Page 7 - 2019 Observations ~ The Montessori School

analysis quickly lost my interest and I tessori Internationale) 0-3 Training and
looked for any excuse to get away from set off to San Diego to begin the most im-
the computer and into the lab, greeting portant transformation of my life. When
families and spending time directly with the time came for teaching practice, I
the infants. My initial, almost clinical awe reached out to Mary Reinhardt, and I
of the infant’s developing brain shifted to once again found myself under the guid-
sheer admiration of the infant herself and ance of my very first teacher. “Full circle!”
the great potential unfolding within her everyone noted. Then, six years later, the
tiny but powerful mind. very same week that my time living and
I pursued a graduate program in teaching in Manhattan was coming to a
Child Development with an emphasis close, The Montessori School was seeking
on child-centered work experience and a new Toddler teacher. Life is a beautiful
considerable flexibility in designing my sequence of attachments, transforma-
own course of study (which appealed im- tions, and separations. I could not have
mensely to the Montessori child in me). foreseen the sequence of transformations
Hannah and her dad, Gerry, walking to School (1990). My first fieldwork experience placed my life had in store that would allow me
me, quite fortuitously, as the assistant to return and make a new attachment
sought a few courses relating to the bi- in a play-centered toddler classroom. I to this exceptional School. And yet here
ology and psychology of the brain and gathered a great deal about communicat- I am, entering my second year teaching
nervous system. As I continued to follow ing with and observing toddlers, and as in this School that set the foundation for
my interests, unsure of where they would I reflected each day, I kept returning to me to find my life’s work—which hap-
lead, I found myself captivated by brain Montessori. I began to read Montessori’s pened to bring me right back to this very
development. How could the functions writing in earnest, and I recalled from my School.
and processes of the brain possibly de- own experience at The Montessori School —Hannah Leonard, Toddler Lead
velop from nothing to the most complex to compare with what I was witnessing Teacher and Alumna Student (UE 2001)
thing in the known universe? I was in awe each day. Montessori’s words echoed in
when I realized the magnitude of neuro- my head as I observed the capability and
logical development that happens in the humanity of these small humans: “The
first three years of life. Study after study child is both a hope and promise for
confirmed, as Maria Montessori had de- mankind.” (Maria Montessori, Education
clared seventy years ago, there was “… and Peace). What a powerful sentiment,
no room for doubt: the first two years are and each day with those toddlers I felt
important forever, because in that period, its truth. It was humbling to think any-
one passes from being nothing into being one could have looked at me as a small
something.” (Maria Montessori, San Remo child and seen promise and hope, and yet
Lectures, 1949). I spent much of my senior looking back on my childhood I knew I
year working in an Infant Cognitive De- had been offered that profound level of
velopment Lab, reviewing research, col- respect. I knew at my core that Montes-
lecting data, and designing my own study sori just made sense—for every child,
in which I observed infants’ reactions to and now for me as a vocation. Hannah crawling through the tunnel on the Toddler
novel objects. The drudgery of daily data I applied to AMI (Association Mon- playground (1992).
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