Meet Ann
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Ann was born in Quincy, MA into a family of strong women and hardworking men. Her mother acted in the days of one-person theater and her father was in merchandising. She was raised in Manhattan and upstate New York, graduated cum laude from Bryn Mawr College, and worked for a small welfare department in rural North Carolina that took no notice of the 1960’s civil rights movement.
Spurred by her son's birth to become an educator, Ann studied with Margaret Stephenson (d. 2003), considered one of the greatest Montessori trainers. Ann has been a Montessori teacher, teacher educator, school founder/director, and children’s museum pioneer. The Model Early Learning Center, founded and directed by Ann as a school for Head Start-eligible children in Washington, D.C., is the only school accredited by the founding educators in Reggio Emilia, the wonderful schools for young children in Reggio Emilia, Italy. |
Ann’s first two books, Possible Schools (2006) and Powerful Children (2008), describe the MELC’s early struggle and ultimate success. The best-selling Infants and Toddlers at Work (2010) was followed by the widely-used Twelve Best Practices for Early Childhood Education (2011). With co-author Reuven Feuerstein, renowned psychologist, What Learning Looks Like (2012) shows ways to help children of all ages learn how to learn. Eight Essential Techniques for Teaching with Intention (2015) shows how to teach and manage behavior. Forewords to her books are by groundbreakers Howard Gardner, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, and “hand doc” Frank Wilson. View the whole catalog of Ann's writings on education at Teachers College Press.
Parsley (2022), Ann’s story-poem for 3 to year-olds, is the first to be published of numerous others. Follow this website’s link for where to purchase Parsley and use many free activities.
Parsley (2022), Ann’s story-poem for 3 to year-olds, is the first to be published of numerous others. Follow this website’s link for where to purchase Parsley and use many free activities.
"Found Sculpture" - Built by children from the Model Early Learning Center (MELC) in Washington DC
Children decide to balance items and parade in front of a shadow screen. - MELC
In the studio, children work with artists' clay alongside atelierista Jennifer Azzariti. - MELC
In the studio: Many materials, paints, easels, photos of children and their work. And, of course, Coco the School Cat. - MELC
Children's clay sculpture of Coco the Cat.
Using ink pads, children compare paws, hands, and feet. - MELC
Four & five-year-olds weave strips of fabric in a zigzag they made from wire which they bent into a zig-zag, the shape of the path children determined leaves took as they fell. - MELC
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Educator.In the 1960s, Ann helped grow a Montessori school for 3- to 6-year-olds into an elementary school. As the children approached 7th grade, she led a parent group in founding Parkmont Junior High, an alternative school where projects were a significant part of the curriculum. In the 1970s, she launched 8 public school Montessori classes in the poverty pockets of Arlington County (Washington, D,C. suburb). In inner city Washington, DC. she ran one of the early corporate-sponsored day care centers established as a benefit to try to cut employee turnover.
In the 1980s, Ann founded a computer-based center to prepare out-of-school, out-of-work youth for the GED, and structured numerous government-funded teacher-education programs in the arts, humanities, sciences, and technology. In January 1990, under contract to the DC Public Schools, she opened Options School. The school was a one-year drop-out prevention program for 100 14- to 17-year-olds, nominally 7th graders. Options became a safety-net for the public schools and was a harbinger of the charter school movement soon to begin. The Model Early Learning Center (MELC), the subject of Ann’s first 2 books, served Head Start-eligible 3- to 6-year-olds. There, Ann adapted the practices of the renowned preschools of Reggio Emilia, Italy as described in her books Possible Schools and Powerful Children. Book summaries are on this web site along with excerpts. In Howard Gardner’s words from the Foreword to Possible Schools: “The Model Early Learning Center is ... proof that schools in the Reggio tradition can be created even in the most challenging urban disadvantaged areas.” Museum Director.In the mid-1970s Ann led an effort to establish the Capital Children’s Museum on a former riot corridor in the shadow of the US Capitol. Its Washington, DC location catapulted the museum to international prominence. For 20 years, Ann, a creative staff, and scholar-advisors devised major exhibitions that brought to life foreign cultures, traced the history of human communication from Ice Age cave to computers, and explored the world of the hearing impaired in an exhibit called ‘Sound and Silence.’ The exhibit ‘Remember the Children,’ prototype for the permanent children’s exhibit of the same name at the U. S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC., probed the concepts of prejudice, organized hatred, and cruelty.
