New Home for Old Albums

Question:
I closed my school, sold most of the materials I wouldn’t use with my grands after being a 3- 6 guide over 30 years. I have many Montessori guide friends from those years. Many also retired in recent years. In my garage I have stored all my AMS curriculum albums. I have found from asking around that there isn’t a market for these much loved and utilized resources. I thought maybe our local homeschooling parents might be interested but most homeschooling parents here lack the finances to purchase something like these even at a nominal cost. I just haven’t had the nerve to add them to the landfills and I am assuming other retirees are hanging on to theirs too. Had you considered ever being a go between for buyers and Montessori retirees wanting to find a new home for these albums?

Julia says:

Unfortunately, I can not help to resell your beloved albums. While the early AMS training was closely aligned with AMI training (so yours are probably wonderful), the training has strayed dramatically over the years. Now, many non-AMI albums are quite unwieldy and confusing, missing many essential points of the pedagogy. That's why we developed and decided to start offering our albums for sale...to help remove some of the confusion I usually see when I mentor in non-AMI classrooms.

Now don't get me wrong, there are some wonderful non-AMI trainings out there. The challenge is that you have to have inside knowledge to make sure you're getting one of those exceptional trainings. Whereas, if you just go with AMI, you are guaranteed to get a thorough training. Why? Well there are two big reasons (and many others).

First, AMI teacher trainers have to go through a multi-year preparation program (after teaching in a classroom for at least five years) before they are allowed to call themselves AMI Teacher Trainers. It's basically like getting your PhD in Montessori! So, they are well-prepared for the work they are doing. Most non-AMI teachers who are transforming into trainers do not receive this kind of support before launching their training courses.

Next, the AMI training courses take longer for students to complete (several summers or a full academic year). Do you see the difference? The investment of time in the preparation of the adult is the key for both the trainers and the teachers-in-training.

I hope this clarifies why we can't help you with your hope to re-home your albums. But, your work in mentoring the home schooling parents sounds like it would be immensely useful...and keep your adored albums in use.