A dear friend messaged me in late December. Her small-community Montessori school in upstate New York had suffered a fire about halfway through their Chanukah break. She had started, directed, and taught this single Primary Classroom for decades in a beautiful classroom in her home. Persuaded to open an Elementary program by parents not eager to leave the nest after Primary, she re-doubled her efforts, took training for this new level, and secured separate spaces for both classrooms at a local temple. After the requisite two years of trial and error, mistakes made and lessons learned (by both students and teacher), they had reached a state of peace and learning, in space and spirit to match the Primary room.  “It wasn’t perfect, but it was lovely”. The fire destroyed the library and all the musical instruments. The smoke damage rendered the classroom materials unusable. As any founder/owner knows, most every piece was purchased and maintained by her, a summing of a life’s work and devotion. “I am gutted.”

Soon after, she sent photos of the fire, taken by a firefighter who is also a photographer. After a career that spans four decades, I have been in countless Montessori classrooms, and with rare exception, they are oases of beauty and learning, simple and elegant, color and contrast. Designed to be welcoming to children, they are equally welcoming to adults. In these photos, however, fire fighters in heavy suits and trailing hoses, walk through a classroom across sodden and charred building material. The juxtaposition is startling and upsetting. Our association with a Montessori classroom, the peace, the beauty…. and elemental destruction.

A second set of photos glimpsed the first day back for the children. The Primary classroom was back in its original location, in her home. There is a paucity of materials on the shelf, those saved by being in deep storage, but the children are doing what they do, getting on with it. There are sandpaper letters forming words on a rug. A child is spooning a practical life exercise on the right while others are gathered near a window in the Sensorial area. The Elementary students, with only pencil bags and journals, are pictured in a spare church room, devoid of even appropriate furniture for children, let alone any Montessori materials. But the children are gathered at circle, as they would, most turned toward the viewer, all of them smiling. They are children, they are classmates, this is their teacher, they are together. I remarked that it was reminiscent of that scene from the Grinch that Stole Christmas (which I’m pretty sure isn’t a Chanukah movie). The presents don’t make the holiday, and the materials don’t make a Montessori classroom. I will sometimes ask my adult learners to make a hypothetical choice. Do you want to work or send your child to Classroom A that spent $50,000 to fill it with the finest, brand-new Neinhuis materials, but where there is no community, love, respect, peace?  Or Classroom B, with no materials, but loving kindness, support, mindfulness, and energy. In over 30 years of teacher education, not a single teacher has made the wrong choice.