Author Archives: Bertha

“In fact, in our schools, even older children, those three or four-years old, after finishing an exercise will put the things they have used back in place. It is one of the most pleasant and spontaneous tasks they perform. Order consists in recognizing the place for each object in relation to its environment and inContinue reading “Order is one of the needs of life which, when it is satisfied, produces real happiness.”

The title quote is from Raffi Cavoukian’s Covenant for Honouring Children. I first learned about him through his children’s songs, then I followed him on Twitter and saw that he did a lot more work centered on championing children’s rights and climate change. The quote is also used in the book from the National AssociationContinue reading “All children are created whole, endowed with innate intelligence, with dignity and wonder, worthy of respect.”

“It is often we who obstruct the child, and so become responsible for anomalies that last a lifetime. Always must our treatment be gentle as possible, avoiding violence, for we easily fail to realize how violent and hard we are being. We have to watch ourselves most carefully. The real preparation for education is aContinue reading “The real preparation for education is a study of one’s self.”

This was taken during one of my first Early Childhood Montessori teacher training sessions at West Side Montessori School (WSMS) in the fall of 2019. I decided on a career change after I gave birth because I knew that I wouldn’t be returning to a restaurant kitchen after staying at home to take care ofContinue reading “Hello! This is a now a Montessori blog.”

“The teacher becomes the keeper and custodian of the environment. She attends to this instead of being distracted by the children’s restlessness. From this will come healing, and the attraction that captures and polarizes the child’s will. In our countries, where each wife has her own home, the wife tries to make the home asContinue reading “The teacher also must be attractive, pleasing in appearance, tidy and clean, calm and dignified.”

“It often happens that, in obedience to a set program of studies, a teacher is obliged to hustle on his pupils to reach a certain attainment by a certain date. His eyes, and therefore those of his pupils, too, are fixed on the future; and the whole atmosphere becomes one of forward-looking tension. This isContinue reading “Let the child live wholly in the present”