About MEIPN
High-quality, authentic Montessori teacher preparation.
The Montessori Education Institute of the Pacific Northwest (MEIPN) provides high-quality, authentic Montessori teacher preparation courses ranging from infant toddler to upper elementary. In addition, we offer professional development opportunities to faculty and support staff. Our goal is to integrate Montessori philosophy and practice with current research.
Our Mission
We are a Montessori community committed to educating, preparing, and supporting teachers, professionals and the public.
AMS affiliated for over 30 years
MACTE accredited since 1995
Our History
MEIPN started as the Seattle University Montessori Teacher Education Program in 1973. The following information about the early years of the program comes from E.M. Standing Collection on the Montessori Method, Special Collections, Lemieux Library and McGoldrick Learning Commons, Seattle University.
“In the Summer of 1962, E.M. Standing, friend and assistant to Maria Montessori, came out of retirement from his home in County Cork, Ireland at the invitation of William J. Codd, SJ, Professor of Education at Seattle University. The purpose was to help teach a special four-week summer session on Montessori education in Seattle. Standing and Fr. Codd decided instead to inaugurate a permanent center for Montessori studies at Seattle University. Their goal was to promote the Montessori movement in the Pacific Northwest. After his death in 1967, the bulk of Standing's notes, manuscripts and ephemera became the nucleus for scholarship and research for courses taught through the E. M. Standing Montessori Studies Center (circa 1968-1978). In the fall of 1973, Fr. Codd introduced a teacher-training program for undergraduates. Before the program separated from Seattle University in 1986, three directors headed the program: Sister Christina Trudeau (ca. 1973-1976), Miss Karla Marken (1976-1977) and Professor John Chattin-McNichols (1979-1986).”
John and his wife Barbara oversaw the independent program until 2004, when it was purchased by several of the experienced MEIPN faculty members who continue to operate it today under the corporate name Montessori Northwest Teacher Preparation (MNTP). MEIPN is governed by a Board of Trustees.
“The Montessori method is not a closed system, discovered once and for all, henceforth to be applied unchangingly. It is continually growing like a living thing, growing in depth, richness, and variety. Those who studied it forty, twenty, or even ten years ago would be surprised to find how much more there is now than there was then. This applies not only with respect to the wider application of its principles but also with regard to the depth of these principles themselves. The more one studies them, the more one finds in them to study.
The reason for this is twofold. In the first place, the principles, based on the profound and secret forces of life are as limitless as life itself; and secondly, on account of the extraordinary genius of the founder of the system.”
— E.M. Standing (1962), The Montessori Method: A Revolution in Education