Offers suggestions for facilitating collaboration between families and schools, based on experience in Montessori education. Advocates gaining trust through regular informal social gatherings of parents and principal, pointing out that trust can help parents deal with anxiety over future academic success. Notes the efficacy of a parent education…

Analyzes public school bureaucracy and ways to reform institutions into learning communities that value shared knowledge and learning experiences. Describes how a bureaucratic organizational structure impairs learning. Proposes the "learning organization" in which adults learn alongside students, planning is decentralized, families are…

Defines a new leadership in education, which recognizes the comprehensive nature of change in the public school system to meet the educational needs of all children, especially disadvantaged and minority children, in a global economy. Maintains that Montessori education is uniquely prepared to lead public school reform. (BB)

Examines the failure of Project Follow Through and Chapter 1 of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act to sustain the progress made by Head Start through the school years. Discusses the Head Start Transition Project, established in demonstration sites in each state, which seeks to ease the transition of children from Head Start through the…

Emphasizes the intrinsic unity of all the intelligences as well as the inseparable nature of the interpersonal and intrapersonal. Emphasizes the theories of both Gardner and Montessori as a whole, and looks at common features in intelligence profiles and educational environments described by both. (MOK)

Defines "normalized school" and claims that faith in the child and courage to see the truth provide a firm foundation for any Montessori school community. Claims that in order for normalization to truly occur, adults in the community must be as concerned with the value and vitality of their own growth as they are for those of their…