North American Montessori Teachers Association

The Board of Directors of the North American Montessori Teachers’ Association (NAMTA) is launching an important stage in the evolution of NAMTA and its place in the Montessori ecosystem.  After a 50-year history creating a community for Montessori teachers through publications and convenings, and a 6-year quiet period of minimal operations, NAMTA is re-envisioning its future service to the broad community of educators in North America.

When NAMTA’s founder, David Kahn, retired in 2019, it marked a significant transition for the organization. The preface of the 2020 Winter NAMTA Journal included the following paragraph:

“The NAMTA Officers recognize that our organization has had a deep and significant impact on the evolution of Montessori in the United States and beyond. Our decision to maintain NAMTA as a non-profit organization is based upon our commitment to ensure our legacy and to make sure that the knowledge that is represented by our conferences, journals and publications does not disappear – but rather will be available to serve the Montessori movement far into the future and will continue to connect Montessori to the world, past, present and future.”

Since then, we have sustained the online NAMTA store to provide important Montessori books along with publications and videos that NAMTA created to serve teachers, schools and parents.  We added four journals to our collection, culminating with the David Kahn Retrospective. We digitized the entire NAMTA Journal Collection, which is now part of the AMI Montessori Archives. We continue to host an active job board and schools listing page, and continue to care for the 17,000+ documents within our Montessori archive.

The NAMTA Officers are now taking on the responsibility to re-engage NAMTA as an active AMI affiliate in North America to serve the Montessori community as an important voice and resource into the future. The board has established a working group to carry out the task of revisiting our mission and vision in light of today’s realities, and restructuring the organization. Joining me on the working group are officer Gerry Leonard, Max Schubert, and Jacqui Miller. Jacqui will serve in a leadership role as the Transition Coordinator and she has already begun the work.

We invite you to accompany us on this journey.  Please share with us your ideas and any specific ways in which NAMTA can support your work. You can email us at Info@montessori-namta.org.

We are thrilled to announce that The Hershey Foundation has committed a $50,000 grant to fund NAMTA’s re-emergence. In addition, the foundation has offered a $25,000 matching grant for every donation, dollar-for-dollar, doubling your investment to re-launch NAMTA. To date, 100% of the board members have donated/pledged to the campaign.

If you are interested in supporting our work, please consider making a donation which will be matched dollar-for-dollar. Montessori Development Partnerships is the fundraising arm of NAMTA, and you can find information about making a donation on the MDP website (https://www.montessori-mdp.org).
With your help and guidance, we will come together to transition NAMTA to an organization that will be a significant voice in the evolution of Montessori and on behalf of educators over the next 50 years!

With gratitude on behalf of the NAMTA Board of Directors,

Jacquie Maughan, Board President

UPDATE: Edison’s Day is back in stock.

As Vimeo phases out on-demand viewing, the NAMTA videos previously on Vimeo will only be available for purchase through our shop as DVDs. We are reproducing and restocking our most popular titles, including Edison’s Day. We are also formulating a plan to digitize and offer more of our catalog, but there is no timeline for that just yet. Shop our DVDs here.

 

October 7-10, 2026 

A 4-Day In-Person Conference & Orientation Hosted by Montessori Training Center, CT

Presented by legacy trainers David Kahn, Gerry Leonard, Caren Ross, Baiba Krumins Grazzini, Kathleen Allen

“The Keepers of Alexandria: In the Fullness of Time” responds directly to Maria Montessori’s unfinished work of the fourth plane by offering a developmental, interdisciplinary, and classical framework that unifies the four planes in both theory and practice.

Maria Montessori’s vision of human development across the Four Planes of Education remains one of the most integrated developmental theories in modern pedagogy. The Fourth Plane (ages 18–24)—the formation of the adult personality, moral purpose, and spiritual journey—remains the least articulated, researched, and practiced dimension of Montessori education. At a time when adolescent and higher education are increasingly fragmented, formalized, and disconnected, this work is urgent.

A full schedule of events, presenters, and accommodations is listed in this brochure. Go directly to registration at this link.

This Sunday, September 20^th, AMI-USA and the North American AMI affiliates are hosting an event to celebrate International Peace Day. This Zoom event will be held at 5:00 eastern time. It is not too late to register to build community and to view the documentary, “Montessori: Education for Peace.” We will hear directly from the creator, Angel Galmes. We hope you will join us; you can register for this Zoom event here.

In the spirit and honor of International Peace Day, we share these words from E. Mortimer Standing from an article, “Maria Montessori: World Peace through the Child”.

. . . We are on the eve of a new conception of education. It will not come at once, because new ideas take time to percolate into the general mind. But the time is inevitably coming when, in the light of these discoveries about childhood on the one hand, and under the urgency of preserving world peace on the other, we shall be obliged to broaden our aims and practices in education almost beyond recognition. We shall no longer think of education in terms of preparing individuals to take their own part successfully in the struggle for existence in adult society. It will no longer be largely a question of preparing Tommy to be a banker and Edith a nurse. It will be seen as the problem of how best to protect the “normal” growth of the whole human species so as to ensure “valorization of personality” (Standing, 1957) at every stage of development. This, as we shall see later, cannot be attained without the fullest development of the social instincts. We must see to it that each individual will grow up realizing his responsibility to humanity as a whole. The importance of this moral and social development will be seen to be a matter so urgent for the attainment of world peace that there will come a collective urge on the part of mankind to see that the means are provided through which the constructive energies in childhood and adolescence can be made operative. Excerpt from The NAMTA Journal • Vol. 20, No. 3 • Summer 1995

 

 

 

 

50 years ago, December 1975, five teachers came together to create the North American Montessori Teachers’ Association.

