What is MontessorI?

RESEARCH

what parents & students are saying

“If you get a call (offering enrollment) from Miss Betty, pick it up, take a chance and you'll understand soon enough why this school is special.”
LIA R., Parent 

“Miss Betty, your soft and warm and you smell good.  You’re like clean laundry.”
MATEO L., Student, age 4 

“It is not an easy task to find quality childcare in Chicago and we feel so lucky we have found Montessori Foundations of Chicago…. teachers rarely come and go, they usually don't change much at all which is very nice.”
DEIMILE S., Parent

“We have been truly blessed by the amount of support, advice and guidance we have received from this school and to be part of a great community. Montessori Foundation of Chicago not only offers a great price but also a great education and community.”
RUTH T., Parent

“I feel like you get a headstart for everything and you can move around. Everyone gets to choose their own work.”
HARPER D., Student, age 5

“My oldest son made his transition to first grade at a CPS school this year, and MFC prepared him quite well - he already knew how to read, do math, engage in problem solving, and was socially ready for the change. He's thriving in his new school now.”
RYAN L., Parent

“MFC is an incredible school. My two kids currently go there and we're having another kid just so we can send her there too.”
JONATHAN W., Parent

“Being here makes you smart. I feel that the teachers are very nice.”
GAEL C., Student, Age 5

“The staff there have not only been beneficial to our children's growth, but has also helped me to become a more confident parent.”
CECILIE R., Parent

“We have all three of our children at MFC. They have thrived so much and have become so motivated and independent. They love to go to school and love to learn.”
TANIA H., Parents

“I hose this school for its diversity.”
BETH V., Parent

“I’ve been here for six years.  I feel good cause I’m learning.  Like, one day I counted to a thousand on the golden chain.”
JACKSON, Student, Age 6

“I learned a lot and I like to do sounds and write and I like to do metal insets.”
EMILY, Student, Age 4

“The Montessori method has a way of building confidence in kids that makes them genuinely want to succeed for themselves…..”
KARL J., Parent

“The teachers are nice and the works are fun. We find our work and we move around. We do it on our own.”
EMILY M., Student, Age 6

“The teachers are pretty and they're nice.”
ALE P., Student, Age 4

“We've been extremely pleased with the support, academic achievement, high-quality professional education, diverse student and parent community, affordability, and convenience of the school. Our son has developed not only strong core academic skills like reading and math, but also learned how to make friends, work within a group environment and genuinely develop a joy of learning through his instruction.”
JUSTINE K., Parent

“There's no reason (about liking the process). I'm just happy about it. I'm happy about math because it is fun and easy. But some problems could get out of hand and take too long to figure out. I try to think really hard.”
ARIS V., Student, Age 5

“I definitely recommend this school to everyone I know.”
LI L., Parent

what others are saying…

SIGMUND FREUD, Psychologist

Freud became acquainted with Montessori through his daughter, Anna.  In a letter to Maria Montessori, Sigmund writes, “If everyone had your schools, they wouldn’t need me!”

JEFF BEZOS, Amazon founder

A Montessori alumni who pledged to fund Montessori inspired preschools.  The young Bezos "would get so engrossed in his activities as a Montessori preschooler that his teachers would literally have to pick him up out of his chair to go to the next task," according to his mother.

GABRIEL GARCIA MARQUEZ, Nobel prize-winning author

Marquez said his Montessori education gave him “the desire to kiss literature” and states, “I do not believe there is a method better than Montessori for making children sensitive to the beauties of the world and awakening their curiosity regarding the secrets of life.”

SERGEY BRIN & LARRY PAGE, Google founders

“You can’t understand Google,” says Wired, “unless you know [its founders] were Montessori kids… In a Montessori school, you paint because you have something to express or you just want to… not because the teacher said so. This is baked into Larry and Sergey… it’s how their brains were programmed early on.”

