Most students don't learn how to measure liquids by pouring rice between, cups or tieing their shoes with fake shoes glued to a board or sorting dried beans. That is just a page of the book The Teachings of Maria Montessori. After 11 years of consecutive hands-on learning, every year of my educational learning came from one school until high school. 

When I was in 5th grade I remember a new kid had just joined us in Ms. Basmagy’s class. Her name was Camila. A few days or so prior, I was told about her in private by my teacher and I was reminded of this the day she came in when my teacher pulled me aside and asked: “Can you please help Camila feel welcomed to the class?” I was overjoyed to be chosen as the student to be Camila's mentor in the beginning. On her first day, she walked in with purple glasses, and braces and stood nervously by the door with her mom. Her parents towered over her with the comfort of smiles and Spanish. She and I often got to school early, her driving from TJ and my mom as a teacher being there at 8 on the dot, daily. Somedays this even meant “Early Moring Care”, cold mornings with coloring pages and only a few other students. That first day, at 8:15 am, I ran up to her, practically skipping I couldn't contain my excitement, smiling so wide my dimples puckered into my face. 

“Hi, my name is Tamsen! You must be Camila, right?” 

She replied with a soft yes, and after my short introduction, I began to show her around our small classroom. As I did more students filed in and I cut them looks as they tried to claim my new best friend, she was my responsibility, after all, Ms. Basmagy asked me to. I mean I was one of her favorite students. Camila began to thaw as I showed her around and she started to feel more comfortable around me, this made me feel 1.) great about my ability to make new friends and 2.) feel like a stellar student, I knew what I was doing. If I was graded on making a new friend, I was using it. 

I had never really considered what it was like to go to another school before going to MMS, until her. She told me of the bullies at her old school, mean kids who were mean for no reason. My knowledge of bullies: they probably are hurting someone because they are hurting, or they are insecure. But, I never really had to think about bullies they were as rare as a 4 leaf clover at MMS. And just like a four-leaf clover, they were plucked from the ground like the weed they are when they are found. Expelled was the word they used, I think there were barely even 3 kids expelled to my knowledge before I graduated in 8th grade, 3 students in nearly 11 years. 

When I joined the high school I felt like a literal fish out of the water, flopping around, dehydrating, and almost always by itself, because realistically you’re lucky if you can even catch one. I hadn’t realized how Camila had felt that one faithful day in 5th grade until high school, new schools are not easy. My first day was hectic, and all the friends I had made a week prior in our school's form boot camp, were nowhere to be found. In Montessori I always strived for perfection, I always have. Perfect grades and being a teacher's pet meant I would make it somewhere, I meant something, I was special.  This was my only instinct in high school at first. Obviously, those goals were not always obtainable, and I adjusted as one does. Long story short, high school changed a lot about me but every once in a while, I go up to a new student and ask the same question I did nearly 7 years ago “do you want to be my friend?”.