The Montessori journey began for our family in the fall of 1987, right before my daughter turned three years old. A few years later we had twin boys who also experienced the Montessori method.  That was thirty-one years ago and we are still on that journey, but now experiencing it with our grandchildren!  During this journey we have had the true blessing of having our children experience a Montessori education through sixth grade.  To give our children the education we wanted, we started our own Montessori school that grew to approximately 200 students with 32 teachers on staff and offered a Montessori education for children 2 years through 6th grade.  I look back on that time and realize how very blessed we were to have so many wonderful teachers who truly loved children and the method.

In January of 1994, I was asked to write a Montessori Teacher Certification Curriculum to teach at the college level.   For twenty-four years I have truly enjoyed sharing this educational method by training hundreds of teachers! 

The other night one of my students asked me why I chose Montessori rather than teaching in a traditional public school.  The answer was easy.  Why Montessori?  It works!  Just step into a true Montessori classroom and you will see children who are happily choosing “work,” completing it, putting it back from where they found it.  They are free to talk with others, move about, make choices and truly be independent individuals.  Their level of intelligence and academic success as well as their empathy for others is amazing!  Is it a perfect world?   No, but it is the best that I have seen or experienced in my thirty plus years in the field of education.   

Another growing trend is Montessori Home Schooling.  My daughter’s 3-year-old son currently goes to a Montessori school for half a day and he is learning to read long vowel words, has learned the continents, can read and do simple addition problems.  He’s intelligent and quite articulate.  When did he start his Montessori education?  Probably around 10 months with his Montessori grandmother!  Yes, we started at home. Now my daughter has turned her dining room into a Montessori classroom and she is teaching her twin boys.   (Yes, it is true.  I had twin boys and so does my daughter!  Crazy right?) 

Her twins are now around 21 months old and this morning I kept them while she went out.  I must say that I was truly elated to watch them do one work after another in their home classroom.  They have come so far, choosing a work, sitting down, getting it out, working awhile and then putting it away.  This is just the beginning of creating their controlled movements and the building of their intelligence.  So, here I go again, on the same journey that I have gone on with my children, countless students and teacher educators.  It is a joyful and exciting journey that I am experiencing through the eyes of my grandchildren!  Hope you have the opportunity to experience this journey with the children in your life.