NCMPS Update
Montessori Leadership
I’m Sara Suchman, the Executive Director of the National Center for Montessori in the Public Sector (NCMPS). I want to thank IMC for offering me a space in Montessori Leadership to share periodic updates on issues central to Montessori public schools and our work here at NCMPS. In this first column, I’d like to share my Montessori origin story and a bit about NCMPS. I’ll use future columns to delve deeper into issues facing public Montessori and the potential and promise of this work.
My introduction to Montessori came in middle school when my mother saved me from the tedium of sage-on-stage teaching and unending homework by enrolling me in an independent Montessori school. I was 13 years old. I was in 8th grade. I had never been exposed to Montessori. The school didn’t accept 13-yearolds. My mother pleaded my case. A year and a half later I graduated, having spent large portions of my short time observing the elementary and primary classrooms and loving what I saw. I loved what I saw, I knew already that I wanted to be a teacher, AND I didn’t give Montessori much more thought until my doctoral studies 30 years later. I was committed to working in public schools, and I, like many people still, didn’t know that Montessori existed outside of private schools.
My graduate studies coincided with the launch of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act. Everyone wanted to reform schools, but all the talk was about doing the same thing bigger and louder. Someone needed to keep substantively different ways of approaching teaching and learning on the table, so I focused my research on how cohesive, coherent, and comprehensive educational models, such as Montessori, balance the competing demands of their unique approaches and the external mandates of NCLB. This research introduced me to Dr. Jackie Cossentino, Jackie brought me into NCMPS, and the rest is history, NCMPS’ history.
In 2011 a wise and visionary Montessori supporter funded the American Montessori Society to answer the question, “Where are all the public Montessori schools, and what do they need?” At that time, no one knew how many public Montessori schools there were, let alone where they were or what they most needed to thrive. That simple question was the genesis of what is now the National Center.
Our first project sought to directly answer the first part of the question–where are all the public Montessori schools? We launched the Montessori Census and began combing databases and mailing lists to reach out to every public school and literally put them on the map (www. montessoricensus.org). If you haven’t seen this map yet, take a look. If your school, public or private, isn’t on the map, claim it! Although we put our ongoing resources behind tracking and updating public schools, the map includes all Montessori schools. This map is one of our most heavily used resources, receiving upwards of 10,000 unique visitors and 36,000 pageviews annually.
We addressed the second part of the question–what do public Montessori schools need? by beginning with a national listening tour to several states and many public Montessori schools. I wish we could have made it to even more! What we heard over and over generally fell into these groups:
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Comradeship and community
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Ongoing support for start-up and classroom practice
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Helpful tools and frameworks for assessment
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Accessible teacher training
We set about immediately building the team and developing the programming to help schools meet these pressing needs. In future columns, I’ll reflect on how, from these launching points, our work has evolved and become more robust with each passing year and each new school or staff we work and learn with.
One key point that has evolved and is well suited for an introductory column is how NCMPS thinks about and uses the term public Montessori or, alternatively, Montessori in the public sector. What does it mean to specialize in serving public Montessori?
NCMPS works with publicly funded programs such as charter, district, magnet, and Head Start. And, though these are the primary settings for our work, NCMPS’s unique contribution lies not in a governance or funding label but in serving students and families who might not otherwise be able to access a tuition-based program and navigating the accountability systems within which programs that receive public funding operate (curricular, testing, unions, etc.).
Whether you work in such a setting now, are curious about this possibility in the future, or just want to know more about how Montessori thrives, grows, and serves, welcome! I look forward to sharing with you and hearing from you. I am sure we will both learn along the way!
Warmly,
