Charlotte Cushman

Montessori: Why It Matters for Your Child's Success and Happiness Charlotte Cushman

This is a quality paperback with over 40 full color photos illustrating various real life Montessori school exercises. The author took her AMI Montessori training at the Montessori Training Center, Palo Alto, California from Lena Wikramaratne (a colleague and friend of Maria Montessori). In 1985 she co-founded her own school, Independence Montessori and then later joined her husband?s school, Minnesota Renaissance School, where she teaches now. This book grew out of independent pamphlets she wrote over the years to help parents understand the Montessori method. "Charlotte Cushman's explanations are clear, essentialized and replete with examples that make her points easily understood. At the same time, she possesses an ability to identify in clear terms the "why's," i.e., the important ideas on which classroom practice is based. Not only is she philosophically astute, but her long experience as a Montessori teacher and her sensitivity enable her to provide a multitude of anecdotes, including conversations with children, that keep the discussion in "the real world." She also answers questions and doubts that parents have raised over the years and applies her knowledge of Montessori to matters (e.g., computer use) that postdate Maria Montessori. The result is that a Montessori parent- including me with four decades of hindsight- can say, "Oh, that's what's going on with my child" and "that's why he's doing that in class." But just as important, a parent who is considering sending a child to a Montessori school will learn the most important lesson from Charlotte Cushman's book: why Montessori matters for a child's success and happiness." - Dr. Michael Berliner (from the Foreword)