The following are just some of the famous students who have attended Montessori schools:
- Jeffery Bezos, Founder of Amazon.com
- Sergey Brin, Co-Founder of Google
- Larry Page, Co-Founder of Google
- Jimmy Wales, Founder of Wikipedia
- Joshua Bell, Violinist
- Elizabeth Berridge, Actress
- T. Berry Brazelton, Paediatrician and Author
- Julia Child, Chef, Star of many TV Cooking Shows and Author
- George Clooney, Academy Award winning actor
- Prof. Peter Drucker, writer, management consultant, ‘social ecologist’
- Anne Frank, Author of the Diary of Anne Frank
- Katharine Graham, Owner/Editor of the Washington Post
- Freidensreich Hundertwasser, Austrian Painter and Architect
- Helen Hunt, Academy Award winning actress
- Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Nobel Prize winner for Literature
- Jaqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis, Editor, Former First Lady
- Prince William and Prince Harry
Many Famous people choose Montessori Schools for their own children including the following:
- Cate Blanchett, Actress
- Cher Bono, Singer and Actress
- John Bradshaw, Psychologist and Author
- Yul Brynner, Actor
- Bill and Hilary Clinton, Former President and New York Senator.
- Michael Douglas, Actor
- The Hon. Alexander Downer and Nicky Downer, former Foreign Minister
- Jennifer Granholm and Daniel Mulhern, Governor of Michigan
- Yo Yo Ma, Cellist
- Gordon Ramsay OBE, chef, TV presenter and restaurateur (his wife is a Montessori teacher)
- Jane Reilly, television presenter
- Natasha Stott Despoja, former leader of the Australian Democrats
- Willie Nelson, musician, has a Montessori School on his ranch
Other Famous people connected to Montessori include:
- 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.
- Thomas Edison, scientist and inventor helped found a Montessori school.
- Erik Erikson, noted anthropologist/author, had a Montessori teaching certificate
- 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.
- President Woodrow Wilson’s daughter trained as a Montessori teacher. There was a Montessori classroom in the basement of the White House during Wilson’s presidency.
Co-founders of Google, Larry Page and Sergey Brin comment on the fact that it wasn’t only their parents who influenced them. Both acknowledge that their Montessori School experience helped them develop the ability to be self-starters and self-directed. Their school experience taught them to collaborate with others in a creative way, to be keen observers, to follow their own interests and most importantly, to learn how to learn.
Google is a very innovative company, not least in the way it was made public. Page and Brin let ordinary people bid on shares in their initial public offering, not just the big banks, because they thought it was fairer. They see their work more as a vocation than a means of getting rich. Page has noted in the past that “we feel like we’re making a difference in the world – giving people information that they want really quickly and effectively.”
