31 Aug 2011, Posted by Daniel in General, 3 Comments.

Great Advice from Woody Allen and Dr. Seuss for Enrolling More Children in Montessori Schools

My good friend Laura Flores Shaw has started an important new organization called the Collaborative Montessori Initiative (CMI) to “develop a unified advocacy voice that will make Montessori central to the national education discussion.”

On the CMI blog, Laura recently discussed the vital question , Why Hasn’t the Montessori Movement Made More Progress in the U.S.?

I will be writing more about this in the future, but to add to this important discussion I begin with the sound advice of Woody Allen, “80% of life is showing up.”

As my previous blog post regarding Duke Professor Cathy Davidson demonstrates, the internet has given us an incredibly powerful tool to advance the cause of Montessori. All you need to do is use it. In other words, heed Woody Allen’s advice and show up electronically in the discussion when people are talking about education.

When someone writes an education article about this or that new program or laments the state of education, don’t yell at the screen or the TV or the newspaper, write to the author or reporter or TV figure and tell them a great personal montessori story about how it does not have to be that way and that Montessori is a great and transformative model.

There is so much passion for Montessori that I encounter every day. Change will happen when  thousands of those passionate Montessori voices are writing letters, e-mailing people and posting comments on articles that claim we still don’t have good answers for education.

My 5 year old daughter and I just watched for the third time the movie version of “Horton Hears a Who” and the climactic scene really comes to life on film in a way that only movies can. The thousands of residents of whoville yelling “We Are Here! We Are Here! We are Here!” which finally breaks through to the larger world and helps save them from the cynics who believe that there cannot possibly be life on that little speck.

When Montessorians pull together like the residents of whoville, American education will never be the same.