Book 107 - A Year of Magical Learning

Reflection Title – I Want to be a Montessori Adult

Book – The Montessori Toddler: A Parent’s Guide to Raising a Curious and Responsible Human Being by Simone Davies

Book Description: Turn your home into a Montessori home—and become a more mindful, attentive, and easygoing parent. It’s time to change the way we see toddlers. Using the principles developed by the educator Dr. Maria Montessori, Simone Davies shows how to turn life with a “terrible two” into a mutually rich and rewarding time of curiosity, learning, respect, and discovery.

Reflection:

For my entire life up until I met Emilia, I absolutely dreaded “learning” activities. They bored me to tears. I hated learning in grade school, I hated learning in High School, I hated learning in college, and I hated learning in job trainings and continuous education seminars. It felt like a chore. It felt like I was always forced to follow someone else’s agenda. Not surprising, I went into every formal “learning” interaction carrying this attitude and treating the activity as such.

Don’t get me wrong, I did what I had to do. I did the work, got good grades, and conformed to what I was supposed to “learn”. I did it begrudgingly though. As soon as I was done, I would rush off to play, explore, and do what I wanted to do. Those times, after the learning, were when I was happiest and loving life. The sad thing is, I don’t remember hardly any of the formal “education” of my entire life whether it was school or work. What a waste!

The traditional education experience always made me think that maybe I just hated “learning”. I thought of learning as an event. To me, learning only happened in formal settings, in concentrated chunks of time, with someone else telling you the agenda and then testing your comprehension. Outside of these formal “events”, I did little to none of my own independent learning. I listened to a few podcasts, watched some documentaries, occasionally cracked open a book, etc. That was learning to me. It was no different than go to the dentist’s office…just something I had to do.

All that changed after I lost Emilia. I was so confused as to why this happened to her, myself, and my family. I had so many questions building up in my mind and no one around me with the answers. There was no class I could take or course I could sign up for…so I took matters into my own hands. That is essentially when this whole Year of Magical Learning adventure truly began.

It was at this moment that I began searching for knowledge about stuff that I cared about and wanted to learn. Fast forward 2 years later and I’m almost 200 books into this journey and never looking back. I’ve learned more about science, psychology, natural history, humanity, emotions, spirituality, biology, culture, etc. than I ever have in my entire life combined.  

If any educational institution or company asked me to do this, I would have ran for the hills and never looked back. I read recently in another book, Humankind: A Hopeful History, that there is nothing more powerful than a human being doing something because they want to do it intrinsically. No carrots or sticks are necessary, and I couldn’t agree more. I did all of this because I wanted to.

In taking this adventure, I found along the way that learning something new every day is something I really value. That is why it is now one of my core values and something I will do for the rest of my life. So, let’s all take a lesson from Dr. Montessori and move her philosophies out of the world of just children and classrooms and into ALL our everyday lives. Even as an adult you can still be curious, learn what you want, and explore the world. So start your own adventure and I promise you it will never get old. Here’s to being a Free-Range Adult!

Question: When was the last time you learned something because you wanted to?

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Links:

What is The Year of Magical Learning? An Introduction

YOML Podcast Discussion - The Montessori Toddler

YOML Bookstore - The Montessori Toddler: A Parent’s Guide to Raising a Curious and Responsible Human Being by Simone Davies