indentMontessori
Education in the Philippines did not start with the rich. It started with
a school established among the poor mostly relocated squatters in Sapang
Palay, Bulacan. Its mother organization Operation Brotherhood International
(OBI) was founded by Oscar Arellano in 1956. OBI provided medical help
and community upliftment assistance to the war refugees in Vietnam and
Laos.
Oscar
Arellano
indentWhen
OBI started operations in the Philippines in 1963, village projects became
its first priority including schools for the poor. Ambassador Preciosa
S. Soliven who had been teaching young children in Vietnam and later worked
with a Swiss Montessori preschool teacher in Makati was asked by OBI to
manage these schools.
indentThe experience inspired Ambassador Soliven
to pursue a complete Montessori course in Perugia,Italy and London in
1966. Upon her return to the country, she put up a school for the middle
class while maintaining services to the poor.
indentThe
first full-time Montessori Nursery School was organized and conducted
at the Syquia Apartments in Malate, Manila. It was named O.B. Montessori
Children's House. Most of these Children's Houses were established in rented
mansions in Paco, Makati and Quezon City between 1966 and 1970.n
dentThe
Grade School level was opened In 1970 after Ambassador Soliven completed
her AMI Elementary course for 6-12 year olds In Bergamo, Italy. Due to
the numerous requests of the parents of the grade school graduates, Amb.
Soliven launched the O.B. Montessori Professional High School in 1983.
She applied what she saw in the curriculum of various academic and technical
schools in Europe, Australia and the US to the high school program. In
1995, Amb. Soliven set up the O.B, Montessori college to arrest the mushrooming
of false Montessori schools all over the country.
indentAfter 40 years of making a difference
in the lives of millions of Filipino families, this Montessori operation
has become the largest in the world with nearly 5,000 students enrolled
in the four branches in Manila, Las Piñas, Greenhills and Angeles,
Pampanga.
Montessori Children's
House - Taft, Manila
indentIt
has gone way beyond its academic programs and now includes a multi-purpose
theater that has a seating capacity of more than a thousand, an Italian
restaurant with its satellite Cafes, an 11 hectare farmland in Alfonso,
Cavite patterned after Thailand's King Bhumibol Adulyadej's Self--Sufficiency
Farm, several ecumenical shrines and a 23-year old Child and Community
Foundation that reaches out to the rural communities through the Pagsasarili
Schools and Mothercraft Literacy Course. lt is equally proud of its full
military brigade of 700 high school CAT cadets and 100-member Marching
Band, both of whom have won top honors in inter-school competitions.
indent O.B. Montessori Center, Inc. has developed
a new breed of Filipinos. Inspired to be independent and motivated by
a spirit of excellence, they stand out in various fields; whether culture,
business, politics, communications or sports.
indent They are a new generation of Filipinos
who will generate us into becoming a better country and make us, in truth,
a new people embarking with confidence into a new life.
