John Chattin-McNichols joined Seattle University in 1979. His primary areas of interest are Child Development, Early Childhood Education, and Montessori education. He teaches the child development strand to students seeking elementary certification in TEED 512. He also teaches a number of other courses outside the MiT program, including EDUC 522, Child Development & Learning, EDUC 500, Introduction to Research, and EDLR, Quantitative Methods, for the doctoral students

John has a bachelor’s degree in Psychology from UCLA, a Montessori teaching certificate for ages 6-12 years from the Centro Internazionale Studi Montessoriani (in Bergamo, Italy), and a doctorate from Stanford in Child Development & Early Education. He has taught children from ages 2 ½ through 8th grade, and has taught in Montessori classrooms and at Bing Nursery School, the laboratory preschool at Stanford. He taught in the Psychology Department at Purdue University before coming to Seattle University. He taught at the University of the West Indies in the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago during a year as a Fulbright lecturer in 1987/88. John’s research and writing interests have centered on Montessori education, technology in education, and teacher research. He is a past-president of the American Montessori Society, and has served on the Board of the Guardian ad Litem program in Seattle, and the Seattle Children’s Museum. He is currently on the Board of the Godly Play Foundation, which supports a Montessori based religious education program for children and adults.

John’s publications include a chapter in the early childhood textbook, Approaches to Early Childhood Education, by Roopnarine and Johnson, beginning with the 3rd Edition in 2000, and his book, The Montessori Controversy, was published in 1992. He has published over 50 articles and chapters. He has presented papers or done consulting in schools and teacher education programs in the US, Canada, Trinidad, Ireland, England, Italy, South Korea, Mexico, Brazil, and Australia.