Our Values

Marin Montessori School is founded on confidence in the potential of each child and adolescent to learn and flourish. It is our core belief that for students to flourish, ours must be a community of belonging--one in which each person is known, valued, and warmly included. Recognizing too that we are preparing students for an interdependent, globalized world, MMS builds a vibrant school community in which we learn to expand our horizons by viewing the world through the lenses of a wide variety of outlooks and backgrounds. At MMS, students and families from all walks of life are welcomed, included, and honored.

Inclusion requires investment. MMS allocates over $1 million each year to support thirty percent of our families with tuition assistance. This allows us to create a sustainable, inclusive, and socio-economically diverse school community.

A three-time Nobel Peace Prize nominee, Dr. Maria Montessori envisioned a world in which all children and adolescents are given the guidance, resources, and environments they need to learn, reach their potentials, and become positive contributors to the world. Diversity, equity, and inclusion work requires ongoing investigation and dedicated effort, and it is in this same spirit and aspiration that MMS continues today in the twenty-first century.

Awarded Green Ribbon status by the U.S. Department of Education, we strive for sustainability in every aspect of our school and work. The larger understanding we seek to instill in our students is that of interdependence: that each of us exists in a complex web of connections to humans and all of life; that our actions impact directly and indirectly the lives of others and the health of the planet, our only home.

In 2020, Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore supported MMS as our keynote speaker at our annual fundraiser. A champion environmentalist, Vice President Gore spoke to our students and families about how they can make a positive difference in responding to the climate crisis. In their day-to-day lives, Marin Montessori students attend school in nature-rich campuses filled with gardens they help maintain, complex marsh ecosystems, and an acre of farmland. 

From the Care of Plants and Care of the Environment work of the first plane, to the deep understanding about the way plants, animals, and the elements in the universe interact that is central to Cosmic Education in the second plane, to the encouragement of action taking and in the third plane -- love and understanding of the natural world is the heart of our work.

In today’s highly distracted and distracting world, there are few greater benefits we can give our children than school environments that promote real human engagement and focused exploration and learning with natural, complex, and tactically compelling materials.

Digital-screen-free environments, as are our Toddler and Primary classrooms, are ideal for young children. Harnessing their positive potentials in Elementary and Junior High MMS students have limited access to desktop computers for writing and research.

We recognize that passive consumption of technology has little value, but that creativity and engineering production is exciting and beneficial, which is why we support it in our program. To ensure students learn interpersonal relationship skills and develop concentration, the student use of cellular phones at school is not permitted.  We work with students to develop healthy behaviors associated with the use of technology.

We know that children are born curious; they want to understand reality.

The drive to learn is powerful, and in learning environments that are overly adult-driven and prescriptive, that natural curiosity can quickly wane. Instead, learning can become tedious, a series of hoops through which to jump.

We also know that curiosity is life-giving and a powerful source of meaning. That's why at MMS, we keep curiosity burning brightly in students. Through highly engaging materials and offering regular and robust opportunities for choice, students go deeper into their learning, which brings satisfaction and sustains a lifelong love of learning. In so doing, they also develop the skill of making good choices as they weigh choices such as which material would best satisfy their curiosities, which work would deepen their learning most, and which friends support their concentration best.

Self-reliance is essential, as our goal is to launch our children into the world with the capacity to live their lives independently. Even young children yearn for and find fulfillment in independence. From the satisfaction of tying one’s own shoes and hanging up one’s own coat, to the pride in pouring one’s own drink of water from real glass pitchers--all of these activities are a daily part of our youngest Marin Montessori students’ experience.

In Junior High, instead of janitorial staff, at the end of every school day, students have assigned work stations and clean up and care for the buildings in which they learn.

Cultivating resilience is also essential: by teaching our students to not be afraid of stretching themselves past their assumed abilities, to embrace mistakes and failures as opportunities for, through redoubled effort and reflection, grow and learn, MMS students know the truth that “we can do hard things.”

A study published in the American Journal of Education revealed that Montessori students reach deeper concentration states--complete concentrated immersion in an activity--more often than students in any other educational model. This is by design, as uninterrupted work periods are central to the experience in every classroom. Mindfulness--the ability to be focused on what one is experiencing in the present moment--is cultivated in a multitude of ways throughout the educational programs. We recognize that in a world with ever-increasing opportunities for distraction and disconnection, developing the skill to be present and aware is of great importance and value, both for mental health and for success.

From the development of the will in the Toddler communities to the importance of Practical Life in both Toddler and Primary environments, our classrooms introduce the children to following many stepped processes in order to complete a task. The thoughtful progression of these activities brings children to greater and greater levels of concentration and control of movement.  For instance, Elementary environments inspire the developing intellects and social natures of our students to drive their focused work from a place of interest to one of internal motivation and passion.