Hello and welcome! Whether you are a trained Montessori guide or only know Montessori as the buzzword it has become, we all can grow and learn more about how to be more intentional in our parenting practices and in our home environment. That is how I hope this website can help you.
So, who am I? My name is Gloria and I am a wife, a daughter, a former public school teacher, a current homeschooler, a friend, and most important to me- a mom to two toddlers.
I'd wanted to be a teacher from the moment I could answer the question about my aspirations for adulthood before I even knew what it meant to be a grown up. I got good grades, followed the rules, went to college, got my Bachelors Degree in Early Childhood and Childhood Education (and eventually my Masters Degree in Literacy Education), babysat and nannied, worked at daycares and summer camps, and set off on my journey to become the teacher I always dreamed of.
This is where the dream ended. Dreaming of working with children, helping to grow and shape young minds, and doing my part to change the world seemed like the goal. However, after becoming a public school teacher, I soon learned my job would have little to do with educating and shaping young minds, and far more with managing unmet social-emotional needs and complying with what someone with a much higher pay grade than me (but with much less knowledge, understanding, or education in child development) told me to do within the four walls of my tiny classroom. Every year I stood in front of my first grade students feeling like I was a critical part of a system that was failing them on multiple levels. I knew there had to be another way.
I started looking for new schools. Surely all schools couldn't be like this. However, I kept finding more of the same seemingly everywhere I turned. One day, I stumbled upon a Montessori school in my area. I'd heard of Maria and her methods back when getting my undergraduate degree, but never really knew much beyond very surface level knowledge. I was asked to come in and observe to see if I thought it would be a good fit for me. That is where I saw teachers working with children, helping to grow and shape young minds, and doing their part to change the world. This was where I felt I was called to and where I felt I belonged. However, I did not have a Montessori certification and my current principal would not let me out of my job, so I walked away. However, I never forgot how I felt being within that classroom. It was a feeling I tried to replicate in my own classroom, but just could not quite get there.
Fast forward to becoming a mom, leaving public education behind, and deciding to stay at home to raise my first bundle of joy in 2019. I quickly felt the mental, emotional, and physical transformation that new moms so often do and feeling that feeling of not knowing exactly what I was supposed to be doing with my "new life". After falling down a rabbit hole of audiobooks to listen to about parenting and how I might spend my days with this new little person, I found a book about the Montessori philosophy as it relates to newborns and young toddlers. I immediately devoured it and found more of the same. I searched out all the podcasts I could listen to, Instagram accounts I could follow, blog posts I could read. Back in 2019 there was much less out there, but I knew that that same feeling that I felt in the classroom was here. This was where the magic was. This philosophy felt like magic. It gave a drastically different and new (although quite old) perspective to raising a child than what I was seeing around me. Something about its simplicity rooted in actual child development and science felt right.
Now, here at the start of 2023, I have a three year old and a 1 year old and I have chosen to homeschool them using the Montessori philosophy. I have learned a lot about parenting, Montessori, and myself along this over three year motherhood journey. This, coupled with my own educational knowledge and understanding, is what I wish to share here on this page with you. I hope you will join me and together we can continue to grow and learn. Thank you for being here.
You are welcome to keep coming back here to see new content. However, I would love for you to subscribe to my newsletter! I know you do not need more junk filling up your e-mail inbox, so I promise to only share with you there what I know I would want to see.
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