We hear it all the time. Most any time Montessori teachers are out on a field trip, “going out” as Dr. Montessori termed it, invariably a docent, or tour guide, or waiter will comment on the deportment of our students. A few years back, I was with the Juniors, early adolescents, touring the Smithsonian Museum of American History in Washington, DC, and a group of restoration experts working on an early flag. We saw their nearly-completed work, the Star-Spangled Banner repaired and cleaned, laid out behind smoky glass. We snaked through the display that included many supporting displays and historic pieces. As the last of us moved past the docent, she called the teachers back. “Excuse me, but where is this group from”? We told her who we were. “Well, I have to tell you, I have NEVER in all my years, had a school group as well-behaved and engaged as what I just saw from your group, and I’ve been doing this for a l-o-n-g time.” I relate this story not as news, but as an example of the kind of response Montessori students elicit when they’re out and about. But it was a later occurrence, in the same museum, where the nascent adults showed not just an interest in content, but in humanity. 

A docent at an exhibit on Working Women spent 10 minutes or so giving further information on the displays that surrounded us. As the class thanked her and moved away, the Junior eighth-grade girls paused to thank her personally. She was obviously very pleased by this. But the next questions almost moved her to tears. Our students wanted to know: “How did she, personally, get her start at the Smithsonian? How long had she been working here? It must be a wonderful job…” As the woman proudly displayed her Forty Years of Service Pin to an awed group of teenagers she smiled a little sheepishly and said that she almost didn’t make it due to a broken hip. “Well, I hope you’re able to keep on doing this for a long, long time.” Our teens congratulated her even more heartily and as they were strolling away wished her many more wonderful years at the museum. The exchange was longer than I am relating, and was heartfelt. We have no doubt that in all her wonderful years, this sincere, interested group must have made quite an impression. showing an interest in who she was, not just the material she was covering. This deeper understanding of an experience, this comprehension of the whole, this awareness of the connection to others, this empathy as an expression of full interest, is one of the many intangibles we are gifted to observe. We hear it all the time. It never gets old.