Masha spent the first few weeks in Tel Aviv in a bomb shelter. In an incredible act of bad timing, her long-awaited move to Israel coincided with the missile exchanges of mid-June. I had landed in Jakarta shortly after and we started an exchange of long emails that tended to run to the more thoughtful and philosophical. I met Masha in Chicago in the summer of 2023 when she was enrolled in a teacher-education program run by the Center for Jewish Montessori Teacher Education, a course I co-directed.. Two summers later and both of us were a long way from home. She wrote that she was curious as to how the Montessori schools in Southeast Asia were the same, how they differed. The question got me thinking in a broader sense, about how the spectrum of Montessori is interpreted across cultures.
I’ve written before regarding my experience of teaching adult learners in disparate parts of the Montessori world; Seoul, Savannah, Ghana, Charleston, Haiti, Baltimore, Shanghai, Buffalo, Florida, Chicago, Portsmouth, and Indonesia both decades ago and more recently last month, in Jakarta. The lens I would use was grounded in geography and setting and even school budgets; a Montessori classroom in an airplane hangar in Carrefour, Haiti, a $100,000 worth of materials with which to present in Shanghai. Another lens is theological. While most all of my work has been in secular programs, I’ve also been fortunate to teach against the backdrop of the world’s most populous religious traditions.
There’s a universal experience that I’ve felt with Montessori, especially now having been associated with Christian, Jewish, and Muslim communities of adult learners. A commonality among religions and the non-religious as to what inspires parents for their children, and what they hope a school environment will provide and nurture. Raising independent creative thinkers in nurturing classrooms that provide for the emotional and social development, not just academic achievement seems to be something that doesn’t care who you pray to. So things like parsha and davening, the Koran, the Torah, catechism, parables, learning Hebrew or using an Arabic moveable alphabet, those get woven into a tapestry of Montessori, quite easily. Like any course, there’s a difference in orthodoxy that’s reflected in the training, but there’s a baseline respect that you expect adult learners to share with the cohort, and that’s always been the case with my groups over the years. I don’t know as much about the scope of schools where these teachers will be guiding children. It’s clear that there’s a diversity in socio-economics, as there is everywhere, including the U.S., but in developing countries those lines are more jagged. I saw bead frames made of plywood and string instead of maple and gauge wire, but it’s a bead frame. Adds the same way. There’s a Buddhist concept that metaphors different religions as fingers pointing to the moon. Some people, even and in some cases especially the learned and “holy”, get caught up in whose finger is more devout, which finger is more accurately pointing to the transcendent and resplendent. Forgetting the moon entirely.
During a speech at the Montessori Teaching College in London, Mahatma Gandhi, referencing a speech by Dr. Montessori, famously said, “If there is to be peace in the world, it will begin with children.” Children tend to see the moon, so perhaps the universal appeal of Montessori to parents can play some role in resolving conflict. The subjunctive use of the word “if” has always interested me. Gandhi was hopeful, but from experience a realist as well. Masha writes that the ceasefire has allowed her more time up and out instead of down and in. She’s looking for work, planning on contacting Montessori schools, applying for a position. Masha is both kind-hearted and open-minded, curious, and growth-centered. She’ll be fine, great in fact. I hope she keeps writing.
Follow the Child 