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Welcome to The PEACE Program!
Hi! I’m Mariana, the founder of The PEACE Program and I am on a mission to support the adults supporting children during the most critical time in human development.
I’ve created flexible, online programs to give expert advice, guidance, and developmental context for families with children under six at home. And as a longtime Montessori educator with AMI 0-6 diplomas, I know that teachers need support, too. I work with educators who are in Montessori Nido, Toddler, and Primary classrooms to support them in implementing the beautiful, amazing Montessori Method!
I am so glad you are here and hope we can chat soon!
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Mariana is a parent of two beautiful Montessori kids who are the inspiration for The PEACE Program!
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She started PEACE with a free drop-in community support group in Oakland, CA.
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Mariana served over 2500 families with Montessori and developmental support.
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She has her AMI 0-3 and 3-6 diplomas and has been an educator since 2010.
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Mariana has mentored over 90 teachers, Guides, Assistants, and Trainees at the 0-3 and 3-6 levels.
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She is the award-winning author of Montessori parent book, Babies Build Toddlers
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Mariana has practiced both Montessori homeschool and classroom teaching.
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She has been a Montessori teacher trainer for a 0-3 course in Vietnam.
Our Story
Mariana Bissonnette founded The PEACE Program in 2016 with a small, drop-in family support group in a Montessori play space in Oakland, CA. The popularity of this program gave way to working collaboratively with schools to expand support for families in the home. In 2020, Mariana began working directly with educators to provide training, experience, and opportunity to work in parenting education. In 2023, The PEACE Program launched our virtual community platform to connect families to educators from around the world. Read more of our story.
Why Montessori?
Montessori education stems from the Montessori Method, created by Dr. Maria Montessori. The Montessori Method is rather simple. Dr. Montessori posited that the best way to educate children was to support their natural development, rather than pursuing specific outcomes for learning. Secondly, in the pursuit of supporting the child’s natural development, Dr. Montessori knew that children learn most from the experiences in their environment (rather than from direct instruction). Dr. Montessori re-positioned the role of the adult to a “guide” instead of a “teacher” for this purpose. Dr. Montessori’s methods were revolutionary in 1907 and it is still revolutionary today. In this simple process, we:
Aim to understand the development that the child is trying to do;
Prepare an environment of experiences for the child to do that development;
Use Observation as our guide to see the development unfold; and
Adjust any of the previous three as the child grows.
In Dr. Montessori’s aim to accomplish this revolutionary approach to education, she saw two essential outcomes of this developmentally-centered method. The first was the oppressive nature and practices of conventional education. Dr. Montessori aimed to remove all oppressive practices in the structure of schooling that were preventing children from developing as they were trying to. The second was her discovery that when children are allowed to develop as they are tryin to, they become peaceful with themselves and the world around them. This was a remarkable discovery and inspired her life’s work in education as a tool for peace.