Capital Children’s Museum was site of many firsts: first public-access computer center in the nation’s capital, first meeting place for First Ladies Mrs. Menachem Begin and Mrs. Anwar Sadat following the 1979 Camp David Peace Accord, first effort to reclaim a Washington, DC riot corridor following Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination. Ann led a large innovative team in bringing to life the museum’s full city block – 3 acres and 150,000 square feet of buildings, 60 paid staff, and 300 volunteers – with exhibits, performance, studios to learn radio, video, and animation, and numerous other programs for teachers and youth. Author.Ann’s first 2 books, Possible Schools and Powerful Children, chronicle the Model Early Learning Center (MELC) that successfully adapted the Reggio Approach. One review opines that Possible Schools, is quite possibly "the best book to read first on the Reggio preschools." Ann's articles span many topics – early education, environmental education, cognition, computers in education, child behavior.
Ann's desire to write was evident as a preschooler: The end papers from her first books are covered with the irregularly-shaped letters of a child learning to wield a pencil. At age 5, she went to sleep with pencil and paper under the pillow in case she woke and needed to write down a thought. As museum director she wrote constantly – letters, proposals, program descriptions, newsletters, articles. The question was: How do you start a book? The old joke answers: By cleaning out the refrigerator. Ann started her first book by moving from Washington, establishing a marriage and life in a new community, directing her new city’s Leadership Institute, running her husband’s judicial campaigns, seeing her beloved mother through a terminal illness, renovating a period house, becoming a visiting grandmother... then cleaning out the refrigerator. The notes in her journals and range of experiences suggest she’ll be writing well into the future. Readers seem to like her books. Ann sounds off in letters to the editor and op ed pieces when events trigger her ire or irony. She is particularly irked by shenanigans in politics, ill-conceived programs foisted on schools, and environmental issues. Parsley, the first in a collection of poems for children, begun when her son Danny was a baby, was published in 2022. Many others await publication. The doggerel, which she has written all her life for special occasions, will never be published. Three new books are in various pieces on her hard drive, and more are in her head. Frequently asked what she’s writing now, she says, “We’ll see what my editor finds worthy!” Lecturer.Ann lectures on many education-related topics use scores of images, 100 or more, from diverse sources. Ann visited the Reggio Emilia (Italy) schools many times in the 1990s when delegations had only 15-20 people and she could spend a day observing in a classroom. With Loris Malaguzzi, Carlina Rinaldi, and other Reggio educators, she planned two national symposia held in 1993 and 1994 in Washington, DC. Hundreds from throughout the USA and Canada attended and visited the MELC.
Her lectures on the Reggio Schools describe the 9 essential features of the Approach. One presentation is on the Reggio Infant/Toddler Centers for 3-month to 3-year-olds; another is on the Preschools for 3- to 6-year-olds. She frequently lectures on her adaptation of the Reggio Approach for Head Start-eligible families. Some requests for topics include school change, early literacy, assessment, and parent involvement. Workshop Facilitator.In consultation with school and museum administrators, teachers, and other educators, Ann tailors workshops on a variety of topics to a particular organizations’ requirements for teachers, administrators, parents, or the community. Many requests are for the teacher’s role in schools that want to begin or deepen their understanding of how to do projects and meaningful STEM topics. Most workshops can be adapted to a 2-hour or 4-hour format depending on how much participants analyze their practices and discuss how to change them. Workshops are lively, involve hands-on experiences, and always address audience questions.
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The children of the MELC celebrate Spring on the Mall in Washington, D.C.
