As you might have noticed: I’m a stone cold weirdo. Some of this might just be my natural charm, but I suspect that my upbringing and specifically the unique variety of schools I attended had something to do with it.
I was extremely lucky that my Mom always put my education first. She started a college fund for me when I was born and added to it throughout my life. Unfortunately, due to the insane increase in college costs, that invested money only ended up being able to pay for one semester, but I digress.
When I was growing up, the public schools in Georgia were ranked some of the worst in the nation. My Mom helped me get scholarships and often worked multiple jobs to make sure I could attend (what she considered) the best schools. That ended up including a Montessori School, an All Girls’ School, a Liberal Arts College and, for one summer, a Georgia Public School (don’t ask). Let’s dive into how these experiences shaped who I am today.
The Montessori School
In case you don’t know what Montessori School is: It is an education method created by the wonderful Maria Montessori over 100 years ago and it’s basically a child-centered approach to education. In my experience, that means it’s basically the opposite of standard school. There are no classes, no grades, no homework and no traditional structure.
A child decides what to do during their day. That could include anything our heart desired, such as writing and illustrating our own novel or reading the first Harry Potter book (it came out when I was 7) or performing science experiments (my favorites were the ones involving fire)!
Basically, Montessori school means that nothing you learn is forced upon you. You choose what you want to learn. For example, I noticed a triangular object on the shelf of our classroom and asked my teacher what it was. She taught me that it was a visual representation of the Pythagorean theorem. I started learning geometry when I was 10 because I asked a question. I asked another teacher to start teaching me Spanish just because I heard her speaking it. I started teaching myself HTML and building websites at 11 because I found a book about it in the library.
I attended Montessori school from pre-school through 6th grade and it instilled in me a deep curiosity of the world around me and a love of learning. I also learned how research and preparation can make an experience even more special. For example, I noticed a Japanese hibachi restaurant on the drive to school one day. I had never been to a hibachi restaurant and it looked exciting (uh oh…there seems to be a pyrophilia theme here…) and I wanted to go to this restaurant with my friends!
I mentioned it to a teacher when I got to school and she told me that if we did a project that was related, she would take us all out to the hibachi restaurant. How exciting! I got my friends together and decided what we found most interesting about Japanese culture and we each took a topic and developed a presentation around it. At 10 years old.
I chose Japanese calligraphy (I guess my love of calligraphy emerged early…) My friends chose other aspects of Japanese history and culture. There were diagrams and dioramas (this was before PowerPoint’s reign began). We had a great time putting together this information and sharing it and on top of all that, we got to see someone make a fiery volcano out of onion slices at a hibachi restaurant(!) and feel more connected to the experience because of what we had learned.
If you can’t tell, I absolutely loved Montessori school. At the time, it was the only type of school I knew and I am so grateful that I began there. As you’ll see, the other schools I attended were very traditional and I think if I had been in a traditional school my entire life, I would have burned out very early.
The All Girls’ School
Next up, I went to an All Girls’ School from 7th grade through high school graduation. I actually wanted to go to the international school in town to get a jump-start on learning languages, but my Mom insisted on this choice. In hindsight, I think it was the correct one. Learning how to suddenly navigate classes, homework, and grades was difficult enough without some of my classes also being in languages I didn’t know yet.
There have been conversations in our community lately about the value of single-gendered events and gatherings. In fact, my partner was curious and asked me the other day if I thought female financial retreats were helpful or necessary. I told him I absolutely thought they are for the same reason I found going to an all girls’ school so valuable with the added twist that finance is a space where women have historically been cast side and not listened to or just not included.
In general, girls are (in my experience) taught or encouraged to be docile while boys are taught the opposite. In the classroom this can create an imbalance where mostly boys raise their hands and ask questions. Add in weird hormones and the changes that go with adolescence and you have a recipe for…well not disaster, but not an ideal learning environment.
My experiences in my All Girls’ School allowed me to not be afraid of speaking up and asking questions. It taught me to be confident and secure in myself and not seek to impress boys in general, but also specifically not to make myself look like someone I’m not (for example dumb or docile) to get their attention.
This environment also took all the thoughts of dating and boys in general out of the classroom and moved them strictly into my personal life. My time at school was completely focused on getting straight A’s and founding organizations to pad my ‘resume’ and get me into a good college.
So single-gender education certainly might not be for everyone, but it helped me become the purple haired weirdo you see before you today. I basically have “I don’t give a fuck” tattooed on my forehead. Also in a way, the pressure of getting As in traditional school reminds me of traditional work environments and one of the many reasons I’m trying to get out ASAP.
