Famous Montessori Students 

Julia Child

Celebrity chef & author

A student of Mrs. Davie’s Montessori School in Pasadena California, Ms. Child exuded a sense of fun and inspired others to try new things in the kitchen. She credits a Montessori background with her manual dexterity—a key feature of her mastery as a chef—and with the love and joy she found in her work.
Wikipedia profile



Stephen Curry

Athlete – Point Guard for NBA team, the Golden State Warriors

Stephen Curry credits Montessori with instilling in him the skills to learn at his own pace as well as to harness his strengths, work on his weaknesses, and develop a sense that he could achieve anything. “Montessori gave me a lot of confidence at a young age,” says Curry. “I used to love it when I’d come to school because there was something new I was going to learn every single day.”
NBA Sensation Stephen Curry Says Montessori Education a Key to His Success
Video

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Joshua Bell

Grammy award-winning violinist and subject of a Pulitzer prize-winning media story

A world-renowned violinist, Joshua Bell is thoughtful about the role his music plays in society. In a cultural experiment turned Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post story, it is Bell’s humility, not his virtuosity, that most inspires. In suspending his fame to explore the true meaning of his work, Bell exhibits Montessori thinking at its best.
“Pearls Before Breakfast” (Washington Post article)
Wikipedia profile

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T. Berry Brazelton

Pediatrician, child psychiatrist, author and Harvard Medical School professor emeritus

Dr. Brazelton’s positive, child-oriented philosophy of parenting influenced countless families to raise children who are “confident, caring, and hungry to learn”. Brazelton attended a Montessori school as a child and supported Montessori philosophy through his lectures and publications.
The Brazelton Institute
Wikipedia profile





Anthony Doerr

Author

This internationally-acclaimed American author was once a Montessori student of Post Oak’s Head of School, John Long. The sense of wonder that infuses his luminous, precisely-crafted prose is evidence of the gifts, and the love of nature, that were nurtured in him from childhood.
Am I Still Here? (video)
Wikipedia profile



Peter Drucker

Author, Management consultant, “social ecologist”, awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom

Peter Drucker, once a Montessori child, is one of the most influential management gurus in history. His work focuses on human relationships as opposed to numbers-crunching; his books are filled with lessons on how organizations can bring out the best in people, and how workers can find dignity and community in their work.
Wikipedia profile





Dakota Fanning

Actor

This youngest-ever Screen Actors Award nominee, history’s youngest Academy member, recalls: “I learned to read at two…in a Montessori school where they teach you to read really, really young.” Montessori kids are not technically taught to read (reading skills just emerge in the right environment, we think), but they work at their own pace in age-diverse groups—not in curriculum-dictated lockstep with same-age peers. For Fanning, autonomy led to early achievement throughout her life.
Wikipedia profile

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Katharine Graham

Pulitzer prize-winning author and former owner & editor of the Washington Post

Crisis forced Katherine Graham to assume control of the Washington Post. Her confidence faltered but—remembering that what matters is how people learn, not what they know—Graham said, “The Montessori method, learning by doing, once again became my stock in trade.” Her reign at the highly-regarded paper lasted more than two decades.
Wikipedia profile



Friedensreich Hundertwasser

Viennese artist & architect

This world-renowned Austrian painter and architect attended a Montessori school in Vienna, which influenced both his affinity for vibrant colors and his love of nature. He collected pebbles and pressed flowers as a child, demonstrating an early interest in small, precious things—which later manifested itself in his work.
Wikipedia profile



Helen Hunt

Academy award-winning actor

Helen Hunt, winner of some big time honors (Oscar, Emmy, and Golden Globe all one year—a feat nearly unmatched in history) is one cool Montessorian. Which makes her observation all the more interesting: “If there’s a message, it’s that the unlovable and unattractive parts of ourselves should be embraced. The only real currency between people is what happens when they’re not cool.”
Wikipedia profile



Helen Keller

Political activist, author, lecturer, awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, one of Gallup’s most widely admired people of the 20th century

Maria Montessori said that if, deaf and blind, Helen Keller became “a woman and writer of exceptional culture, who better than she proves the potency of [the Montessori] method?” In her tribute to Montessori, Helen’s teacher observes, “Only through freedom can people develop self control, self dependence, willpower and initiative. This is the lesson Helen’s education has for the world.”
Anne Sullivan’s tribute to Montessori
Wikipedia profile



Yo Yo Ma

United nations Peace Ambassador, winner of 15 Grammy Awards, Presidential Medal of Freedom & National Medal of the Arts

A child prodigy cellist and Montessori student, Yo Yo Ma learned to early to follow his own interests and think outside traditional definitions. Today, critics call his artistic style “omnivorous” in reference to his versatility, his notably eclectic repertoire and his musical iconoclasm.
Wikipedia profile



Gabriel García Márquez

Nobel prize-winning author

Marquez said his Montessori education gave him “the desire to kiss literature” and states, “I do not believe there is a method better than Montessori for making children sensitive to the beauties of the world and awakening their curiosity regarding the secrets of life.”
Wikipedia profile



Sergey Brin & Larry Page

Google founders

“You can’t understand Google,” says Wired, “unless you know [its founders] were Montessori kids… In a Montessori school, you paint because you have something to express or you just want to… not because the teacher said so. This is baked into Larry and Sergey… it’s how their brains were programmed early on.”
Wired article
Wall St Journal article
Breakthrough Learning in the Digital Age (video)
Barbara Walters interview (video)

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Taylor Swift

Grammy Award-winning singer/songwriter

Taylor Swift, country music’s youngest-ever Entertainer of the Year, attended Alvernia Montessori School in Berks County Pa. The singer is widely described as “the product of homegrown values”; New York Times calls her “one of pop’s finest songwriters, country music’s foremost pragmatist, and more in touch with her inner life than most adults”.
Wikipedia profile

 

Will Wright

Video game pioneer, creator of the Sims

The videogame innovator says Montessori was the “imagination amplifier” that prepared him for creating The Sims, Sim City, Spore and Super Mario Brothers. “SimCity comes right out of Montessori… It’s all about learning on your own terms.”
Montessori: Inspiration for Spore (video)
New Yorker article
Wikipedia profile