The Sixth Great Lesson: The Story of Montessori Rocks!

As Montessorians, we have all heard the many stories told to us throughout the Five Great Lessons.

(For those of you not familiar with the Five Great Lessons, this is a great resource.)

This story, our story, is much different. The story of Montessori Rocks is deeply rooted in one mother’s personal experiences and passion for sharing it with others. This is the story of Montessori Rocks, the sixth great lesson.

The birth of a new child brings an explosion of emotions ranging from sheer panic to overwhelming, all-encompassing joy. I remember staring into my newborn baby’s eyes with a deepness of love that almost felt deceiving, as if I had cheated my husband out of loving him as deeply and completely as I thought I had. My love for him was only greater with each day, but my love for Katherine was such a different kind of love that I didn’t quite know what to do with it. Katherine’s full name means “pure joy” and the pureness of joy that she has brought our family has changed everything about who we are as a family – including my priorities as a mom.

My priorities shifted from measuring what was “right” for my family by the standards of mainstream media and my upbringing with a traditional education, to measuring “right” with a measuring stick of faith and what was best for our immediate family, individually and as a whole. When it came to deciding what was best for our family in terms of education, quieting the noise of outside influences became exceptionally hard yet extremely important.

I remember hearing the word Montessori for the first time. Images of the movie “Sister Act” raced through my mind and I instantly assumed that it was for the Catholics, for the elite, and clearly not for me.

What I didn’t know is that the word Montessori actually represented everything I was longing for as an option for my family. Individualized. Focused. Proven. Considerate. Whole.

My husband and I have been blessed to have the opportunity to start three Montessori schools in Michigan and our organization works with three others. As soon as the communities we serve learned about our passion for Montessori education, two things happened:

1 – The floodgates of parents longing to enroll their child in a Montessori school opened to the point that we had to turn people away.

2 – Parents stared at us with visions of monasteries and nuns. I remember telling one cautiously optimistic mom, “No, no. It’s Montessori. Not Monastery.”

Faced with these two groups of people—the overjoyed and the skeptical—we decided that we needed to do a better job of educating parents and educators about the power of a Montessori education in a way that they could understand and could translate for their friends and family.

We created Montessori Rocks to equip the skeptical and to keep the fire burning for the overjoyed. Most importantly, we created Montessori Rocks to connect lovers of all things Montessori across the globe. You, me, and them… we are all welcome in this Montessori Rocks community.

Your story of why Montessori is right for children is just as meaningful as my story. Our collective fabric is woven together with our own stories of how the Montessori method has brought joy back to learning, order into our homes, and confidence back into our kids’ hearts. Montessori has changed me, it has changed you, and together… it has changed us.

We would love to hear from you on how Montessori has changed your life. Share your story with us in the comments below! Better yet, become a blogger!