The Liberal Arts College
My Mom graduated as the valedictorian of her high school. I was salutatorian of mine (only because a ringer joined senior year…I’m not still bitter – what are you talking about?!) My Mom studied super hard in high school and college to get a chemical engineering degree from a technical college and then a MBA from the best program in the nation. She worked hard constantly and rarely did anything fun.
So when I got into a fancy liberal arts college, (that my guidance counselor point-blank told me I’d “never” get into – Suck it Ms. WhatsErName!) my Mom told me to do the exact opposite of what she did. Despite the cost, she told me to obviously graduate, but above all to enjoy myself. And that’s what I did.
I had spent all my high school years killing myself to get A+s, collect extracurriculars and study for standardized tests. I actually got stomach ulcers a few times from the stress of it all. I rarely slept more than 6 hours a night. So when I got to college and had received this encouragement from my Mom, I completely followed her advice. I only chose classes I was interested in and didn’t take difficult ones I wasn’t sure I’d even like ‘just because.’ I enjoyed my life and up to that point, college was the best time of my life.
The curiosity that was nurtured in Montessori was back! I took classes and labs in astronomy, improv classes and classes on Ancient Egypt. I often actually read the insane amount of materials our professors foisted on us (instead of skimming) because I found them interesting. If given the choice, I lumped my classes together to have entire days off. My freshman year I had no classes on Tuesday, Thursday and obviously Saturday or Sunday. It was bliss.
I was learning and sleeping and hanging out with friends. I could create my own schedule and follow my natural rhythm of napping when I was sleepy, studying when I was alert and working when I felt motivated. My college experience is very similar to how I imagine my life after retirement. And I was happy.
Conclusion
My school experience has obviously been all over the place: from extremely structured to structureless. Trying all these different styles has helped me become the lifelong learner I am today and also identify what I don’t enjoy (traditional school or a traditional job). But overall I think the main things I learned through all this is that curiosity and confidence is key and that your enjoyment and happiness should always (if possible) be your top priority.
What was your school experience like? Do you think it helped shape who you are as a person?
You know how a while ago you had that post about how blogging helped you appreciate your job? This post helped me appreciate different types of schools and my job as a teacher.
I grew up in fairly traditional schools, with some art focus in there but my peers were also from very academic background so it’s what I knew. I’m a fairly orderly person who does well in structured environments and don’t necessarily enjoy risk.
I think each type of school has huge benefits to offer and should all take and learn from each other. The free exploration you developed in Montessori would be SO valuable to the students I’m teaching now. And man, the amount of hormones flying around in high school is no joke. I signed up to teach math, not be a relationship counselor!
So glad this resonated with you! It’s great you know what you like and need in academics (structured/less risk). I completely agree different types of school should learn from each other – and I think it’s high time that the usual school structure in the US is overhauled or at least edited. Super cool you think the free exploration model would help your kids now. Would you want to incorporate that into your lessons? And haha glad I’m not too far off about the hormones. If teen movies taught me anything high school is only about dating 😉 I’m not sure why they even show them in classrooms.
I’m trying to navigate incorporating less clear-cut problems into lessons to encourage them to explore. Kind of working but I’ve got a way to go 😛
Man, movies gave me such a biased view of high school. I was expecting huge dramas everywhere but my experience was quite positive and nerdy.
Glad you’re making progress! As for high school movies I actually thought all that was a wild exaggeration (I didn’t experience it either) until I got to college and some people told me that teen movies captured their experience accurately.
This is great to read and something we have really been looking into recently.
We both went to state schools in the UK so don’t have much first hand experience but have been doing a lot of research. The state school system here just seems so forced – kids being made to sit quietly and listen when all they want to do is play and explore just seems to be counter intuitive.
We also have family who attend a Montessori school and it sounds great! Your experience of this type of learning at a young age seems like a really good approach – as you say it can instil a real sense of curiosity and natural desire to learn.
Have you come across The Voluntary Life podcast? Or the School Sucks podcast? Both cover a lot of different education options and are really interesting, with a wide range of guests etc.
Yes – it seems SO forced and counter intuitive. If I had gone to a traditional school and been forced to sit in one spot all day and attend what are basically useless ‘meetings’ (I’m seeing a lot of school/work parallels here) I think my curiosity would have been snuffed out. I haven’t heard of those podcasts, but they sound super interesting – I’ll add them to my list!
Fascinating!! I love how your mom put your education first and encouraged you to make the most of college. I can totally relate to preferring self-directed structures/learning environments.
