Montessori Across the Globe
Once again, I have had affirmation of the universality of Montessori. I just returned from several weeks in Europe where I visited Montessori schools in Sweden and Latvia. I was invited to present a 2½ day seminar on the Montessori math avenue in Riga, Latvia and deliver two talks in both private and public Montessori schools in Sweden, which gave me the opportunity to also visit three of our Age of Montessori students who are currently finishing up their internships.
Each Montessori school is different. The layout of their classrooms is different, the practical life lessons are always a bit different, especially as they represent different cultures, schedules may be a bit different, and the atmosphere is different. We see teachers quietly moving around giving lessons to children and we see the happy buzz of children working and playing and communicating with each other and their teachers. Some teachers are more directive, others less so.
But in addition to the differences, we see most of the same materials. We see open, low shelves. We see the four avenues of the classrooms: practical life, sensorial, language and math.
And we see happy, thriving children. It fills my heart with so much joy when I see that the teachers who are taking Age of Montessori training are fully engaged in fulfilling their own dreams of becoming teachers, and likewise making a difference in the lives of so many children. I would love to share with you some of the images of these classrooms where our interns are serving.
The last leg of my journey was to Lisbon, Portugal. My reward after a long trek up onto the ramparts of a 1,000-year-old Moorish castle on a rainy day was this amazing rainbow.
The rain stopped, the sun came out and it became a glorious day and I could see for miles in every direction. The rainbow was like a promise of the spread of our work for and on behalf of children, full of light of all the colors of the spectrum.
I was reminded of a quote I once read: “The trek upward is worth the inconvenience!”
