice replicate their success. ࡯ Admission to the Montessori magnet and have only highly trained, certified schools is, and will continue to be, Keith Whitescarver is an historian of teachers on staff. determined by a lottery system. education living in Hartford, Connecticut. The Hartford case provides insight Applicants for enrollment far outweigh He is on the Archives Committee and into Montessori education and the Research Committee of the American those able to be admitted. complex world of school governance in Montessori Society. He is director of As promising as these portraits the United States, while highlighting Grantify, a research, evaluation, and appear, the operation of Montessori differences in the public and private grant writing firm. schools in the public realm in the U. S.

OCTOBER – DECEMBER 2010 Montessori International 21