Montessori Starts Outside the Box

Other Good Things

Before we opened our school, over five years ago now, we spent a lot of time thinking about our mission at Baan Dek. We came up with a number of different phrases, and taglines, but none of them seemed to capture what we were after, until…

We finally arrived at the statement, “Independence to Learn. Education for Life.”

For us, with time to reflect, the phrase still captures the Montessori spirit that we were after, 1) offering and supporting the independence that is needed to develop a passion and interest for learning, while at the same time, 2) expressing that these tools and enthusiasms will last for a child’s entire life.

It also expresses one of our greatest tasks here at Baan Dek: to inspire children to think on their own. Another phrase that we like to use around here is that, Montessori starts outside the box. The video above illustrates our point perfectly.

Our friends at The Riverbend School, in South Natick, MA, even started their new campaign with the phrase. We were humbled and inspired when they contacted us. Hopefully the message will get across: “Learning to think, on your own accord, it’s a lesson that will last a lifetime.”

Here’s to Riverbend, and spreading the independence.