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Montessori education fosters an environment of optimal learning for the 21st century. Innovation, creativity and collaborative learning are among the distinctive characteristics of a Montessori education and one key reason why graduates rank highest in academic achievement, critical thinking and emotional intelligence. It is why this educational philosophy has produced such original and collaborative thinkers as the founders of Google, Wikipedia and Amazon.

The following are links to news articles and blogs on Montessori education:

“Google Founders Talk About Montessori Education” ABC News – February 2012

“Superwoman was Already Here” by Montessori parent Daniel Petter-Lipstein

“And she gave us a superb educational model to end the “Race to Nowhere.” Her name was Dr. Maria Montessori and in the first half of the 20th century she pioneered and refined the Montessori method of education. Today, there are over 17,000 Montessori schools worldwide including thousands of preschools in the USA and hundreds of Montessori schools in the U.S. at the K-8 level…”

“Ten-year-old discovers ‘new molecule’ while tinkering with educational model” by Nina Golgowski – February 2012

“A 10-year-old Missouri girl may be the youngest in history to discover a new molecule after a brief introduction on molecular formation by her middle school science teacher.

Clara Lazen of Kansas City was piecing together over-sized atoms from an educational model in her Border Star Montessori School classroom when she composed something her teacher had never seen before….”

“Montessori: The Missing Voice in the Education Reform Debate” Huffington Post – January 2012

“Over a century ago, Dr. Maria Montessori discovered through scientific observations of children that they are not empty vessels to be filled — they are intrinsically motivated doers. She saw that providing a hands-on learning environment that valued choice, concentration, collaboration, community, curiosity, and real-world application produced lifelong learners who viewed “work” as something interesting and fulfilling instead of drudgery to be avoided….”

It may seem like a laughable “only in New York” story that Manhattan mother, Nicole Imprescia, is suing her 4-year-old daughter’s untraditional private preschool for failing to prepare her for a private school admissions exam.

But her daughter’s future and ours might be much brighter with a little less conditioning to perform well on tests and more encouragement to discover as they teach in Montessori schools. Ironically, the Montessori educational approach might be the surest route to joining the creative elite, which are so overrepresented by the school’s alumni that one might suspect a Montessori Mafia: Google’s founders Larry Page and Sergei Brin, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, videogame pioneer Will Wright, and Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, not to mention Julia Child and rapper Sean “P.Diddy” Combs.

Is there something going on here? Is there something about the Montessori approach that nurtures creativity and inventiveness that we can all learn from?…”

“Montessori Is An Example Of The New Culture of Learning” Forbes – March 2011

“I reported a few days ago on a conversation with the authors, Douglas Thomas and John Seely Brown, of the wonderful new book, A New Culture of Learning: Cultivating the Imagination for a World of Constant Change.

A colleague, Daniel Petter-Lipstein, wrote to us and asked the pertinent question: why there was no mention of progressive models of education like Montessori? He suggests that much of what is described takes place in my view in thousands of good Montessori classrooms every day, as he wrote in his marvelous article, ‘Superwoman Was Already Here’…”

“What makes visionary entrepreneurs such as Apple’s Steve Jobs, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Ebay’s Pierre Omidyar and Meg Whitman, and P&G’s A.G. Lafley tick? In a question-and-answer session with HBR contributing editor Bronwyn Fryer, Professors Jeff Dyer of Brigham Young University and Hal Gregersen of Insead explain how the ‘Innovators’ DNA’ works…”