In college I also did the stack up classes to have more days off it was great! By my last 2 semesters, I had figured out how to know which classes needed my presence and which didn’t (some professors sent us their powerpoints with all necessary notes) so would skip most of them to study at home.
Finally I love your description of the Montessori approach and all you gained from it. We’ve read up a bit on it in the past tl simply organize our kids environment at home (art supplies available, kitchen arranged in ways they can help same with cleaning products, creative toys, etc) and on the different chores we can encourage our kids to participate in by age. Your article is motivating me to read up some more on this approach and keep applying it with our kiddoes however we can.
Very interesting article, as always ;)!
Ms Mod
Yeah she’s amazing. Looove self directed learning. Awesome job stacking classes! And that’s so cool you didn’t have to go to most classes! All of mine were really small so it would have been obvious lol, BUT when I went to an Italian university I was so happy to discover they didn’t care if we went to class – like at all. I traveled for most of those 6 months instead. It was amazing.
That’s so cool you’re using a Montessori approach at home!! And yes please read more about it and tell me what you learn 🙂 . I only experienced it first hand and haven’t looked much ‘behind the curtain’. So glad you liked it!
I was similar to you all through high school – working my butt off to get straight A’s. I did the same thing through university and graduate school (as much as you can in grad school). I don’t think that served me particularly well. The kind of validation I came to expect from school/grades doesn’t really exist in the working world. And then, of course, I discovered minimalism and realized that none of it matters (lol). I wish I’d had the experience of a Montessori school, I bet that would have been super cool!
Ugh I’m sorry you were in the same boat as me. And yeah the school structure with grades and set deadlines really doesn’t prepare us for the cluster that is work (with it lack of validation and ever changing deadlines and requirement to work with others at every turn). I was actually thinking about writing a post about that…I might need to add it to the official list. And if you’re curious about Montessori I’m pretty sure you can observe one even if you’re not looking to enroll a child.
i’ve always been a lazy student but ended up 3rd in my high school class. confidence was key when i got to college and got into every one where i applied, including an ivy. i even considered transferring to dartmouth from my big public university in virginia. my roommate at the time reminded me of the cultural fit: what are you gonna do freddy, show up to a dartmouth party with mustard stains on your sweatpants like you do here? that point was well taken. i liked the education at my elite liberal arts school but the social life wasn’t really my cup of tea.
Aw man I’m jealous of your natural abilities! And how’d you show confidence in the college application process? Were there interviews? Or if there’a way to write an application confidently please let me know 😉 . Cultural fit is key – the reason I applied to my college in the first place was because it was full of weirdos – there were some stereotypical uptight people, but generally all kind and generous ones with enough weirdos that I felt at home. And mustard stained sweatpants – I like your style (this is not a joke. I’m wearing a toothpaste stained shirt right now). It sounds like you made the right choice!
what did you go to skidmore or something? i had one interview for a full tuition scholarship, which i ended up getting, where they asked what i would do for the world if i got it and became an engineer. seemed like they were fishing for some kind of beauty pageant answer. i told them i would feel an obligation to go and get a job and provide for myself and my family. i also just hand-wrote all the essays, even for the blue blood places. nobody in my family had ever even attended a community college course so there was zero pressure.
Haha – no, but good guess. Nice answer to the beauty pageant question. And handwriting essays? Fancy!
The Montessori school sounds interesting. Do you think you thrived there because you were intellectually curious or did the school itself make you intellectually curious? I always liked learning but my sister, for example, probably benefited from a bit of structure. I think left to her own devices she’d have chosen to chew the heads off dolls and ram toy cars into the other children.
Good question! I think the latter (the school itself made me curious) based on the fact that apparently I didn’t like reading when I started school and now it’s my main activity after sleeping in time consumed. I don’t think I started out as a particularly curious person, but being in a room filled with unknown objects brought that out in me.
Also “I think left to her own devices she’d have chosen to chew the heads off dolls and ram toy cars into the other children” that is a VIVID and hilarious visual lol. I don’t think any one school structure is for everyone and if someone needs a bit more structure there is a wide range of other options – even including Montessori schools that just do things differently. Some DO have some classes, grades and homework.
Your mom sounds like a bad ass! I think I would have done much better in a Montessori school because I had trouble learning the “traditional” way and taking tests. It made me feel stupid early on and one has a tendency to live up to one’s own expectations. Sounds like you had a nice mix of different types of education.
Yes – I can confirm that she is a badass lol. She went sky diving for her 50th birthday. The woman’s crazy and I love her. Ugh I’m sorry you had trouble learning the traditional way and tests are THE WORST! I’m sorry that led to you feeling stupid – I hate it when structures try to force people into a box and then seem to highlight if they don’t fit in it.
