Cushman, Charlotte: - Charlotte Cushman attended Lewis and Clark College, Portland, Oregon, where she majored in elementary education. Immediately upon graduation, she took Montessori training at the AMI Montessori Training Center in Palo Alto, CA from Lena Wikramaratne (a colleague and friend of Maria Montessori). She then taught at Montessori schools for twelve years and in 1985 she co-founded her own school, Independence Montessori, and later joined her husband's school, Minnesota Renaissance School. Your Life Belongs to You is the story she told her students over the years about the founding of the United States of America.