Montessori in Action Podcast
Engaging conversations with Montessori practitioners
Season 4, Ep. 6:
Social Justice Conversation
This episode brings together three Montessorians from three different Montessori organizations for a conversation about social justice. Maati Wafford, the Director of Equity and Engagement for the American Montessori Society (AMS), Jacqui Miller, the Human Rights and Social Justice Committee chair for the Association Montessori International United States of America (AMI USA) and Cindy Acker leader of the Social Justice Task Force for the International Montessori Council (IMC) come together to talk about their work and the work we all need to continue to do in order to bring about change in our society.
Check out our free tool to support your work: Collectively Renewing Montessori Curriculum: An Invitation (pdf)
Adults must defend children. We adults must see the real humanity in children, the humanity which will take our place one day, if we are to have social progress. Social progress means that the next generation is better than the one before.”
Dr. Montessori, 1946 London Lectures
As the Director of Equity and Engagement for the American Montessori Society, Maati Wafford advocates for equity by creating avenues for the coexistence of science, spirit & social justice in Montessori education. Her leadership focuses on building trust for engaging in direct, honest, and productive conversations about rooting the complex art and science of teaching in equity and justice.
She is a masters level social worker, equity practitioner and spirit-led credentialed Montessori educator (Early Childhood, Lower El, Upper El, Administrator).
She fiercely infuses critical consciousness and a sincere love of learning into her interactions with children, parents, and fellow educators. For nearly two decades Maati has created brave spaces for Montessorians to expand, build, and create more justice in the world. She is a firm believer in divine intelligence and understands that we all sit at the very center of that space!
Jacqui Miller completed her AMI Elementary training in the early 1990s and taught at an Afrocentric Montessori school for four years. For the next 16 years, Jacqui worked as an adolescent guide. She contributed to the development of a robust adolescent program and also to the NAMTA/AMI Orientation to Adolescent Studies as a presenter and design coach for 10 years. In 2015, Jacqui became the Founding Principal of Stonebrook Montessori, a public charter school in the Glenville neighborhood of Cleveland, Ohio. She currently serves the Cleveland Metropolitan School District as the Director of Montessori Programming and Operations.
Jacqui approaches her work from her intersectionality as a Montessorian of Color. She is committed to increasing access to quality Montessori in the public sector, propelling Montessori pedagogy toward its potential of serving children equitably and creating the conditions for peace. The focus of her current work is facilitating transformative adult learning and impacting urban education. Jacqui joined the AMI/USA board in 2021 and currently chairs the Human Rights and Social Justice Committee, helping to advance the work of AMI in ways that are responsive to the US context. She also serves on the boards of the International Montessori Training Institute and the Peace Literacy Institute.
Dr. Cindy Acker (she/her) is a Montessori educator, activist, author, playwright, and keynote speaker. She is a six-time award winner, recently receiving the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion award from the city of Alameda. She is former president of one of California’s preschool associations and former vice president of the National Child Care Association. She is well known for her work and advocacy in diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging, and justice, and trains heads of schools and teachers regarding social justice policies, and trains teachers to understand state curriculum laws while teaching with historical integrity. Her play, Words That Made the Difference: Brown v. Board of Education is currently touring in cities across the United States. She was trained by the late Ursula Thrush.