Last night, we read a book about children making bread. It showed them kneading the bread so hard their faces turned red. 

M (3 years 10 months) asks, “Why is her face red?” 
I replied, “Because she’s working so hard.” 

Five seconds later, M asks, “Can we make bread tomorrow? I want to work hard too.”

M’s little sentence reveals the true nature of young children. We adults can’t understand that because we want to exert minimum effort. We are happiest lying on the beach doing nothing. Children are happiest when they are doing hard work and exerting maximum effort. I thank Montessori everyday for this knowledge.

Needless to say, we are making bread today. The kids will be working and I will be sipping coffee reading a book. 

Mackenzie learning the Chinese Alphabet

Since I haven’t written for such a long time, I keep thinking that the first blog that comes out must be perfect. I’ve been waiting for perfect, but perfect never happens and, really, it’s the wrong way to look at it. So if this blog post rambles on, forgive me, I’m just gonna give it a go. 

What a summer we’ve had! 

This was the most upheaval we’ve gone through together as a family, and I wasn’t ready to write about it till we’ve come out the other end. Our friends and family went through all the ups and downs with us. We’re lucky they still love us after what we’ve put them through!

I last left off in June, when Mark and I both got our AMI certifications in Portland and were on our way to Taiwan. We spent two months there. Brooke and Mackenzie attended my mother’s school, Ms. Lam’s Montessori school, while Mark and I worked in the school. He taught soon-to-be first graders, while I observed and taught in both primary and toddler classrooms. 

I grew up knowing that our family ran Montessori schools. But it didn’t mean much to me because I didn’t have kids and Montessori was just something Mom did. Now that I’ve been trained in two levels (0-3 and 3-6), I’ve taught at a few schools, observed at many other schools and been a parent with children who have attended a couple Montessori schools, I have a lot more experience evaluating schools. As strange as this may sound, I was completely surprised to discover for myself just how excellent my mom’s school is. Mark and I were so impressed, we even decided to forego our own egos and opt to continue what my mom started. What does that mean? We are going to open a Ms. Lam Montessori school here in the US. 

We left Taiwan in August, where we continued the next part of our summer adventure in California. I’ve always thought I would love California – sunny, beautiful and the perfect place for a school. Well, dream and reality did not mesh this time. Because everything was new, it turned out to be extremely difficult for us to accomplish all we wanted to do. I was also pregnant when we arrived in California, and when I had a miscarriage – most likely due to the stress of the situation (more on this later) – I knew this was not the place for us.  One month after we arrived, we decided our future is where we came from: back home in Brooklyn, NY. 

We landed in New York in mid-September and moved back into our own building in Williamsburg. The second we arrived, we were immediately surrounded by friends and family – don’t know why we ever thought we belonged anywhere else. We immediately started working on opening our new school. There’s permits, handbooks, websites, classroom design. We’ve got a long to-do list!

Meanwhile, we did something radical. We decided to send Brooke and Mackenzie (3 years 10 months) to public school until our school opens. Why? The school is right next to our house; there were two open spots; it’s just for 2-3 months; we need to save every penny to renovate our school and buy the best materials for our future school. Sometimes logistics win.

I’ve had moments of doubt, but overall, public school has been an interesting experience. The most surprising thing is this: everyday, when they come home, they don’t want to go anywhere or do anything. Not even the park. They just want to stay home and work. They are totally concentrated and self-sufficient until dinnertime, which is about 3 hours.  I don’t know what they do all day at school, but I think some part of them craves working independently. 

At home from school, Brooke washed ALL of those dishes in the drying rack!

After school activity – Mackenzie builds with Magnatiles for hours

Well, here we are, at the other end of our summer adventure and settled into our new – hopefully permanent – life and home. It feels FANTASTIC to be writing this blog from a home I can finally call my own.

As I was driving B and M (3.5 years old) home from school yesterday, I overheard this conversation.

M calls B “Poopy.” B says, “My name is Brooke, you can call me Brooke.” 

M calls her “Poopy” again. B says, “If you are mean to me, then I’m going to walk away.” 

M turns to her and pleads, “Can you please play with me?” 

B says, “Then don’t be mean to me! If you are nice to me, then we can play together. If you are not nice to me, then I’m going to walk away.”

If every child learned this Montessori Grace and Courtesy lesson, bullies would have no one to bully. And bullying in schools would literally Cease. To. Exist.

**Join Stephanie’s next Long Distance Courses! The next First Year Course starts Wednesday, June 18th. The next Toddler Course starts Tuesday, June 19th. Find out what recent participants have said here.