As many of you know, I am currently teaching Preschool with a Montessori based curriculum. It’s interesting because I could launch into a big description of what it really means to be a Montessori school, but my Mom summed it up best: Clean, very neat, no plastic. As soon as she told me this it all made sense: the incredible attention to detail, the demand that children sit with two feet on the floor in their chair at all time, the abundance of wooden puzzles, the absence of dust (I know this because it is my Tuesday job). This is combined with the most eco-friendly person I’ve ever worked with, Ex: She has one garbage receptical, it lives under the sink, and it is actually a paper bag (that she reuses). This means that if I blow my nose in the bathroom I have to throw the tissue away in the kitchen.

All of this articulate, detailed-focused planning has caused me to question: is Montessori style training really this retentive? Or am I working with a neat, organized, and rigid person who has incorporated these character traits into her curriculum? I know I am new to teaching pre-school, but after years of working with 3-5 years old I’ve learned not to sweat the small stuff. I don’t really care if a child puts his artwork vertical into his folder so it sticks out a little instead of horizontal. I don’t mind if kids sit with their legs askew. It doesn’t bother me if a child is simply playing with the puzzle pieces instead of actually focusing on putting the puzzle together. Maybe I am too relaxed for this sort of education model.

I do understand that it is important to teach children organization and that the skills for this are wide and varied. I also feel like, with creativity, comes a little sloppiness. My mother-in-law constantly brings up the fact that she really believes Josh’s sister could have (should have) been an artist had she not been so focused on always cleaning up after her. “If I had only understood that art is messy then she could have had room to express herself artistically.” This brought me back to my own childhood art projects: painting an empty cardboard box orange, putting it on its side, my dad using an exacto knife to cut out little windows, and calling it a doll house. Or making a doll for my baby sister by cutting out a doll shape in old rags, stuffing it with toilet paper, using markers for the facial features, and taping the whole thing together. (I can recall laying the doll in my sister’s crib while she slept, not knowing that my Mom would later remove it for fear that Gina would destroy it). Typing out newsletters on my Mom’s old typewriter. Constructing large houses out of hard back books and blocks. I don’t ever recall the chore of having to put away any of these projects immediately upon completion, or feeling pressure to be clean, or aching for perfection. Is this personality? Or did my parents allow me the room to be creative?

Oh sure, Josh still marvels at my work space: half completed jewelry in one corner, an incomplete watercolor drying on the table (waiting for another layer of paint), supplies all over the desk, NOTHING IS PICKED UP. Why should it be? I’m still in the middle of all these projects, I need my supplies out, I don’t want to drag my paints out of a drawer. All my stuff sits on my desk (largely because storage is so tight in my work room). I’m pretty sure I carried this into my school life, my desk very neat and organized at the beginning of the week and then slowly falling into dissaray. Am I a huge slob? No way. Do I dust my house every Tuesday? Hell, no.

Therefore, it’s hard for me to ‘catch’ the children doing something untidy. It doesn’t even occur to me. I also feel like they’re young, with so much already on their plate (’how do I put my shoes on?’ How do I remember what the number 8 looks like?’), what’s important and what is overrated? If their yoga mat is folded, but it’s still messy, I don’t care: it’s still folded.