Mirror Coincidence: Montessori Schools

Reconnected with an old friend a couple of weeks ago and he told me that he had enrolled his 3 year old daughter in the local montessori school. I had never heard of montessori, but as he puts it, it teaches children to be self-directed. Today, I had lunch with a co-worker whom I hadn't seen in a while and he told me that they had just fired the nanny and enrolled their 8 month old in a montessori program. I had never heard of this before and now, twice in two weeks, people have brought up the educational philosophy with me. How strange. If you want to learn more about it yourself, this seems to be a good site: http://www.montessori.org/