Parent Education

Parent Education at CMMS

Looking for ways to be actively involved in your child’s education? CMMS has an empowering and inspiring parent education and engagement program that brings parents together so that they can feel connected, continue to grow in their role as parents, and support the work of their children in a school and home setting. 

Whether you are a current or prospective parent, we invite you to join us for our Montessori Monday Parent Education Series.

Recordings from Past Montessori Monday Sessions:

• • • Teacher as Guide / Parent as Guide: Learn more about child-centered learning, the role teachers take in the Montessori classroom, and how you can reinforce at home.
    • Math & Language in a Montessori Classroom: Dive into the meaning based learning approach used throughout all Montessori schools to convey language, as well as the hands-on materials used to teach abstract math approaches.
    • How the Montessori Method Will Shape Your Child: Explore the Montessori method and learn how to allow your child to be seen, understood, accepted for who they are, and how you can be their guide to become the best version of themselves.
    • Montessori Peace Curriculum: A peace-filled way to learn and live. Teach emotional intelligence, tolerance, and responsibility and support your child in developing confidence and resilience.
    • Montessori Practical Life: Learn strategies to help you empower and equip your child to take the lead in everyday activities and adventures.
    • The Purpose and Practice of Sensorial Activities: Learn how you can direct and encourage your child in their hands-on interactions with the world around them, using all 5 senses to explore their learning environment.
    • Beyond the Classroom: Montessori at Home: Bring Montessori principles into your home—creating an invaluable bridge to reinforcing what your child learns at school.
    • Social-Emotional Intelligence: How to teach emotional intelligence, tolerance, and responsibility to support your child in developing confidence and resilience.
    • Montessori Parent Q&A Session: CMMS Instructional Leadership Team and Administrators answer your parenting questions and chat about tangible ways to bring the Montessori method into your home.

The Early History of Montessori

Montessori education debuted in 1907 with Maria Montessori’s first school, the Casa dei Bambini, part of an urban renewal project in a low-income district of Rome. The school’s success resounded throughout Italy and additional schools soon opened in Rome and Milan. In 1909, Dr. Montessori published her landmark book, Il Metodo Della Pedagogia Scientifica Applicato All’Educazione Infantile Nelle Case Dei Bambini, known by its English title as The Montessori Method.

By 1910, news of the innovative technique had spread beyond Europe and teachers throughout the world were eager to learn it. Early Montessori educators were taught by Dr. Montessori herself. Her courses drew students from as far as Chile and Australia and within a few years there were Montessori schools on five continents.

In the United States, the fledgling movement caught on quickly. The first Montessori school opened in 1911 in Scarborough, NY, and others followed in rapid succession. Prominent figures, including Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell, lent their support, and popular journals galvanized the public with articles on the “miracle children” who emerged from Montessori schools. By 1916, more than 100 Montessori schools were operating in 22 states.

Dr. Maria Montessori

Maria Montessori, the founder of the Montessori approach to education, was born in Italy in 1870. As a teenager she was determined to become an engineer, but later abandoned that idea in favor of studying medicine. Graduating as Italy’s first female medical practitioner, she embarked on a career in mental health.

This brought her into contact with children diagnosed as educationally subnormal and excluded from the educational system. She devised special apparatus to help them learn through movement and achieved some remarkable results.

Following on from this she was asked to head up a child care project for a social housing initiative, and her first “Children’s House” opened in San Lorenzo, a suburb of Rome, in 1907. Here, too, she introduced the equipment she had designed and observed the children very closely as they used it, tailoring what she provided in the environment to meet their developmental needs. There was great astonishment at the amount of learning that these pre-school children showed themselves to be capable of, not least of which was their explosion into writing.

Responding to demands to explaining her method, Montessori began to write about her discoveries and to train people to work with children the way she advocated. From this time on, education became her life and she continued to develop educational theories to fit what she observed among the children in her care.

For the rest of her life she traveled extensively, training, teaching, and lecturing around the world, increasingly convinced that it was only through effective education of the rising generation that universal peace could ever become a reality. She died in Holland in 1952, leaving an international legacy of Montessori schools and training centers around the world, all following the Montessori approach, transcending cultures, faiths, linguistic traditions, and political systems.

Books

Montessori Today – by Paula P. Lillard (1996)
Describes Montessori theory and contemporary American Montessori schools serving ages ranging from birth to adulthood.

Montessori from the Start – by Paula P. Lillard and Lynn L. Jessen (2003)
What parents can do to help their youngest children in the process of self-formation.

To Educate the Human Potential – by Maria Montessori (1948)
Describes the needs of the elementary-aged child in the process of acquiring culture.

The Absorbent Mind – by Maria Montessori (1949)
Discusses the development of infants and young children from birth to three years. Gives a clear explanation of the basis of Montessori theory and method.

The Child in the Family – by Maria Montessori (1956)
A series of short essays about the child, the family, and the school, with a philosophical emphasis.

From Childhood to Adolescence – by Maria Montessori (1973)
Discusses the development and education of the child from age seven through adolescence. Includes Dr. Montessori’s thoughts on university education.

Maria Montessori: Her Life and Work – by E. M. Standing (1957)
Covers Maria Montessori’s life, how she developed Montessori education, its theoretical basis, and the worldwide growth of the Montessori movement.