WILL WRIGHT – Video game pioneer, creator of the Sims

The videogame innovator says Montessori was the “imagination amplifier” that prepared him for creating The Sims, Sim City, Spore and Super Mario Brothers. “SimCity comes right out of Montessori… It’s all about learning on your own terms.”

THOMAS EDISON & ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL, Scientists and Inventors

Early supporters of Maria Montessori who helped found the first Montessori schools and the first Montessori association in the United States.  “I like the Montessori method,” Edison has been quoted saying, “It makes learning a pleasure.”

JIMMY WALES, co-founder of Wikipedia

"As a child, Wales was a keen reader with an acute intellectual curiosity and, in what he credits to the influence of the Montessori method on the school’s philosophy of education, spent lots of hours pouring [sic] over the Britannica and World Book Encyclopedias,” according to Wales’ own Wikipedia entry (which we hope he created himself, all things considering.)

KATHARINE GRAHAM, Pulitzer prize-winning author and Former owner & editor of the Washington Post

Crisis forced Katherine Graham to assume control of the Washington Post. Her confidence faltered but—remembering that what matters is how people learn, not what they know—Graham said, “The Montessori method, learning by doing, once again became my stock in trade.” Her reign at the highly-regarded paper lasted more than two decades.

ERIK ERIKSON – Psychologist & Author

The Danish-German-American psychologist and psychoanalyst known for his theory on human social development, Erikson may be most famous for coining the phrase “identity crisis”. He found Montessori ideas so compelling that studied them as an adult and acquiring a Montessori teaching certificate.  

DALI LAMA – Spiritual Leader & Nobel Peace Prize recipient

Along with his sister, Jetsun Pema, founded Montessori schools for Tibeten refugee children called Tibetan Children’s Villages.  The Dalai Lama said, “Children are born mindful and with wisdom we can keep this skill alive—Montessori is wonderful in this way.”

WALL ST JOURNAL:  THE MONTESSORI MAFIA

“[Montessori…]: the surest route to joining the creative elite, which are so overrepresented by the schools’ alumni that one might begin to suspect a Montessori mafia”

FORBES: LET'S LEARN FROM MONTESSORI

"The idea that we don’t have to reinvent the wheel was striking. The example of thousands of Montessori schools is before us. Montessori puts the student at the center. It is proven to work. As noted by Sivadlk it’s working on every inhabited continent, at every economic level. The approach is over 100 years old but the ideas are timeless. The world is finally catching up with Maria Montessori’s insights."

HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW: MONTESSORI BUILDS INNOVATORS

Andrew McAfee, principal research scientist at the Center for Digital Business in the MIT Sloan School of Management, says of his Montessori education:

"The main thing I learned there is that the world is a really interesting place, and one that should be explored. Can there be any better foundation for an innovator in training?"

what REsEARCH is saying…

Growth of Public Montessori in the United States: 1975-2014

The last fifteen years have witnessed a surge of interest in Montessori education. This interest is evident in a rise in research on Montessori, increased mainstream press, and the opening of new Montessori schools.

Reading and Math Achievement for African American Lower Elementary Students in Public Montessori Programs

As Montessori programs in public schools expand, Montessori education is becoming available to a more diverse population of American students than ever before. Students of color have a significant presence in public Montessori schools; over a quarter of students in whole-school public Montessori programs are African American. This study sought to answer the question, how effectively does Montessori instruction promote achievement for African American third grade students in reading and math, compared to similar traditional schools and other public school choice programs?

Creative giftedness and educational opportunities.

Besançon, M., Lubart, T., & Barbot, B. (2013)
Educational & Child Psychology, 30(2), 79–88

This study examined creative potential, defined as the “latent ability to produce original, adaptive work,” in elementary-aged children in Montessori and traditional schools in France. The Montessori students performed significantly better of tasks of divergent and convergent thinking than their traditional school peers. Furthermore, the Montessori group yielded a greater number of students who qualified as “creative-gifted.” The authors conclude that Montessori school contexts effectively promote the development of creative potential.