The Earth Goes Around The Sun

This past week, my grade school teacher celebrated her 79^th birthday and with that momentous occasion came an internal avalanche of memories from my childhood causing me to become completely consumed with my grade school past.

It will certainly come as no surprise to anyone who knows me, but really and truly, I spend nearly all my time obsessing over this blog. As soon as I post one update, I am frantically thinking about what to post for my next one. I labored all week long over what my next topic was going to be and just now, fittingly enough, sitting here at my friend Katie and Jon’s kitchen island it came to me.

I say fittingly enough because Katie is a grade school teacher and as I have spent so much time lately thinking about grade school, I decided it was time to take you all on a trip through those big, old, beautiful, green Montessori doors.

I had the privilege of attending Metro East Montessori School in Granite City, Illinois from Kindergarten through the sixth grade – with the exception of third grade – and I absolutely loved every single second of it. As I sit here now and do the math, I am realizing that I spent nearly the identical amount of time in college as I did grade school – oof – that’s rough, but my fondness for my elementary years eclipses anything felt towards my college ones.

Montessori is a school unlike any other. One that allows the child to truly discover his or herself through a self-disciplined education, one free of time restraints and gridded desks, one that promotes a child to pursue his or her passion in learning by allowing them to focus on what interests them the most. According to their website, Montessori is a view of the child as one who is naturally eager for knowledge and capable of initiating learning in a supportive, thoughtfully prepared learning environment. It is an approach that values the human spirit and the development of the whole child – physical, social, emotional, and cognitive.

Reading that statement does little for the true understanding of just how amazing Montessori is, but while the system allows for a unique learning environment, one including free range and uninterrupted work, it would not be nearly as successful without the guidance of the dedicated Montessori teachers and staff.

Montessori puts three grades in a single classroom to work and learn together allowing the older, more experienced students to help guide their peers through their lessons. There are typically far less students at a Montessori school than a traditional one, so three grades in a room equates to about the population of a singular classroom elsewhere. When I said earlier that my grade school teacher turned 79 I meant just that – Mrs. McGivern was my grade school teacher – literally all grades of grade school. While she personally taught grades first through third, she was the headmistress of our school and was omnipresent in every single one of her student’s educations.

Initially, I was unaware that it was Mrs. McGivern’s birthday, but fortunately for me, I have become very close friends with my former Montessori teacher’s aide and original love of my life, Jamie, and she made certain that my Montessori peers and I were all aware of Mrs. McGivern’s big day.

Let me tell you all what, when I was in the first grade, I was like Beyoncé and Jay-Z level Crazy in Love with “Mrs. Jamie” – as all her students affectionately called her – so much so that I even told her I was going to marry her one-day. Well, one day when I was in the second grade, she broke the news – and my heart – that she was going to be getting married and I vividly recall being down right disgusted with her. There I was at eight years old standing out by that old swing set telling her what a terrible mistake she was making by marrying that man and that there was no doubt about it, their marriage was not going to last. Turns out that I was right, but she did get an amazing daughter out of it, so it definitely was not all bad.

The above passage should be especially notable to ALL my friends – I want you all to see – even at eight I had absolutely no problem telling someone I loved exactly what I thought of their life choices. I did not care for one single second that Jamie thought she was in love and wanted to marry that man. I knew she was making a BIG mistake and I was going to tell her because that is what true friends do, they tell one another when one is making poor life decisions. Y’all remember this the next time you wanna think I’m just being a bitch, I’ve really just been true friending y’all since day one.

While my young love for Jamie has worn off, my friendship love for her has only grown stronger. Both she and I married our soulmates last summer and the four of us have had the fortune of spending a great deal of time lately in one another’s company. This has provided us with many opportunities to reflect on our Montessori years and really laid the groundwork for the past week that my mind spent in days of Montessori past.

When I sat down that day to write Mrs. McGivern a birthday email, I decided to take the time to tell her just how important she was to my nurturing and development as a child and how her incredible life lessons have molded me into a better adult. The Montessori method on its own is incredible, but the Montessori method under Mrs. McGivern was a journey through the acceptance of individuality. I do believe that I failed to recognize all that I was being exposed to at the time, but when I look back now, it is impossible for me to miss.

Mrs. McGivern led a school that was extremely diversified in cultures, religions, and overall, ways-of-life and never once was any one of those given prominence over another. We took fieldtrips to various synagogues, so that we may learn the ways of Judaism; we spent a great deal of time learning the Japanese and Taiwanese traditions of our peers; we took several trips a year to Powell Symphony Hall and watched the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra perform, so that we gained an appreciation for the fine arts; we took fall and spring overnight trips to Camp DuBois in Southern Illinois, so that we would understand the importance of protecting and valuing nature and all the wonders it has to offer; when we would do a thorough research project on an animal species or piece of art and then present it to the class, we would be rewarded with a personal field trip to places like the zoo or the art museum, whichever best corresponded to our research. These experiences were all part of the Montessori curriculum and offered my peers and I far more than we could have ever of received sitting in a classroom at a desk all day.

While Montessori most certainly defined my past, it is very much alive and well in my present and future as well. My new good friend Abby currently teaches grades first through third at a school in Godfrey, Illinois and one of my best friends ever, Amanda, was the teacher’s aide at a school in Dana Point, California. It makes me so happy to have these two in my life to talk Montessori with because Montessori means so much to me and my foundation as an individual that it is nice to discuss experiences others have had or are having at places that are both similar and unique from my own.

