Mary Jane O'Neill founded the Montessori Children's House in her home on Irving Avenue on the East Side of Providence in 1976. She had previously taught for a year in Washington, D.C. at a Montessori school and daycare center, and for five years at Kingswood Montessori School in Foxboro, Massachusetts after graduating from Middlebury College in Vermont and the Association Montessori Internationale in Washington, D.C. The school quickly outgrew its space on the first floor of her home and moved to St. Martin's Church. In 1979, she purchased the former St. Sebastian's Convent on Lloyd Avenue, where the school remains today.

For more information about Dr. Maria Montessori and a resource guide to Montessori education:
Montessori - The International Montessori Index

Montessori Children's House Founder, Mary Jane O'Neill

The 2001-2002 school year marked the 25th Anniversary of the Montessori Children's House. During that year Mary Jane reflected upon her experience as a teacher and school director. Her experiences of growing the school were shared in the 2001 year book and are written below.

"I was young and naive in 1976, and thought that it would be easier and more rewarding to establish a small school closer to home than to commute to Massachusetts each day. I soon discovered that founding a school was exquisitely rewarding, a true adventure, but definitely not easy. It was important to me to strive to have the school reflect Dr. Maria Montessori's belief that children trained to be industrious and respectful of each other and of the natural world are our best hopes for peace.

I wanted to have the pleasure of setting up a classroom, which had an environment as comfortable as a home in order to provide practical and wholesome activities for the children (cooking, sewing, gardening, clay modeling and painting). I also wanted the classroom to emphasize geography and a solid appreciation for the contributions that different cultures in history have made to human experience. Dr. Maria Montessori spoke often of "historical gratefulness." She was referring to her desire to encourage in young children a knowledge and appreciation for human experience and a recognition that present culture is indebted to the contributions of diverse and previous cultures.

The entire first floor of my home was transformed into a "children's house." There was nothing adult-size on the first floor except for the kitchen table. I worked with a young teacher from college, Colleen Lowe, who later pursued training to become a Montessori teacher. We had a small group of children. These students are all grown up now. They have a special place in my heart as the first Providence class.

By spring, we had more children than could be accommodated in my home environment. We were able to move to a large sunny room in St. Martin's church on the East Side of Providence. We enjoyed our new space for two and a half years until I was able to purchase the former St. Sebastian's Convent on Lloyd Avenue for the school's new home.

Since the fall of 1979 I have been teaching in the same large room of the school building. Walls have been taken down, there was a major renovation of the second floor to make room for the Junior Class, and what used to be the second floor in the front of the school was renovated to provide a large space for music, creative movement and Chinese lessons. We also added a handicapped bathroom on the second floor. The latest improvement to the school has been the addition of a handicapped ramp and a new play surface and small garden at the the rear of the building. We added a side door to the first grade classroom in order to comply with the fire code. The improvements were carried out over several summers in order to have the building safe and presentable for the children in the fall. It was not an efficient way to proceed with renovations but it gave all the teachers the opportunity to work within the school building and to gradually recommend changes to make the space attractive and comfortable for the program that we offer.

Along with physical changes, the school has evolved its curriculum. We are proud of our art history-history-and music curriculum, which focuses on different cultures each year and which, has encouraged children to be ale to appreciate different human societies and to participate in the joy of creating original art. Recently, we have received full approval from the Rhode Island Department of Education to teach Pre-K through sixth grade.

For twenty-five years, the children have celebrated United Nations Day in October. This celebration brings the children, parents, and teachers together in a spirit of friendship and cooperation. We try at school to interact with parents, children, and fellow faculty members in a respectful and cordial manner in order to set a good example and to try to insure a peaceful environment with minimum stress so that the children can concentrate on their work, the parents can be comfortable, and the teachers can observe the children and offer them their best advice and energy. We are not always successful in providing this peaceful and industrious environment as aspired to in our mission statement, but we strive earnestly in this direction. As we enter a new phase of Montessori Children's House, I hope we will continue to work together towards our shared goals."