- November 21, 2024
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When Drs. David Cipolloni and Ambar Saleh-Cipolloni opened Montessori Global Research Institute in Ormond Beach in 2010, operating out of one small room at Faith Lutheran Church with a single student, they had no idea that over the next decade, their school would grow to almost 120 students.
And recently, Montessori Global obtained another milestone: It became the 18th accredited school by the American Montessori Society in the state of Florida. The school, located at 53 N. Old Kings Road Suite E, is now the only AMS-accredited Montessori school in the Volusia, Flagler and St. Johns County area, a process that took the former college professors about seven years.
For Saleh-Cipolloni, it is an achievement that also symbolizes responsibility.
"Dr. Maria Montessori never really did copyrights back in the day," she said. "So there are many schools using the Montessori name but not practicing the integrity of her work, which is a disservice to the students."
According to the American Montessori Society, Dr. Maria Montessori was an Italian educator, physician and scientist who, in 1907, opened a childcare center for disadvantaged and previously unschooled children where she developed teaching methods that, though guided and assessed by teachers, are student-led and self-paced in a multi-age classroom.
Saleh-Cipolloni said she first came across the Montessori method when she took a pedagogy theory class while studying early childhood education in college. Her four children were raised with the method, and now that her school has gained accreditation, she said it feels like they are accountable to Montessori's legacy and the integrity of her work.
"To me, education is so important, because truly what is powerful is knowledge," Saleh-Cipolloni said. "And what brings success is that ability to gain understanding. ... I think the students, and the parents and the community need to be informed in what truly Montessori is, and one way was to do the accreditation, because it is a very rigorous process."
There is a second accreditation agency for Montessori schools — Association Montessori International. One school in DeLeon Springs is AMI accredited.
Sometimes a challenge emerges when presenting the teaching method to parents or teachers who have gone through traditional education, said her husband and co-head of school, Dr. David Cipolloni, who has consulted in Volusia County for over 25 years in early childhood development. Children, after experiencing the independence in the classroom, bring that home with them.
"The hardest thing is to lose is that expectation of yourself as an adult as someone that's in charge of everything, because to truly respect a child means that you're literally at their level," he said. "When you see the teachers and so on, they're not standing up in front of a classroom. They're interacting in our community."
A former psychology professor at Bethune-Cookman University — where his wife was also an English and Languages department chair — Cipolloni also implemented the Pierson Montessori Center in west Volusia County as an early childhood program for the Mexican farmer population.
What's next for Montessori Global? The Ormond Beach couple are developing and working on the accreditation of a teacher training program.
"Not only do we feel that it's important to provide an example of how to treat children respectfully and successfully, we also need to train teachers," Cipolloni said.
