Holism

The Ohio Montessori Alliance (OhMA) is a young non-profit which has been exploring how Dr. Montessori’s insights about optimal development of children might inform the collective development of its statewide community.

Montessori principles place primacy on holism -- the individual is thought of as a whole. Montessorians create the space where children can develop themselves to their fullest potential as an integrated personality, recognizing that optimal development depends on how the parts work together.

Therefore, the Ohio Montessori Alliance is using a holistic view of our statewide community's development.  We seek to support the development of the various parts of our community (supporting the administrators, teachers, families, students, alumni, and community members of Montessori schools and teacher preparation programs,) as well as nurture connections between them.

The Ohio Montessori Alliance invites you to explore how together we might connect our community from the top-down, bottom-up, center-out, fringe-in, thereby co-creating ourselves into a holistic organism capable of transforming the world for children.

2016: An Empty Canvas

Happy New Year! The now-empty-canvas of 2016 is waiting for us to continue our work together, creating the future we long for our children and society!

As the Ohio Montessori Alliance (OMA) enters this new year, as well as our next 3-year-cycle of development, we continue to experiment with the premise that our community will self-construct through a process similar to children -- by engaging in real work in a prepared environment.  However, for our community, the internal process of discovery, reflection, and refinement that takes place within the individual child must become an externalized and social process in order for its collective personality and wisdom to emerge. Towards this end, we'd like to use this blog as a way to host conversations in which we may collectively consider topics affecting our community: Who are we? What do we long for? What is the context in we are navigating? What tools and processes we might use in our work together which most align with Montessori practices? Who do we need to become to create the change we long to see in the world?

Who Are "We"?

The OMA considers the "Montessori Community" to be anyone who has been touched by, or feels drawn to, Montessori education -- as a student, guide, parent, administrator, teacher trainer, and/or community member. We recognize the Montessori Community as rich in wisdom, expertise, resources, and passion -- full of change-makers eager to create a different future for children and society.

To help you get to know us better, the OMA is a non-profit organization committed to creating the environment where the diverse parts of our statewide community can connect, learn together, and co-create ourselves into a unified organism, capable of transforming the world for children. Our state has long been a hub in which Montessori individuals and organizations work tirelessly to serve children.  It is the potential impact of your efforts that the Ohio Montessori Alliance seeks to magnify -- by kindling the power of community, amplifying communication, and weaving networks to facilitate awareness, cohesion, and coordination of our community's efforts. 

We look forward to getting to know you better and working together to create a shared vision of a different future on the now-empty-canvas of 2016!