Montessori Medical Partnership for Inclusion

Outreach and Support for an Inclusive World

We are pleased to be sharing the news that AMI/USA officially released their Position Statement on Inclusion and Educational Equity on February 16, 2025, at the national conference in Oklahoma City! We are so proud of Catherine Massie of MMPI, member of the HRSJ Advisory Council and chair of the Position Statement on Educational Equity Ad-Hoc Committee. Massie along with fellow committee members (including our own Erin Lopez-Brooks) and Ayize Sabater, Ed. D., AMI/USA Executive Director, Dr. KaLinda Bass-Barlow, Chair, AMI/USA Board of Directors, Sheri Bishop, M.Ed., AMI/USA Human Rights and Social Justice Advisor, and Jacqui Miller, Chair, AMI/USA HRSJ Board Committee worked for 3 years to craft the final statement which you can read HERE.

Scientific & Medical Pedagogy

Montessori education that is developmental, diagnostic and therapeutic

“The school constitutes an immense field for research; it is a “pedagogical clinic,” which, in view of its importance, can be compared to no other gathering of subjects for study. Thanks to the system of compulsory education, it gathers to itself every living human being of both sexes and of every social caste, normal and abnormal; and it retains them there, throughout a most important period of growth. This is the field, therefore, in which the culture of the human race can really and practically be undertaken; and a joint labouor of physician and teacher will sow the seed of a future human hygiene, adapted to achieve perfection in man, both as a species and as a social unit.”

[Dr. Maria Montessori, Pedagogical Anthropology, July 1913]

Showcase Debut: Mario Montessori’s Special Work

Mario Montessori was involved in two of the most important contributions to the development of a Montessori-based Special Education which were developed during the 1960’s–one in the United States (District of Columbia Society for Crippled Children, Washington, DC) and one in Germany (Aktion Sonnenschein, Munich). Through partnership with Dr. Theodor Hellbruegge (Munich) and Dr. William Argy (Washington DC), both distinguished medical doctors and medical researchers, Mario supported the re-connection of his mother’s educational legacy with the medical sciences as an aid to development and to inclusion of children with disabilities.

To honor the significant contribution of these Montessori-medical partnerships, MMPI will open its Inclusion Showcase by documenting these two integrated medical-educational projects to which Mario Montessori devoted himself.

Check out our first Showcase to see an historic video and read a scientific research study of Montessori education offered to children at the DC Society for Crippled Children, 1962-1964.