Guide to Creating a Montessori Parent and Faculty Resource Center

Though creating a parent and faculty resource center at your Montessori school may seem daunting, the process can be surprisingly simple and the benefits numerous. The Montessori resource center can function as both a research center and a lending library. If your school’s resources allow it, this area could also offer computers and audio-visual supplies for use by Montessori students. Having a collection of books, periodicals, pamphlets, CDs and videos on campus will encourage parents to educate themselves on the Montessori method, and provide resources for parenting challenges. The resource center can be a place where you direct parents after parent-teacher conferences and other significant conversations.

We have a number of suggestions to help you create an effective Montessori Parent and Faculty Resource Center, so you can provide a better understanding of the Montessori method and philosophy to everyone, including yourself!

Guide to Creating a Montessori Parent and Faculty Resource Center

If you have the resources to catalog everything on your school website, go for it. If not, highlight titles you feel are most important or rotate titles according to the time of year. The Resource Center area of your school website is also a wonderful place for showcasing websites that could be helpful to Montessori parents. In the Montessori resource center and on the school website, some books can be marked “essential reading for all parents,” “strongly recommended,” and “recommended reading.”

A group of Montessori upper elementary or middle school students might enjoy being in charge of the lending library aspect of your resource center. Whether you use an electronic system or the classic paper pocket with checkout card format, an accountability program needs to be in place.

Don’t forget to include titles for all ages of children.
Some examples:

• Positive Discipline: The First Three Years: From Infant to Toddler
• Laying the Foundation for Raising a Capable, Confident Child 
• Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls 
• Queen Bees and Wannabes: Helping Your Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends, and Other Realities of Adolescence.
  Remember to include gender diversity as well with titles such as: 
• Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys 
• Why Gender Matters: What Parents and Teachers Need to Know About the Emerging Science of Sex Differences.
  Parents might appreciate (especially before summer break) books with activity suggestions such as: 
• Child's Play: Montessori Games and Activities for Your Baby and Toddler 
• Montessori Play and Learn: A Parent's Guide to Purposeful Play from Two to Six.

If your Montessori school budget does not allow for purchasing many resource materials at once, ask your Montessori faculty and parents if they have titles they would care to donate and/or titles that could “reside” in the resource center. Faculty can keep more of their personal books and other media at home if they know there is a copy in the resource center that they can reference if necessary.

Make sure to have a strong selection of Montessori titles in your resource center. Some suggestions by Maria Montessori include:

• The Absorbent Mind
• Advanced Montessori Method
• Child in the Family
• Child, Society and the World
• Discovery of the Child
• Education and Peace
• Education for a New World
• Formation of Man
• From Childhood to Adolescence
• Montessori Elementary Material
• Montessori Method
• The Secret of Childhood
• Spontaneous Activity in Education
• To Educate the Human Potential

Some suggestions about the Montessori method include:

• At Home with Montessori, by Patricia Oriti
• Montessori From the Start, by Paula Polk Lillard & Lynn Lillard Jessen
• Montessori in Contemporary Amercian Culture, by Margaret Loeffler
• Montessori: Play and Learn Parents Guide to Purposeful Play from 2 to 6, by Joy Starrey Turner
• Montessori and the Special Child, by R.C. Orem
• Montessori: The Science Behind the Genius, by Angeline Stoll Lillard
• Montessori Today, by Paula Polk Lillard
• The Normalized Child, by Kathleen Futrell
• Nurturing the Spirit, by Aline D. Wolf
• Parents Guide to the Montessori Classroom, by Aline Wolf

As much as possible, NAMC’s web blog reflects the Montessori curriculum as provided in its teacher training programs. We realize and respect that Montessori schools are unique and may vary their schedules and offerings in accordance with the needs of their individual communities. We hope that our readers will find our articles useful and inspiring as a contribution to the global Montessori community.
© North American Montessori Center - originally posted in its entirety at Montessori Teacher Training on Wednesday, April 14, 2010.