The Montessori Way

At back-to-school night, parents often look around a Montessori classroom and notice something unusual. A three-year-old is carefully carrying a tray. A five-year-old is reading to a younger classmate. A child who appears old enough to be “in charge” is quietly...

A few years ago, I watched a young child carry a small tray across a Montessori classroom with the solemn concentration of someone transporting an extremely valuable scientific specimen. On the tray were a glass of water, a sponge, and a little bowl. The child moved...

  by Tim Seldin If you've spent your career in independent schools or early childhood education, you've likely encountered Montessori—perhaps as a competitor, a curiosity, or simply another name in the landscape of educational options. I want to take a few...

Aiden ate cucumbers at snack time with me today! The cool crispiness, color, texture, who knows? Or was it because he helped peel them, cut them up, and then sat with me while I savored mine? Whatever this celebration is it's certainly the next step in his food...

You have a question. It's week one. Every fiber of your being wants to fire off an email tonight. Before you do, a quick primer on getting an actual useful answer instead of a polite brush-off. Match the medium to the urgency. A quick logistics question ("is...

Routines have settled, the crying at drop-off has mostly stopped, and now that low hum of "I should probably get more involved" is starting up. Good instinct — but worth doing right. Getting involved as a Montessori parent isn't the same as generic...

  The car line has a bad reputation. It's the part of the day parents complain about at pickup, to the very people also standing in the car line complaining about it. But here's the reframe: that stretch of pavement, or that ten-minute drive, is one of the only...

Every classroom has a lead guide, and every classroom also has an assistant—the person quietly retying shoes, wiping noses, refilling the water pitcher, and generally keeping the whole operation from tipping into chaos while the guide is deep in a three-part lesson...

Somewhere around week three of summer, your household's daily rhythm quietly died and nobody held a funeral for it. Breakfast happens whenever. Shoes are a concept, not a location. And now school is here, demanding that your child locate both shoes, eat a meal,...

Let's clear up a rumor that's been going around every school parking lot since roughly 1907: your child's guide does not spend June through August at the beach reading novels and forgetting your child's name exists. Here's what's actually going on. First, they're...