Entreprenurial Montessori Violinist

Must be the violin case that gives her away:  Diana Cohen is a Mafioso; a certified member of the Montessori Mafia -- so named by Peter Sims in his Wall Street Journal article of a year ago.  As Sims reported, "The Montessori Mafia showed up in an extensive, six-year study about the way creative business executives think."

Cohen is not a business executive exactly.  She is first and foremost a violinist--the concertmaster of the Richmond Symphony in Virginia.  So she is professionally creative.  She is also " the mastermind behind ChamberFest Cleveland, a festival of chamber music that will present its inaugural season Wednesday, June 27, through Sunday, July 1, at several venues."

Cohen models creative entrepreneurial behavior:  she had an idea and ran with it; she had the vision, the energy, the organizational skills and the willingness to do what she had never done before.  She was willing to risk failure.  And she is making a cultural impact on the city where she grew up:  Cleveland, Ohio; where she attended Ruffing Montessori School.  (full disclosure:  one of my former students -- a great kid!)




 

How do you spell "entrepreneur" in Canadian?

--illustration from Marine Magnetics, where Doug Hrvoic,former Montessori kid, is the president and technology director.

"The Creativity Gap: Maria Montessori: guru for a new generation of business innovators"--From the Toronto Globe and Mail

"Being a Montessori child is a gift for life."

Develop Leaders the Montessori Way

Ambiga Dhiraj, Head of Talent Management for Chicago-based Mu Sigma, a decision science and analytics services firm, wrote this week for the Harvard Business Review blog network: "Develop Leaders the Montesssori Way."
This reminds me of Jeremy Allaire's statement, that he learned the basics of his corporate leadership style in Montessori school as a child.

Montessori to the rescue

Jack Creeden spoke to board chairs of ISAS schools. Prestigious private independent schools. Topic: "Trustee Governance: Beyond the Basics".

After speaking about the threats to traditional private schools (on-line learning, charter schools, home schooling), here was his first ray of hope:

Don’t Despair, Montessori to the
Rescue (B.Globe, 8.26.11)

Montessori Alumni
Wikipedia founder – Jimmy Wales
Amazon.com – Jeff Bezos
SimCity – Will Wright
Google – Larry Page & Sergey Brin

“Brain research shows that all the characteristics
Internet entrepreneurs value – divergent and
innovative thinking, intellectual self reliance . . .
are the primary focus of Montessori classroom.
Mistakes are opportunities to learn.”

Montessori in the blogosphere

one more from Steve Denning...

what is it about this moment in time?

Last week it was You Tube. Yesterday Harvard Business Review. Today in Forbes business writer Steve Denning blogs a wake-up call to Bill Gates who has spent $5 billion trying to improve education. "Think Bigger," Denning says.

~

If you read deep enough into his blog, you learn, "Schools practicing this new culture of learning don't have to be invented....the new culture of learning takes place in thousands of Montessori classrooms every day."

Montessori Builds Innovators

Harvard Business Review. blog by Andrew McAfee, author of Enterprise 2.0.

"When I got too old for my Montessori school and went to public school in fourth grade, I felt like I'd been sent to the Gulag. I have to sit in this desk? All day? We're going to divide the day into hour-long chunks and do only one thing during each chunk?"

Kickstarter

Here's a new idea: Kickstarter.

What is it?

A new way to fund creative projects.

Check it out.

Yancey Strickler is a co-founder of Kickstarter. A Montessori kid. Another creative enterprise from the Montessori mafia!

Montessori Mafia - posted on the web

The Wall Street Journal says Montessori education is "the surest route to joining the creative elite." Meet the elite: Montessori grads, parents and supporters.

Send us names, conact information, and profiles of former Montessori students who ought to be added to this list. It is not complete...and never will be. This is a project designed to capture the impact of Montessori education as demonstrated by the lives and characteristics of our alumni.

in the plex

"...both Larry and Sergey were Montessori kids....It's really ingrained in their personalities."

This is a powerful, profound statement -- and it is NOT about Larry Page and Sergey Brin. It is about the big picture impact of Montessori education. It is CAUSAL, not casual.

Montessori education shapes the learner. This is not about skills or information or test scores. It is about the formation of personal traits: the way we learn shapes us.

"This is really baked in to the way Larry and Sergey approach problems." BAKED IN.

"They're always asking, 'Why should it be like that?' It's the way their brains were programmed early on." THE WAY THEIR BRAINS WERE PROGRAMMED.

The way we learn shapes who we become.

Recently we interviewed parents of older children at our school. Some complained that they were tired of hearing my message about the significance of Montessori methodolgy. What they want to hear about is evidence of their own children's progress.

An interesting dilemma. How do we help them see our progress engraining personality traits?

Montessori Mafia

Author, pilot, and Montessori dad, Trevor Eissler, bemoans Montessori's "peace, love, wimpy" image. "Montessori's not wimpy," he says. Montessori education is rigorous. Montessori education emphasizes personal responsibility -- and that is certainly not wimpy."

Now comes the perfect antidote: The Montessori Mafia toughens up the Montessori image in a "sticky" way.

Baked In

“You can’t understand Google,” vice president Marissa Mayer says, “unless you know that both Larry and Sergey were Montessori kids.” She’s referring to schools based on the educational philosophy of Maria Montessori, an Italian physician born in 1870 who believed that children should be allowed the freedom to pursue their interests. “In a Montessori school, you go paint because you have something to express or you just want to do it that afternoon, not because the teacher said so,” she says. “This is baked into how Larry and Sergey approach problems. They’re always asking, why should it be like that? It’s the way their brains were programmed early on.”

But the dominant flavor in the dish is his boundless ambition, both to excel individually and to improve the conditions of the planet at large.

From “Larry Page Wants to Return Google to its Start-up Roots”

The Montessori Ethos

"What were your most important leadership lessons?" the NY Times asked internet entrepeneur Jeremy Allaire. "Being educated in a Montessori setting," he said.