Ann Sutton, PhD

Dr. Ann Sutton has been an educator for over 50 years, the majority of which has been in Montessori education. Ann was introduced to Montessori when she enrolled her daughter in a Montessori program in 1985. The cherished relationship with Ann’s mentor, Dr Betsy Coe, began in 1996 when Ann started a Montessori middle school program in Dallas, TX. Ann taught in that middle school environment for nine years. In 2010, she moved to Houston to teach at Woods Montessori High School and become a regular Secondary instructor and field consultant at HMC.

Outside of Montessori education, Ann has taught adolescents in public education in suburban and inner-city schools. She has brought her Montessori perspective into work as an adjunct professor at the community college, undergraduate, and graduate university levels as well as in work with a business consulting firm where she served as a project manager working with top-tier executives in disparate industries cultivating Robert Greenleaf’s servant leadership approach.

Ann holds a BS in Secondary Education, a Master’s Degree in Humanities, and a PhD in Sustainability Education. Her dissertation explored the essence of Montessori and the abilities of effective Montessori teachers by gathering pearls of wisdom from experienced Montessorians using Bohm dialogues. Those findings are available to anyone free of charge at montessorispeaks.com.  Her research followed an Indigenous research paradigm, seeking congruency between research methods and the interconnectedness of everything in the Universe found in Maria Montessori’s holistic, complex concept of education. The research findings include ways Montessori tenets align with tenets cultivating a sustainability mindset. Dr. Sutton is a Lifetime Member of the American Montessori Society (AMS). She served two terms as the Secondary representative with the AMS Teacher Education Action Commission (TEAC) from 2018-2024.

Ann holds an AMS Montessori Secondary I-II credential. She currently serves as the Executive Director and Director of the Secondary program at Houston Montessori Center.