Now, 50 years later, NAMTA’s board of directors is examining our history. With the assistance of Montessorians across the US, we hope to co-create the future of our organization.
The purposes for which NAMTA was organized remain our constant guiding light:

• To propagate, maintain, and further the rights of the child in society
• To provide an opportunity for a continuous research and study in depth of Montessori as a means for continual improvement of Montessori teachers
• To provide a loyal body in support of the aims of Association Montessori Internationale
• To stimulate professional attitudes and ethical conduct and maintain standards of our profession
• To develop greater public understanding and support for the essence of Montessori philosophy and method
• To improve understanding and cooperation among the teachers, schools, and the community
• To assist in the organization of Montessori teachers associations at the local, regional, and state levels

The first publication of The NAMTA Quarterly was Fall, 1975, “Day Care and the Montessori Experience.”  In Fall, 1986, The NAMTA Quarterly was renamed The NAMTA Journal with Volume 12, No. 1, “Montessori Frontiers: Adolescence, Infant-Toddler, and Daycare.”  David Kahn was the editor of The NAMTA Journal and executive director until 2019.

Our most recent publication is Volume 46, Spring 2024, “A Montessori Legacy in Retrospect: Selected Writings of David Kahn.”  This invaluable collection of David’s writings reflects across these 50 years.

NAMTA has been an important voice and contributor to the evolution of the Montessori movement.  Besides the journal, NAMTA’s workshops, parent-education publications, and videos provided multimedia support to schools. The development of the Montessori adolescent vision was one of the most significant elements of NAMTA’s contributions to that evolution.  Our conferences and journals have provided important contributions from AMI trainers, across the planes and across the world, as well as leaders and spokespersons outside of Montessori:  David Orr, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Brian Swimme, John Merrow, and many others.  A key component of every NAMTA conference was the afternoon workshops that featured teachers talking with teachers, sharing their ideas, their experiences, and details of their implementation of Montessori principles in their daily life with their students. We often hear grateful memories of how our conferences impacted so many across all locations and practices.

Many of you have accompanied NAMTA on this journey. Regardless of your years in Montessori, your training, your past and current experience as a teacher, parent, administrator, support staff member, we would love to hear from you.

What role might a teachers’ organization have in our Montessori world today?  As you reflect on our founding principles, are we missing anything? How would you like to NAMTA evolve to best support you?
If you want to share your thoughts, please email us at info@montessori-namta.org

As we celebrate that history, please enjoy this article by David Kahn: “Montessori Education: An Interactive Idea for Human Understanding.”

Autumn and the 2025-2026 academic year are in full swing.

As we continue to reflect on the past years of NAMTA’s evolution and consider our next iteration, we have the opportunity to explore the Montessori movement through the lenses of the many individuals who have contributed to our conferences and to The NAMTA Journal.

As teachers, administrators, and parents navigate the complexities of the modern era, inspiration and solace can be found in the voices of Montessori past and present. The NAMTA Journal has frequently explored the themes of civility, civilization, and community throughout four decades of publication. Here we honor the vital theme of community by sharing these two articles: “The Montessori Classroom: A Foundation for Global Citizenship” by Gerard Leonard and “Community Building in Schools” by Terry Ford. These source journals along with other publications, including titles in the Montessori-Pierrson collection, can be found in our online store.

As NAMTA continues to share the voices of experts that we’ve nurtured over the past 50 years, please share our work with colleagues who might not be aware of our trusted role in the Montessori world. If you are not currently on our distribution list, please contact us at info@montessori-namta.org with your contact information.

As we reflect on the past 50 years and the history of NAMTA across the decades, the NAMTA officers and Renee Ergazos, our archivist/managing editor, will be searching our archives to choose timeless articles from The NAMTA Journal. Hoping to share legacy voices with a new audience and to continue our commitment to the work of Montessori education in today’s world, we will share links to two or three articles every few weeks.

As Montessori teachers, school administrators, and staff prepare for the fall start-up of the 2025-26 academic year, we chose to consider Montessori voices as they reflect on the development and evolution of community within and beyond a school setting. The NAMTA Journal, Winter 2015, is titled “The Art of Montessori Grace and Courtesy,”  and we are proud to share one article by Pat Ludick and another by Larry Schaefer. We hope these voices bring you inspiration as you work to support and grow the Montessori movement.
As NAMTA continues to share the writings of experts that we’ve nurtured over the past 50 years, please share our work with colleagues who might not be aware of our trusted role in the Montessori world. If you are not currently on our distribution list, please contact us at info@montessori-namta.org with your contact information.
Best Regards,
Jacquie Maughan, President

As we look back on the decades and consider all that has changed in the Montessori landscape, we realize the importance for us as an organization, and as individuals with lifetime commitments to the Montessori method, to utilize both the past and the current conditions in order to best prepare ourselves for the future. With excitement and hope, we are planning for the 2025-26 academic year when NAMTA turns 50.

In the meantime, we maintain our presence on our website and continue to host job postings. Our beloved parent education booklets and NAMTA journals and other publications can be purchased through our Shopify store.

NAMTA will be keeping you informed as we plan this next year, and each emailing will feature an article from the past journals or from The NAMTA Bulletin. We are honored to have published much of Annette Haines’ writing and are happy to share “Individuality, Sociability, and Peace” which was published in The NAMTA Bulletin, May 2001. It was relevant when she delivered the speech at the 1998 AMI International Conference on Peace in Perugia, Italy and is especially relevant today.

Please keep in touch with us, and if you have any questions or suggestions about the future of NAMTA, please contact us at staff@montessori-namta.org. Would you like to be added to our email list? Email us at staff@montessori-namta.org too!