My Background...Extended Edition
“A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.”
The Need
I hadn’t quite had two full years of motherhood under my belt when I first started to realize the problem creeping up: My little toddler needed a little more than my “winging-it” approach was providing.
Come to mention it, I needed more structure and intentionality that winging-it gave me.
Flying by the seat of our pants had been great for the first part of our stay-at-home-mom journey, but that strategy was running out.
“First Draft” Idea Dump with a Friend
Conveniently, I had another friend who had left teaching at the same time and had her baby within a week of me. She felt it too.
I texted her after a shower lightbulb...that’s a thing, right? (Side note: I’ve heard that the shower is where most good ideas are generated. Something to do with being inundated with media and other people’s thoughts throughout the rest of our day, and the shower is our only safe place with no technology or media to allow us to escape our own thinking.)
Through texting, we began to brainstorm what a mommy preschool co-op could look like. We’d keep it low key (haha), invite a few other moms in, and take turns each week providing and preparing a lesson or activity for the week. How hard could it be?
The Idea Grows
Two teacher brains can be a powerful, dangerous force to be reckoned with. A cup of coffee and a play date + mommy talk later and we had an idea.
Why not expand it to include an in-home setup? One of us could just dedicate space from our home to the families involved. We’d rotate through a lesson or two each week, share the burden with a few other moms, and have scheduled time where we focused just on pouring into our kids.
But then we’d need to get certifications. And what if moms wanted this that couldn’t contribute to the teaching side of it? And if someone was using their own home space, shouldn’t she be compensated?
What would it take to make this into an official preschool?
The Pursuit - Research, Research, Research
We had both come from public school teaching and had never fit the mold. Try as I might, I just could not keep my mouth shut during my public school days when our Wednesday team meetings had turned into discussions about creating tests, testing protocol, test results, testing follow-up, testing interventions….
It was soul-sucking.
Jenny and I got right to work researching how to provide a rich education without letting testing be the be-all, end-all. We wanted something authentic. Something timeless. Something flexible. Something individualized.
We were done with the testing. Done with the trend-chasing. Done with the cookie-cutter. Done with the “rigorous” standards and timeline that turned teachers and students into slaves.
What else was out there?
Montessori.
Some emails, a Montessori school visit, and a bit of reading later, and we knew this was what we were about to pursue.
I still remember sitting down on the couch with my husband after putting the kids to bed. I asked him, “Do you think we should do this? Do you want me to be involved? Because remember, if I say I’m doing this with Jenny, she’s a do-er...and that means if we start it, it will happen.”
That was the scary part. (Well, the first one anyway.)
The research snowballed. Not only were we former public school teachers trying to re-learn child development under a new approach to education, but we were also trying to learn to be entrepreneurs.
The spiderweb of what we had to learn seemed to tangle us and lead us into new spiderwebs with each click in the Google search bar.
But we kept going.
Write, Work, Write, Market, Write
Before we knew it, we were obtaining “Google degrees” in marketing, law, business management, and Montessori teaching.
With two kids, I was the one less free to gain official Montessori certification, so I became the point person for our documents that needed drafting.
I nerded out on handbooks, contracts, online media, list-making, promotional materials, school document organization, enrollment packet, and more.
We started with nothing, and pretty soon our little school startup idea was eating up 40% of my Google Drive.
School Begins
Fast forward through a few parent meetings, flying enrollment, building hunting, a generous sponsor, and a few more months, and we were standing at the door waiting to welcome our first students.
We had done it!
So many times throughout our first school year we’d stop in shock, turn to each other, and marvel at the fact that we were working in a school that didn’t exist anywhere except our minds just one year ago.
We continued to learn and grow and obsess over all things Montessori. We simply couldn’t believe that with a little lot of work, there was another approach to education that didn’t treat every student as the same brain.
We were happy. The students were happy. And we were gaining interest.
Teaching + Business
You can’t start a school and be done. We wanted something that would outlast us. Because these kids would outlast us. And they needed this to feed their curious minds for the duration of their young educational career.
So, we worked our booties off during the school day, and between nap/prep breaks plus our evenings and weekends, we ran the business needs of the school.
It was exhausting.
Documents that we’d drawn up before being in operation needed to be modified now that we saw the school in action. Parents needed to be contacted and communicated with. The community outside of our families needed to know what we were doing, what it looked like. Certifications had to be maintained. Licenses renewed.
On top of that, we were still trying to be good wives, moms, and community members. We were stretched thin.
Not to mention my husband had received an offer for a Master’s program that would require our family to move.
Our hearts were full, and our plates were overflowing.
Preparing to Help from Afar
Interest and demands grew for our little school of 24 students + 2 teachers. The model we had started with had served its purpose but was no longer sustainable.
Mix in a worldwide pandemic, and it made for quite the eventful first year of operation.
As I prepared with my family for our next chapter, I continually brainstormed how I could help from afar.
Obviously, I would not be making a 3.5-hour commute each morning and evening to continue teaching at the school.
But enrollment for the next school year had now more than doubled, and Jenny plus a new team of four more teachers would be serving 50+ students.
How could I support them?
Teaching with the school wasn’t an option for me anymore. The business side of things could be done from anywhere, but most of that would require me to be more of a middle-man and likely muddy the lines of communication. A possibility, but probably not the ideal setup at this young stage of the school still.
Marketing and writing.
I knew the ins and outs of the school and the Montessori approach well enough to help continually communicate this with families and our community.
I would write blog posts to help people understand the insane genius of the Montessori methodology. Additionally, I could communicate just enough with the teachers in the school every day to write the monthly newsletters for the school.
This plus helping with document drafting and website content would at least eat into a little bit of the workload.
The Dream Continues to Grow
But it couldn’t stop there. See, now that I’d discovered for myself and my two children what Montessori was, I’d gone in too deep to leave it at that.
I was no longer tainted and frustrated with education. I had a new excitement for our next generation and the possibilities that opened up by simply giving them a chance to love learning.
Our little school had doubled, yes. We had grown from preschool-age to now have toddlers through 3rd graders, yes. We had plans and space in place to grow our school all the way through the middle school years, yes.
But this now became in me a need to make our little school part of a bigger movement. It couldn’t stop there. The state of our world and our country demands that we redefine education. New problems have very much called for new solutions.
And I believe that many answers lie in how we educate our children.
While I can’t be a teacher in every new school startup, I have learned a bit about the demands of a newer school. I’ve also learned a lot about the business side of schools (and businesses in general) that aren’t government-funded.
I believe now, more than ever, we need to raise the alarms. There are better ways to educate our children, and it can reshape the way our babies - and society as a whole - solve problems.
Through writing, I hope to bring a life and excitement to parents, teachers, and families looking for more. I hope to help schools clearly communicate what they’re about. I hope to connect communities and bring a new vigor back into education.
Tweaking tests and adopting new trends doesn’t fix traditional public school education. It. Isn’t. Enough.
I want to be there for the innovators. The do-ers. The I-have-too-much-on-my-plate-but-other-people-really-need-to-know-about-this-awesome-approach-to-education...ers.
Education needs to be redefined. It needs to be rewritten. And that’s why I’m here now, fingers pounding away at the keys.
For you.
Let’s rewrite education.