What an excellent post. Well done again. It was so awesome to learn more about you through this angle of your upbringing. I love the part about how you learned about the Pythagorean theorem. What a powerful and unique way to learn!
I think your mom must be an amazing woman and be extremely proud of you.
This part stuck out to me:
“I was salutatorian of mine (only because a ringer joined senior year…I’m not still bitter – what are you talking about?!)”
I missed a year of school, received one A-minus because of attendance (causing what I thought was salutatorian status), but then my chorus classes were weighted differently. Three of my friends and I thought we were all salutatorian together until the actual day of graduation!!
I’m STILL not bitter! Ha. They went on to be doctors and lawyers. I took the defeat so hard with my black and white thinking, I dropped out of college for awhile…. It all worked out though:)
Right?! It also helped me a lot that the Pythagorean theorem example was a physical object. Going to Montessori also helped me discover that I’m a visual learner and it’s easier if an object isn’t just drawn on paper.
My Mom is indeed amazing 🙂 and she claims to be proud of me 😉 . Glad I’m not the only one ‘secretly’ bitter about silly school rankings. And oh no – that’s messed up they didn’t tell y’all who was in what rank beforehand. That must have sucked. And I’m sorry that outcome colored your thoughts on the future, but it does seem like it has all worked out! Personally I wouldn’t trade with my doctor or lawyer friends – they’re hella stressed out 😉 .
Pretty cool! I followed a more traditional educational path in our magnet program in Raleigh. But I took lots of electives that help me even today (or at least enrich my life). Electronics, home economics (basically, cooking), astronomy, tv production, etc.
In college I picked up a *omg* liberal arts degree on top of my engineering degree. I enjoyed some of those liberal arts classes more than the engineering classes from a purely fun/fanciful angle. I even audited one semester of French so now I can navigate a lot better in French Canadia, France, and probably several countries in Africa if/when I find myself there.
Sometimes it’s not about reaching the destination (a BS or a job) but about enjoying the journey along the way. Staring out the bus window, so to speak.
Those electives sound awesome!! I wish my school had stuff like that – though I guess I could just start learning myself if I wasn’t so lazy 😉 . Liberal arts on top of engineering – what were you thinking?! 🙂 Auditing French sounds super fun. I think I would have enjoyed language classes more without all the homework associated with it. Maybe I should look into auditing at UW…Completely agree it’s about the journey, not the destination and I love the analogy of starting out the bus window. That’s literally what I do on the bus here in Seattle lol.
I was in a traditional school environment my whole life and never knew anything else except for the additional home schooling lessons in languages that Mom conducted at home during summers. My parents were immigrants and doing what they could to make a living in a country they were strangers to, so they did the best they could with limited information. They did scrimp and save to send my (trainwreck) brother to a private high school with the hope that he wouldn’t be distracted by drama and dating, but his takeaway was the opposite of yours. I would wonder if it’s more beneficial for girls than boys but I don’t have enough info to make any call on that, it’s just a thought.
I think it was probably fine for me because it fit my personality type at the time, as I saw myself (a quiet shy follower, mediocre academically) but it’s hard to say if I wouldn’t have bloomed into the person I could be (current) sooner. Or maybe that all happened in the right time. I did make a lot of lifelong friends in the traditional system over the years though, so I don’t have any regrets.
I WAS intrigued by your Montessori experience, though, and am absolutely checking that out now. I wish I’d read this earlier and explored them a couple years ago, looks like we have a couple local Montessoris and maybe that would have been a great fit for JB.
Ze is so different from me that while ze does well with structure, I also observe that ze really enjoys our unstructured weekends too.
Oh wow – homeschooled language lessons sound really cool! Ugh I’m sorry that private high school didn’t work out for your brother. I would imagine single gender education is more beneficial for girls since they’re the disenfranchised group of the two and these separate spaces are usually needed for less privileged groups.
It’s hard to say who we would have become in different circumstances. I’m glad you become who you are even if it took longer than it might have in a parallel universe 😉 . Glad you have no regrets! And yes please check Montessori out and let me know what you think! Curious to see what the kiddos think too regarding the structure/structureless situations.
I don’t know if it’s a Bay Area thing but the local Montessori actually seems to be pretty academically focused. Maybe they are just REALLY good at making learning feel fun and self directed 😀
There seems to be a wide range of how Montessori schools are run (I saw differences just in GA Montessoris). Good to know they may be different in the Bay Area. And yeah maybe I was just brainwashed into thinking I made choices lol!
