Welcome to the
MONTESSORI TRAINING CENTER OF ST. LOUIS
The Montessori Training Center of St. Louis was founded by Pearl Vanderwall in 1972. Incorporated as a non-profit educational organization, the Center is affiliated with the Association Montessori Internationale.
Montessori Training Center of St. Louis provides accessible, high-fidelity training for educators and families through courses designed on the pedagogical principles scientifically developed by Dr. Maria Montessori, and by modeling those principles in practice.
MTCSTL empowers adults with the tools and resources to transform communities and shape a more peaceful world through developmentally-based education.
MTCSTL also operates a thriving school community offering children ages 15 months to 12 years an authentic, urban, Montessori education through the Montessori Lab School at Grand Center.
Pearl Vanderwall and Dr. Annette Haines
Dr. Maria Montessori
Dr. Maria Montessori, often considered the first female physician in Italy, innovated the Montessori approach to education. The Montessori method concentrates on the specific developmental needs of the child. Montessori believed that everyone learns differently, and at their own pace. She created a new type of classroom, a prepared environment, to accommodate and stimulate the individual interests of her students. The Montessori method has successfully been in existence for over a century.
Children are taught on a one-to-one basis in a prepared environment, specially designed to meet the requirements of Maria Montessori’s philosophy of education. The materials in an authentic Montessori classroom are specifically designed and engineered to increase and enhance the education of your child.
“The greatest sign of success for a teacher... is to be able to say, ’The children are now working as if I did not exist.’”