Montessori teacher education, or “training” - as it is usually referred to, seems to be an intriguing example of a precisely defined and unique methodology of professional development conducted by the organizations which do not belong to the academic world but they are rather private, non-state funded entities or non-for-profit NGOs. Montessori education is practiced on all continents, in 154 countries, and is one of the dominant “alternative” to traditional schooling with estimated 15763 schools around the world.  Such popularity also means that that there is a global demand for teachers prepared for working in accordance with this approach. Additionally, the founder of the pedagogy Maria Montessori left very clear instructions on the preparation of the adult. In this context the education of future Montessori practitioners is both described in detail and – to a large extent – elitist and privatized. At the same time the Montessori courses “use” specific techniques and technologies to “train” the teachers, which might be an interesting “lens” through which teacher education as such can be analyzed.    The main research question of the empirical project was: how do Montessori approach trainees experience their participation in the training programs?    

The research was conducted between 2020 and 2022 and implemented qualitative research strategy, with two main data gathering methods: - 35 individual in-depth, narrative interviews with trainees from 18 countries - Participatory ethnographic observation in a three-year international training program The analysis of the interviews was conducted according to the strategy of phenomenography, and participatory observation followed the model of ethnography as outlined by Atkinson and Konecki.

The main result of the interviews’ analysis is the meanings outcome space consisting of four main descriptive categories: (1) training as struggle; (2) training as socializing; (3) training as unwanted but necessary step; (4) training as radical transformation. The ethnographic part of the research and the analysis of data (field notes, documents, communication entries; diary entries and jottings) allowed to identify a number of solutions and crucial ‘technologies’, among which: note taking, supervised practice, albums constructing and practice reflections seem to be most important.

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