The PAN AMERICAN MONTESSORI SOCIETY (PAMS) was chartered in 1973 by Feland L. Meadows, Ph.D., a Montessori Instructor; Joan B. Meadows, a Language Therapist; Elisabeth Caspari, Ed.D., a Montessori Teacher Educator and Charles Caspari, an Engineer, Mathematician and Linguist, to provide teacher education and other support services in accordance with Dr. Caspari’s personal study and learning experiences with Dr. Maria Montessori during four years in India.

Elisabeth Caspari was an Instructor of piano teachers in Switzerland before she studied with Dr. Maria Montessori and her son Mario in Adyar, Madras, Indiain 1940. She collaborated with Dr. Montessori in Kodaikanal, in the Palani Hills of India, for four years.

After the War, Dr. Caspari opened the Wee Wisdom Montessori School in Lee’s Summit,Missouri in 1952. It was the first Children’s House to be opened in the U.S. after WWII. Elisabeth Caspari also offered the first Montessori Teacher Education course in the U.S. after the War in 1953.

Feland L. Meadows, Ph.D., studied with Dr. Elisabeth Caspari and collaborated with her for 30 years. He currently serves as the Roberto C. Goizueta Endowed Chair of Early Childhood Education at KENNESAW STATE UNIVERSITY, Kennesaw, Georgia. Dr. Meadows is President of the Pan American Montessori Society.

Dr. Feland L. Meadows, an internationally recognized authority on Montessori Education, was honored by the Pan American Montessori Society in Mexico City for his outstanding contributions to Montessori Education when he completed 32 years of training teachers. During that time, Dr. Meadows prepared more than 2,000 Montessori teachers in California, Georgia and Florida in the U.S. as well as in Canada, Mexico, Costa Rica, Panama, France and Switzerland.