Merry Hadden

My path into Montessori began in 1973, through a chance encounter with Mary Caroline Parker, then an assistant at the Austin Montessori School. Mary Caroline would go on to found MINT (Montessori Institute of North Texas)—an early sign, in hindsight, of how far this work can travel from a single meeting.

That encounter led me to Mexico, India and Italy. My time in India was truly life changing and I completed my AMI Primary training in Calcutta in 1977 under Albert Max Joosten and M. M. Swamy, both of whom had trained directly with Maria and Mario Montessori. After hearing Dr. Silvana Quattrocchi Montanaro speak in 1979, I traveled to Rome in 1980 to join the first AMI Assistants to Infancy course, studying under Dr. Montanaro, Gianna Gobbi and a team- trained by Adele Costa Gnocchi. Through them, I found myself part of a lineage reaching back to Maria Montessori herself. While in Italy, I took advantage and studied childbirth preparation with Professor Piscicelli.

In 1983, I founded what has become Montessori at Roseborough in Mount Dora, Florida, growing it over 43 years from a tiny center for infants and toddlers to serving children from infancy through adolescence. I'm now passing the torch to Savannah Guenther, who grew up in our school and trained at MINT—closing a circle that began with my own first encounter fifty years ago. I remain involved as Pedagogical Advisor, and continue supporting AMI courses and colleagues, and helping preserve Montessori's historical approach.

What has held me to this work for five decades is a simple conviction: unlimited human potential is visible in the child, when we know how to see it. But serving that potential asks something of us first—our own self-discovery, our own becoming and belief in our own unlimited potential and transformation. Preparing an environment where a child's self-construction can unfold is quiet and immensely important work. I believe it is also how humanity and society changes.

That same conviction shapes how I spend my time outside of Montessori. I'm drawn to environmentalism, herbal studies, sustainable living, and home design—each, in its own way, is an act of preparing an environment for something to grow, regroup and repair. Whether it's a child, a garden, or a home, I've come to believe the principle is the same: attention to detail, remove what gets in the way, and trust the process of becoming.