History and Background

After Dr. Montessori’s death in 1952, conflicts among different organizations and training programs seeking to represent Montessori education in the world.  This conflicting situation came up specifically in the area of recognizing Montessori teacher certification, which in 1929 Dr. Montessori had personally given to the Association Montessori Internationale (AMI). In the United States, a new organization, American Montessori Society (AMS) arose and developed a separate identity in the 1950’s, representing a “culture” type of Montessori teaching to challenge the AMI “personality” type associated with Dr. Montessori herself, her heirs and close associates.

The AMI-AMS dispute finally erupted in a legal battle over use of the name “Montessori”, which was ultimately settled by a US Patent Office decision in the 1960’s, holding that the term “Montessori” had become “generic” in nature and therefore open for free public use.   In this new context, many other organizations sprang up with their own particular form and approach to Montessori teacher education, each one issuing its own unique brand of “certification” for teachers.

In the 1970’s, AMS sought to formalize official US government “recognition” of its brand of Montessori teacher education by the US federal government.  In response, AMI responded by offering itself for official recognition.  In addition, Lee Havis organized an effort among other teacher training organizations to create a single “umbrella” accrediting agency that would include the entire Montessori community, consisting of AMS, AMI and others as well. 

After the establishment of the International Montessori Society (IMS) in 1979, Lee led IMS to provide certification of teachers based on his “true natural” type of Montessori teaching, and continued his effort for a single inclusive Montessori accrediting agency for the whole Montessori community.  In 1994, this effort materialized in the accrediting agency known as the International Montessori Accreditation Council (IMAC).  While this IMAC agency did not obtain official US government recognition, it still remains an effective means for accrediting the whole range of diverse brands of Montessori teacher education within a framework of collaboration through a single, inclusive “umbrella” agency.

In the IMAC plan of operation, decisions are made by consensus, based on a definition of Montessori teaching as being committed to support normal development in children as described by Dr. Montessori’s in her various published texts on the subject after 1907.  While AMS and AMI chose their own separate forms of accreditation, IMAC still an effective means for collaboration of all organizations within a single, inclusive “umbrella” agency in the field.   The situation of Montessori accreditation in 2019 remains divided and unresolved, with growing control in the field increasingly maintained through government.