How Montessori Found Me

I first heard of Montessori when I was in high school. I had a best friend and a boyfriend (who coincidentally eventually became my step-sister, and husband, respectively) who'd met in elementary school at Austin Montessori School, in Texas. I already had thoughts of becoming a teacher one day and was intrigued by this other method of teaching. But it wasn't till my future mother-in-law gave me a copy of Children Who Are Not Yet Peaceful, by Donna Goertz (founder of Austin Montessori School). The book fascinated me-- it's filled with stories from when Donna was an elementary school teacher at the Montessori school, and the many children who came to her with all sorts of "issues," who'd been kicked out of previous schools because of bad behavior or supposed ADHD, etc. Ater some patience, time, and the magic of Montessori, these children eventually became normalized and their "behavior problems" went away. I realized that part of that magic of Montessori is giving the teacher the freedom to focus on any one particular child in any particular day or moment, when they need that attention, rather than having to constantly be watching and teaching an entire classroom.

As I went through college I kept meaning to stop by the Montessori school and observe, to see the process with my own eyes. Life got away from me, though, and before I knew it I was graduating, and moving out to California with my fiance. Montessori remained a dream, something I knew to be special and that I wanted to know more about but had no clear plan for.

As life would have it, within a year of moving to California I discovered that there was actually an AMI-certified Montessori teacher training center, literally 15 minutes from our home. There's only a handful of these across the nation, so this truly felt like divine intervention. The center was geared towards the primary age level (ages 3-6), which I have always considered to be my favorite ages in children. I was just in time to sign up for the next school year, and thus in 2005 I completed my primary certification.

It amazes me how things just fell into place for me, to follow this path to Montessori. I had never been one of those people that just "knew" what I wanted to be or do in life. Becoming certified as a Montessori teacher was the first time I became truly excited about the career path ahead of me.

I have since worked for a couple years at an incredible local Montessori school, teaching and learning alongside incredibly talented and experiences mentors. I am now at home with my infant son, but strive to incorporate Montessori and the Montessori philosophy into my parenting style every day. I plan for my son to attend Montessori preschool and hopefully elementary school, and look forward to returning to the classroom eventually myself, possibly even opening up my own school one day.

-Marcy