Celebrity Montessorians
There’s many famous celebrities out there who have had a Montessori education, here are some of them:
- Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Co-Founders of Google
- Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon
- Prince William and Prince Harry, English royal
- George Clooney, Academy Award-winning actor
- Anne Frank, famous diarist from World War II
- Friedensreich Hundertwasser, Austrian painter and Architect
- Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia
- Will Wright, designer of The Sims
- Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Nobel Prize winner for Literature
- Katherine Graham, former owner-editor of the Washington Post. “The Montessori method—learning by doing— once again became my stock in trade…” from Personal History by Katharine Graham
- Sean Combs, Sean ‘P. Diddy’ (formerly known as Puffy) Combs, Rap mega-star
- Julia Child, famous chef, star of many TV cooking shows and author of numerous cookbooks
- Helen Hunt, Academy Award-winning actress
- Joshua Bell, American violinist, owner of Stradivarius violin
- Lea Salonga, multi-awarded Filipino-American singer and Broadway actress
- Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis, former editor, former first lady (John F. Kennedy)
- Berry Brazelton, noted paediatrician and author
- Kami Cotler, actress (youngest child on long-running series The Waltons)
- Melissa and Sarah Gilbert, actors
- Peter Drucker, Management Guru
- Your child?
Montessori Parents
Not all celebrities had a Montessori education, but these celebrities decided that their children should have a Montessori education:
- Bill and Hillary Clinton, Former President and New York Senator
- Yo-Yo Ma, cellist
- Stephen J. Cannell, TV writer-producer-director (The Rockforc Files, A-Team and many others)
- Patty Duke Austin, actress
- Cher Bono, singer, actress
- John Bradshaw, psychologist and author
- Yul Brynner, former actor
- Marcy Carcy, TV producer
- Michael Douglas, actor
- Shari Lewis, former puppeteer
- Willie Nelson, musician, has a Montessori school on his ranch
- Elizabeth Berridge, actress
- David Blaine, street magician
- Jennifer Granholm and Daniel Mulhern, Governor of Michigan
Others with a Montessori connection
- Thomas Edison, noted scientist and inventor, helped found a Montessori school
- Bruno Bettelheim, noted psychologist/author, was married to a Montessori teacher
- Alexander Graham Bell (inventor) and his wife Mabel founded the Montessori Education Association in 1913. They also provided financial support directly to Dr. Maria Montessori and helped establish the first Montessori class in Canada and one of the first in the United States.
- President Wilson’s daughter trained as a Montessori teacher. There was a Montessori classroom in the basement of the White House during Wilson’s presidency.
- Erik Erikson, anthropologist/author, had a Montessori teaching certificate
- Mister Rogers, children’s TV personality, strong supporter of Montessori education
- Jean Piaget, noted Swiss psychologist, made his first observations of children in a Montessori school. He was also head of the Swiss Montessori Society for many years.
- Alice Waters, restaurateur and writer, is a former Montessori teacher