Canadian Montessori teacher training contexts can be listed here when meeting these objective criteria:
A high point in global and across-affiliations Montessori partnering was 1988-89, when leaders from all the senior organizations and academic programs accepted appointment to the Advisory Board of UK-based but globally-impacting Montessori Today. Vancouver University Worldwide was sufficiently impressed by the publication's quality, outreach, and scope as to advertize therein (Jan/Feb 89) for the first time outside its home-base of BC and WA. (In 1994 the Canadian Government - by a special outside-Canada Montessori-orientated distribution of its National Guide to College and University Programmes - further promoted global awareness of Vancouver University Worldwide's external degree contribution to academic acceptance of Montessori teacher preparation). Unfortunately, however, Montessori Today did not last. Other than some subsequent (and present) lesser-globally-effective cooperation via MACTE, the Montessori "community" has generally retreated from its late Eightees more-collaborative plateau.
You should not assume there is any significant pedagogic difference between various Montessori organizations unless they are prepared to explain such difference - clearly and convincingly. If any organization - such as AMI or AMS - claims or implies that it is more authentic than others in its approach to Montessori pedagogy, compare the variances within other sciences and social sciences. Montessori is a pedagogy based in science and humanistic philosophy - nobody "owns" the perpetual truth in such matters. Note also that while Dr Maria Montessori considered herself a devout Roman Catholic - though it could be argued she did not really subscribe to Original Sin - and often emphasized spiritual / ethical values, Montessori pedagogy is not tied to any theology. Nor is it a 'religion' of contending denominations - though at times the competion of Montessori societies can make it seem like one! Montessori pedagogy is not essentially predicated upon 'Western' culture or other such limitation - about which see the note at foot of this document.*
Montessori pedagogy necessarily must adjust to new circumstances and materials, further neurological findings, etc - or wither. A particularly pressing challenge is the marriage of Montessori and multimedia, where these can work together effectively. Very young children do not need dumbed-down mainstream software - they do better to explore the real three-dimensional environment. But that said, Montessori principles, such as isolation of difficulty, can be usefully implemented in deliberately created software - all the way through to the virtual reality of the Star Trek holodeck! The challenge calls for creative team-work between Montessorians and multimedia technologists.
In a commemorative photo-tableau of a February 1988 meeting of what is now the Montessori Accreditation Council for Teacher Education (MACTE, then AMTE), thirty-six persons were present. Montessori teacher Lola Rodgers was the only person present of non-Caucasian origin. Since1988, Montessori ethnic participation has broadened widely in North America - better reflecting the global perspective held by Dr Maria Montessori herself. [In that tableau, Lola is identified by an IAPM credential. Alumni of the BCMTC / Vancouver University programs in the early 'Eightees received a collateral IAPM credential along with their University parchment and academic transcript. Dr and Mrs Rodgers actually represented Vancouver (then New Summits) University at the l988 AMTE meeting].
With facilities in Vancouver BC and Bellingham WA (and further authorized to conduct programs in Alberta), BCMTC meets these criteria. Vancouver University's BC Montessori Teachers College has been a long-standing authorized BC ECE pre-licencing provider and its ECE graduates, as well as graduates of its Montessori Elementary teacher preparation, are working in public and independent schools around BC and the world. Depending upon the in-transfer of prior studies, and courses etc completed with Vancouver University, graduates receive the associate, bachelor, or master degree as appropriate.
For off-campus candidates, Vancouver University degrees are also accessible in the worldwide university external degrees program (off-campus credentialing by examination and/or assembly of variously-sourced credits, including distance learning, materials practice learning, etc), regardless of country of residence and location of past training - Montessori and other.
With respect to organizations affirming an exclusive membership, or directories (including this one) listing particular criteria, bear in mind that there are varying viewpoints about particular topics in all sciences and social sciences. Such variances may similarly be reflected in and between Montessori organizations, of which AMI is the oldest.
Ideally, all Montessori organizations, whether geographically defined or otherwise, ought to have some measure of positive relationship with the Association Montessori International - but such ideal globally-organizing principle depends upon how flexible AMI can be in its relationships with the many other subsequent Montessori organizations - and there is no current indication of such flexibility. The AMI also evidences an uncomfortable practice of seeking out, in each generation, a member of the Montessori family to serve as its executive director. This "royal family" syndrome is inappropriate for a scientifically-based pedagogy. It is though a society for the study of quantum physics were to unduly prefer relatives of Albert Einstein for similar employment.
Some Montessori organizations simply arose from personal differences between their founders. Others reflect a geographical or occupational-specific scope of membership - with no other significant differentiation. The wisest of the geographically- or occupationally-defined organizations, including university teacher training programs, resist getting tangled up in rival petty Montessori society affiliations.
Usually Montessorians expressing concern about authenticity of method are addressing this fact: although Montessori method is itself an eclecticism, the 'Montessori' parameter cannot be stretched too far when partnering it with other approaches. Dr Raymond Rodgers frequently makes an analogy to skiing and snowboarding: both methods work - but not if you put a ski on one foot and a snowboard on the other. On the other hand, Montessori methodology is in a changing world and necessarily adapts to such post-Maria Montessori phenomena as plastic, computers, multi-media, etc. And Dr Montessori was somewhat inconsistent about a few matters. Her positive affirmation of typical childhood explorations did not extend to make-believe play, scribble art, nor "lower classes" childhood masturbation (The Montessori Method, Maria Montessori, New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1912. p 222).
- all of which she expressly disavowed. She also advocated a sugar-rich diet for young people (Maria Montessori, From Childhood to Adolescence, Schocken 2nd edition, page 114) - but it is not clear whether she was referring to natural carbohydrates or refined sugar. [These two specific citations are provided in response to persons objecting that Montessori never made such statements].
Although an eclectic methodology nearly a century old, the main propositions put forward by Dr Maria Montessori have largely been confirmed by subsequent scientific research - particularly her neurological early "sensitive" periods, i.e. the relationship between intellectual and other growth on the one hand and a sensorial exploration on the other. The significance of a sensitive period is not that it is simply the age when some aspect of human development likely commences. It is more significantly a "window" of time in which optimum development can happen, if appropriately encouraged by the immediate cultural, physical, and artifactual environment. Compare the natural language-learning capacity of the infant with that of the adult second-language learner!
Montessori's neurological and pedagogic propositions were largely focussed on the first few years of life. Contemporary research has shown that her basic suppositions about sensitive periods were likely modest, rather than overstated. In January 1989 Rodgers suggested [Montessori Today (UK) - reprinted Spring 1994 NCME Reporter (US)] that other
neurological sensitive periods would be established for later years. The 28 Feb 2000 edition of Newsweek, and the March 2000 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (UK), report various current findings which substantiate the (obscure, not likely known) 1989 published Rodgers hypothesis. It is very likely, also, that sensitive periods or stages are present in the development of our closest primate cousins, the bonobo and others.
* Montessori method can be especially valuable to aboriginal North Americans, because while it is scientifically based rather than culturally biased, its particular use of wood is harmonious with aboriginal arts and crafts. BC Montessori Teachers College - for both its primary and elementary programs - has attracted a few aboriginal students, though denied adequate funding to effectively do more in this respect.
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