A Garden Day

Imagine what it feels like to be a child in the Garden of Flowers Montessori Classroom Community…

Imagine that you are 4 years old, coming from a poor family in Kabul, Afghanistan. Your parents (or parent), as loving and caring as they are, struggles to meet your needs. But each day you skip off to a special place that has everything a 4-year-old could need or want…

Tidy shelves are full of things that are beautiful and attractive and intriguing – and you are free to use whatever you want whenever you want! You build tall towers with blocks or create appealing geometric designs. You take gentle care of plants. You carefully carry a tray to a table to work with beautiful things –pouring water from a pretty ceramic teapot, or stringing colorful beads. You experience how big a number is by touching it (a cube made of 1000 beads!), and learn your letters by tracing them on sandpaper. Then you sweep and dust and tidy because it feels good to do things you see adults do, and it’s so satisfying to make things clean and beautiful.

You take as long as you want to do something.  No one hurries you. You sit wherever you want. No one tells you not to touch. No one tells that you have to do something. You can follow what your natural inner self wants to do, whatever attracts you, and this makes you stronger and confident. You feel safe.

Every day you are met by caring and gentle adults who listen to you and your classmates. You work with your friends, playing and chatting and sharing joy over a new discovery or a delicious lunch.

You take pride in brushing your teeth each day and washing your face and helping your friend brush her hair. You can’t wait to come to school each day, because your day is full of exploration, beauty, friends, good food, and warmth and love. Sometimes you even want to come to school on Friday, the day off!

Gradually you find yourself feeling calmer and stronger. And you know that YOU can do more than anyone thought you could! You are getting ready for the rest of your life in a land that everyone else is worried about.

But you’re not worried or afraid, because you have had the chance to build yourself. You are experiencing what it feels like to do something for yourself and how to help others.

You are becoming your best self.