A.M.I Shishu Mandir School Students

organization of Montessori teacher training, and organizes professional development opportunities in the United States. The organization also maintains a member database of about 45,000 teachers, school administrators, parents, and interested individuals. Dr. Maria Montessori established AMI in 1929, with the headquarters in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The international head office of AMI is still located in Amsterdam. The organization was founded to maintain the integrity of her life's work and to ensure that it would be perpetuated after her death: "The AMI was to function not only as organizer of courses and overseer of teacher training, not only as a way of keeping the various worldwide Montessori schools and societies in touch with each other and disseminating information about the movement's ideas and activities, but also as a firm controlling rights to the publication of Montessori's books and the manufacture and sale of the materials as well as recipient of training-course fees. Mario Montessori, Maria’s son and personal assistant, was given the task of safeguarding the Montessori movement after Maria Montessori's death. "At [Montessori's] death she appointed Mr. Montessori as her successor in the task of directing and coordinating the work of the Association Montessori Internationale... A responsibility laid upon Mr. Montessori's shoulders was the delicate task of safeguarding the integrity of the Montessori movement, in the many countries where it is active, by recognizing under the aegis of the Association Montessori Internationale only such "Montessori" schools and training courses as faithfully interpret, both in spirit and practice, the Montessori principles. Mario Montessori sent Margaret Elizabeth Stephenson to the United States in 1961. A trainee of Maria Montessori herself, Miss Stephenson (as she is referred to), first operated as Mario’s personal representative in the United States. As the movement grew, Mario granted her request to set up a branch office of AMI in the United States. AMI/USA was founded in 1972 and directed for its first ten years by Karin Salzmann. In 1988, Virginia McHugh succeeded Jon Osterkorn as Executive Director of AMI/USA. Today there are thousands of Montessori schools across the United States, however, "there is no litmus test for calling a school a Montessori school. Even if one uses an accredited school, the different Montessori organizations have very different accreditation criteria, with some adhering more closely to Dr. Maria Montessori's methods than others... In this book, I describe Montessori education as conveyed in Dr. Montessori's writings and in the training courses of the Association Montessori Internationale. Although most Montessori schools surely support many of these principles, implementations vary widely. The past twenty years have seen a vast increase in the amount of scientific research confirming the Montessori method: "Maria Montessori, through observation of children, developed materials that engage both the hands and the mind of the child. Science and research, especially in the past twenty years, have come to prove that Montessori's observations accurately describe the learning needs of children and have shown as well that the principles Dr. Montessori envisioned do create joyful learners.