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Head of School Notes
Ms. Martha Carver
I recently attended the International Montessori Council (IMC) Annual Conference with over 250 Montessorians from all over the world. This conference is my favorite and as a board member of the IMC, I especially enjoy the global vision.
Anne Frank (The Diary of a Young Girl, The Diary of Anne Frank) was a Jewish girl in the Netherlands during the Nazi Occupation who wrote a diary of her thoughts during that time before she was taken to a concentration camp and died. She was a Montessori student and one of her favorite materials was metal insets. The pink and blue metal insets and frames are various shapes that are traced with pencil and prepare the hand for writing. This material is generally used in Children’s House classes and you may see some of your children’s creations with the metal inset material.
I was given a scarf at the conference which has a representation of metal inset art work that had been created by Anne Frank and was found in her family’s apartment. This scarf shows the intricate, creative ways the material can be used, especially with an older child. It reminds us of the true brilliance of Montessori materials and the many people who have benefitted from a Montessori education.
Montessori had a vision for peace that was reflective of the challenges of her era and somehow knew, perhaps from her knowledge of humanity, that we would need the same vision in our present day.
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