Montessori

Years ago my mother went to school at the Ohio Montessori Training Institute with the intention of earning her credentials to teach in a Montessori school.

She completed the program with a passion for the goals and methods that are the building blocks of Montessori philosophy and the materials that are the tools of Montessori education. She enjoyed the friends she made in her classes, especially S, who is my friend today.Mom painstakingly built a Montessori classroom in the basement of her home. She planned to open a day school for preschoolers. She put great thought into her classroom. She made it equally inviting to a child's curiosity, and satisfying to parents seeking this special environment for their child.

Mom never opened her school. She got sick and passed away after all was ready but before she had any students. She told me how she had looked forward to teaching the Artist and any other grandchildren that might come along. With that in mind she bequeathed to me her note books instructing how to use each classroom material and how to conduct each lesson as well as all her materials.

It was overwhelming. There were so many worthwhile things that I could picture myself doing with the still infant Artist when she grew up a little. I had some favorite tools and materials, and there were others I did not fully understand. Then there were still others that I could not imagine using in the apartment where we lived at the time.Most of the materials sat, unused, waiting for children. After a time my friend, S contacted me. She was moving to Africa to work in a Montessori school. Dad and I had many materials we would not be using and it gave us joy to know they would be useful to a school somewhere. I don't know how she managed it all, but S packed what seemed like mountains of materials and moved overseas.

After a few years she returned to the States. She now works at a school in Idaho. We had a lovely in-person visit today as she was visiting family in town. It makes me feel good to know the materials mom lovingly gathered, made, or commissioned to be made are still used in classrooms somewhere in this big world. S, is well-networked and she is able to find homes for some of the materials I had remaining from mom's classroom. Things my children had now finished using or did not have an interest in. So a dream lives on.
Thank you, S, for your visit today, for the lovely kalanchoe, for the time you gave to my children today, and for finding homes where my mom's materials can be well used.