After third grade elsewhere, I returned to Montessori for the fourth grade and when I did, it was slightly different than when I had left. While Jamie and Mrs. McGivern were still there as well as the remaining supporting staff of the P.E., music, and Spanish teachers, there was a new face, one that was merely wearing the mask of Montessori, but like anyone who wears a mask, eventually it has to come off.

Early that year I had the unique opportunity to go and spend the night at the St. Louis Zoo with my friend and fellow student Jonathan and our teacher at the time, “J Heart,” as she preferred we call her. Jonathan and I were always doing research on animals, so J Heart thought this was a wonderful opportunity for us and while she definitely wasn’t wrong, she managed to make the event all about herself, which was an art she truly specialized in.

The three of us were a part of a much larger group of people who got to explore parts of the zoo that evening that were typically closed to the public like veterinary and maternity facilities. It was an amazing experience. I specifically remember us all sleeping on the hill near the old cheetah sanctuary, a part that has since become the River’s Edge, but long before that, we had to introduce ourselves to the larger group and when it was our trios turn, J Heart stood up and spoke for the three of us.

“Well, hello everyone,” she said with her big fake J Heart smile. “I’m J, this is Ben, and that’s Jonathan running to the bathroom, and we’re just the family of the Heart.”

This may seem innocent enough, but it was just the beginning of an all around embarrassingly bizarre evening. Jonathan had the foresight that J Heart was surely going to embarrass us, so he did in fact take off running to the restroom, but because he did so, he ended up leaving me feeling more embarrassed than even he did upon returning and learning what she had said. While I remember being embarrassed by nearly everything at ten, this really took a toll, but truly served as a precursor for all the awkward moments I experience now. This is probably why I no longer get embarrassed. I wore that emotion out of me in my Montessori years.

While J Heart preached about inclusivity and individualism like Mrs. McGivern, Jamie, and the others, she was really just Gilderoy Lockharting us (Harry Potter reference for those who don’t know) by pretending to be someone she was not. She preached all about the importance of reading and how one can experience a walk through another’s shoes solely through reading a book, but all I remember reading in her year were the four Lord of the Rings novels. Looking back, I can now see that she was one of the most disingenuous people I have ever known for rather than guiding her students to arrive at their own decisions, she spent so much time manipulating us to follow hers. While she may have fooled everyone in the beginning, her act was one she proved incapable of maintaining and through a series of unfortunate events on her own behalf, she left our school, making way for one of my life’s greatest heroes.

After the Energy Vampire that was J Heart, Montessori needed someone who was the absolute polar opposite and Mrs. McGivern delivered just that. Ms. Rebecca Reimann was like our very own Mary Poppins. While she claimed that her commute each day began and ended in Belleville I am still not entirely convinced her home location wasn’t actually Heaven for she truly was an angel.

Ms. Reimann was the most sincere, compassionate, wise, respectful, and genuine person I have ever known. She was the friend that everybody would want and the teacher that everybody deserved. If by some chance she had any faults we never once saw them. She breathed new life into Montessori and into us all. Her brand of humor was quirky, yet hilarious, and she could effortlessly bring out the positive in any situation, regardless of how dire it may have seemed. Like J Heart she also had an affinity for literature, however, unlike her predecessor, she had us reading books that truly allowed us to immerse ourselves in another’s experience. Her focal point was books highlighting the horrors of the Holocaust as told through a child’s eye such as The Diary of Anne Frank, Friedrich, and Number the Stars amongst others. Reading and discussing these novels with Ms. Reimann served as a humbling experience, one that helped remind me that my life was pretty spectacular compared to those we studied. Not only did she illustrate compassion in everything she did, but she taught us the importance of having compassion in everything we do, and out of all that compassion we learned gratitude for all we had.

Sadly, on Christmas Day 2009, at the young age of 51, Ms. Reimann lost her battle to cancer. I will never forget riding home that evening from my aunts in Springfield and before we even got on the interstate I received the news from my childhood best friend, Daniel. Suffice it to say, I cried the entire hour back home. It will forever stand out as one of the saddest days of my life because as I hope you can tell she meant so, so much to me. I vividly recall a heartbreaking picture her daughter shared on Facebook just a few months before her passing that really showed what a toll the cancer was having on her and even though they were both closed, you could see the sad defeat in her eyes. I never think of her in that way, but as I type this now, that image has returned to me and with it the tears down my cheeks.

That picture was so unbelievably powerful to me because she was such a powerful person who had such a tremendous impact on so many and to see her suffering like she was is something I cannot ever forget. None of us will get out of this world alive, but none of us deserve to go like she did – especially not her – she was an absolute saint and I will forever remember her as such. Remember there are two sides to every coin she wrote me in my graduation card and those eight simple words will forever be the best advice anyone has ever given me.

I have said it many times throughout this entry, but I will say it once more, I owe so much of who I am today to my Montessori past. Ms. Reimann will forever be the pinnacle of my life’s influencers, but so much of that was because she became a part of this amazing community that truly allowed her to be the dynamic individual she already was. This obviously wasn’t exclusive to her for it allowed each and every single person who passed through those big, old, beautiful, green doors to express their individuality in ways that no other place did. This was the Metro East Montessori difference and this was the lifelong gift that Mrs. McGivern gave to each and every single one of us. So while it may have been her birthday just the other day, looking back now, I see that she was the one who truly gave all us the gift.

This blog has provided me with an amazing platform to share my life’s journeys and I am thankful for everyone’s continued support. Next week I plan on sharing FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER a passage from my brother-centric novel. This is a BIG step for me and I want to take it alongside all of you. So again, thank you all and remember, you are simply the best!