The Melrose Messenger

Melrose Montessori Celebrates 50 Years with Peace Pole Ceremony

Last month, Melrose Montessori School marked its 50th academic year with a ceremony at City Hall and the installation of a Peace Pole in front of the school.

Melrose Montessori was founded in 1974 by Beatrix Masszi. On Masszi’s retirement, Anissa Arloro, who attended Melrose Montessori in its inaugural year and also taught there early in her own career, took over the school. Masszi’s son is also an educator at the school. Lindsey Chisholm, who is in administration at Melrose Montessori, calls it a “full circle moment” for the school, with Arloro carrying on Masszi’s legacy, and continuing to run the school according to the principles laid out by Maria Montessori in 1907.

To recognize the school's 50th anniversary, Melrose Montessori students have been focusing on the themes of peace and education this year. Montessori herself was an advocate for peace, having been exiled from her native Italy in 1936 due to clashes with Fascist leader Benito Mussolini. She famously said, “Establishing lasting peace is the work of education; all politics can do is keep us out of war."

The Peace Pole Project also emerged as a response to World War II. In the 1950’s, Masahisa Goi, a Japanese writer and philosopher, began organizing groups of people across Japan to advocate for peace. In a country that only a decade earlier had been torn apart by war, Goi’s message, that the energy of people’s thoughts and words has the power to influence the world, resonated with many people in Japan and beyond.

The idea of Peace Poles - poles that display the prayer, May Peace Prevail on Earth, on their sides - arose in the 1970s as part of the movement Goi began, and arrived in the United States in the 1980s. Today, there are over 200,000 Peace Poles worldwide.

Chisholm heard about the Peace Pole Project through Rotary International, which has sponsored Peace Poles in a number of locations. She immediately saw the connection to Melrose Montessori’s focus on peace, so she got in touch with the Peace Pole Project and they shipped her a Peace Pole. “I had a six-foot-tall Peace Pole in my dining room,” she laughed.

Then Chisholm reached out to City Hall to see if the mayor wanted to be involved. “The school has been part of the community for fifty years,” Chisholm explained, “so I thought it was only natural to involve the city.” Plans were made: Mayor Jen Grigoraitis would present Arloro with a citation in a ceremony involving students, parents, and community members. Then the students would parade back to their school, where the Peace Pole would be unveiled. “There were over 200 people in the parade,” Chisholm recalled.

Melrose now joins a handful of other cities in Massachusetts that boast their own Peace Pole. The Melrose Peace Pole’s prominent position in front of Melrose Montessori, across from the permanent library, will ensure it is visible to the community. When the news is full of stories of violence and conflict, the Melrose Peace Pole can remind all of us to pause and express our own hopes for world peace.

Posted November 22nd, 2024