There is a certain mystique to the Montessori world, which is just as much philosophy as it is pedagogy. For starters, it has its own vocabulary. (The schools have “guides,” not teachers, and there are specialized training programs to become one.) It’s inspired its own set of toys and physical manipulatives. And about 90 percent of the roughly 5,000 U.S. Montessori schools are private, according to estimates from the American Montessori Society.
No wonder, then, that “Montessori education is often seen as niche and elitist,” says Joel Mendes, executive director of Prepared Montessorian, a program that provides training to teachers and parents in Montessori methods.
