Meet Maria

In alignment with Dr. Maria Montessori’s effort to make experiences real for children whenever possible in the classroom, I have also attempted to make our world cultural experiences more real for our own daughters as often as possible through travel. Most folks do not live like we live in Wayland, Massachusetts.

 

We want our daughters to see how other children experience the world in places like India, Peru, Kenya, Tanzania, Ecuador, Thailand, Taiwan, or Morocco. We want them to experience what it would be like to go to school in a rural village of Jaipur or Jambiani. 

 

As a result of these travels, we have set goals for our family and developed morals and values that spill into our personal lives, my work life and our daughters' school lives. Many years ago, we all collected pennies together and ended up raising over $4000 for Komen for the Cure Breast Cancer Awareness Foundation. Prior to the pandemic, the teachers cooked breakfast at Montessori Escuela, and the students served their parents, who then donated funds in lieu of paying a “bill”, and we sent over $3000 to Classroom of Hope to build schools in rural parts of developing countries such as Lombok, Indonesia. We met a Maasai family in Zanzibar that made an impact on us, and upon our family’s return from Zanzibar, we began sponsoring a young Maasai girl to attend a local school instead of standing at her mom’s feet all day while she makes jewelry for tourists in a shop the size of our closet. We also took an entire school group of children up to the local shop to buy them a bunch of soccer balls, among other items, so they could play ball in the village.  While in India, we handed out school supplies to the teachers and children in a remote village.  Just recently in the Wayland program, our families collected dry food goods for the local food pantry.  

 

While these are all small gestures of kindness, there is so much more we can do to love and cherish our neighbors in need. For that reason, we educate our children and young students on a daily basis about how fortunate we are to have food and for running water, homes with heat and electricity, and how important it is to take care of one another, our planet and to be grateful for all we have. What can we do each day to be kind and compassionate and how can we love others to the best of our ability? 

 

While academic learning and Spanish Immersion are certainly key elements to our philosophy at Montessori Escuela, our core value is more closely aligned with the child’s development of solid moral character and kindness.

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