IN 2008, Dulles Montessori Center will become a full member of AMS, the American Montessori Society.  Our teachers are AMS or AMI certified.  Our membership in AMS affords us the opportunity to communicate with other associated schools, participate in continuing education and more.  AMS was founded in 1960 at the Whitby School to revive Montessori education in the United States.  Although Montessori schools had been in operation in the U.S since 1912, they had pretty much been confined to major cities in the East and West Coast.  In the Washington area, there is an AMS accredited training program called the Institute for Advanced Montessori Studies at The Barrie School in Silver Spring.

AMI, the Association Montessori Internationale is the original organization founded by Dr Montessori.  It is currently headed by her grandson and is located in Amsterdam.  It accredits training program worldwide including one here in the Washington area, the Washington Montessori Institute (WMI) The WMI has been training teachers for a half  century.

For a good while, the two programs were antagonistic to one another.  AMI frequently acted as though they were the only true believers and AMS thought that AMI was stuffy and outdated.  Fortunately that has changed and there is a great deal of interaction between the two organizations.  Al has realized that our first and foremost concern is children and what Dr. Montessori’s work has to offer them. 

While AMI and AMS are the largest Montessori organizations, there are other organizations which have been formed to further the work of Dr. Montessori.  Some of these include the Montessori World Education Institute, the Saint Nicholas Montessori Society, and the National Center for Montessori Education.  These organizations, not as large as AMS and AMI, have excellent training programs. 

There are also Montessori organizations whose goal is to promote Montessori education by supporting teachers and parents, but do not have training programs.  Some of these include the North American Montessori Teachers Association (NAMTA) and the Virginia Montessori Association (VMA).