Love it! I was homeschooled until high school and I believe this is what made me successful in the education system– I wasn’t jaded with the public school system or classroom setting, but just excited for the opportunities it could offer that I didn’t have while being homeschooled. Being able to go on field trips all the time was a great plus of being homeschooled, though 🙂
I also taught at a Montessori preschool every summer during college and I think it’s a super valuable style of education.
Great post, Purple!
Hi fellow homeschooler! My partner was the exact same 🙂 . And that’s another great point – being jaded (instead of grateful) isn’t something I really touched on. Thanks so much for sharing your experiences! And that’s so cool you taught at a Montessori! Is my description accurate? My Mom told me that there actually was structure (like a set thing they tried to get us interested in learning a week or month), but I never noticed or felt like it lol! Or maybe that’s just what they told the parents 😉 . So glad you liked it!!
I loved this post. I think your perspective is so interesting because you experienced a little but of everything. As a public high school teacher, I am constantly trying to push the envelope within the traditional school setup, so I’m all for what you are talking about.
I think that creativity and risk taking are both major hurdles for high school students. There are lots of causes of that, but there is no doubt that a major cause is the traditional schooling that most kids have become accustomed to.
My question to you would be if you have kids down the road, what would you see as the ideal education for them? Is Montessori a viable option as children get into junior high and high school in your opinion?
Great post once again, I loved it!
So glad you loved it! And yeah I guess I did. That’s awesome you’re trying to push the traditional setup! And yeah it’s cray how different school is compared to work. I did not feel prepared for work life at all despite all my schooling. It’s a completely different ballgame.
We’re never having kids, but in a parallel universe I would send them to Montessori if they were interested or maybe World School them. I’d leave it up to them what they wanted (if they wanted to be in Montessori through junior and high school). A few of my friends did continue in Montessori through those stages and learned a lot. Thank you for stopping by!
I had mainstream schooling, but was in the ‘advanced’ stream in high school which I am so grateful for! I also got into the ‘performin arts’ stream and part of me wanted to take that route to push my boundaries but I’m thankful I didn’t, I would have hated it. I also chose not to do One Day School (a part time gifted programme) as I knew it would be a financial strain on my parents at the time, which I don’t regret.
Hubs speaks of wanting to homeschool our son … sigh.
So your husband would homeschool your son? Why sigh 🙂 ? My partner loved being homeschooled personally. Anyway, the advanced stream sounds rewarding. Why would you have hated going the performing arts route? And that’s so kind that you took the financial impact the gifted program would have on your parents – that seems like a surprisingly rare thing.
My school experience was a mix of everything in a traditional sense. I was in private school to start out then public school in junior high and finally an all boys private high school. Coming out of it, I thought that the quality of teaching was really good in private school as it should be since their was tuition involved. And with public schools, quality of education really depends on how much resources the school district provides for each of their schools. So if the districts provides minimal resources(not really pushing students to do great in their classes, not of lot of clubs, after school programs, etc..) then the reputation of the school is not really that high as opposed to public schools with many resources.
I’ve known about Montessori schools for a while and really liked you wrote your experience about it and how much you enjoyed it the non-traditional way of schooling. We are looking into Montessori schools for our 3 year old when he gets to Kindergarten.
It sounds like you’ve sampled a bit of everything – that’s awesome! That’s a great point about public school resources. I only attended one public school that was in a ‘good’ neighborhood and the instruction was still horrible – though maybe that place is actually above average for Georgia public schools. So cool you’re putting your son in Montessori! I hope he loves it as much as I did!
Really interesting perspectives here! I never realized Montessori schools were so open-ended. Seems crazy enough that it just might work!
Channeling my inner Montessori curiosity, the post made me wonder… How do they balance the gaps? Hypothetically is a kid has no interest in basic math, do they find ways to sneak lessons in?
Fascinating post.
Apparently not all Montessori schools are this open-ended, but mine was. Great question about gaps! I actually asked my Mom since I had no idea. Apparently they try to encourage certain subjects if a kid has shown absolutely no interest in it – for example apparently I had no interest in reading when I was in pre-K, which is crazy to me since it’s all I do now. So the teachers tried giving me different things to read instead of just straight up books and I guess it worked! So glad you liked the post! Thanks so much for stopping by.
You make a good point that an All Girls’ School can help you become more confident and not be afraid to speak up. This is helpful since my daughter will be going into high school soon and she’s really shy. I’ll have to look for a school I can enroll her in so she can gain more confidence.
I can obviously only speak based on my experience, but going to the all girls’ school helped me in that regard. Let me know how it goes!