I once had the simple chance of meeting a child called Jade. I’d never given much thought to children, really, until one suddenly opened my eyes to what I’d missed. There is something we must revere in children, nothing short of magic; I can only assume it is childhood itself. Henceforth, I became childhood’s apprentice.

    As I started paying more attention to kids, I very early added to my list of rules in life to never talk to kids like they’re kids. Do you know what I mean? People talk to children as though they’re less intelligent; people talk to children in the same voice they use on their pets. I still distinctly remember really not liking that as a kid, being condescended to. And I found that kids responded to me when I treated them simply, without patronizing. More and more, I learned to treat them with the trust and dignity that all people deserve^?“Those who trust us educate us.”– George Eliot, not the less-in-proportion-to-their-size most adults seem to afford. All of the sudden, even at a glance, children seemed to sense that I respect them. And it’s true.

    Eventually, I sought out the works of Jean Piaget, Maria Montessori, Rudolph Steiner and other pedagogues. I steeped myself in education. I read books and discovered amazing things. The study of these works and the young people in my new social milieux, however, didn’t aim for professional ends. Having majored in physics, childhood education wasn’t exactly the logical career path; I never thought I’d be a teacher. Instead, I recognized that to understand childhood is a pathway in which to understand ourselves^?As I discovered later:“The main difference in the effectiveness of teaching comes from the thoughts the teacher has had during the entire time of his or her existence and brings into the classroom. A teacher concerned with developing humans affects the students quite differently from a teacher who never thinks about such things.”– Rudolf Steiner. Somewhere along the line, I realized, I’d let my own childhood wane, my own magic. Thankfully, Jade and her contemporaries were excellent gurus.

    With the momentum of my growing interests, I eventually did start working with kids professionally. That is to say, I got a job teaching three- and four-year-old children how to ski. The next summer, I landed a gig at a daycare center in Yosemite. “Good morning, my friends!” my morning routine would begin, “What do you want to do today?” This one question was essentially the entire scope of my job description. So I did a lot of trail hiking, bike riding, cave exploring, rock scurrying, tree climbing, river swimming, bridge jumping, log floating, et al. Many untold riches of life may be found in the joys that belong to a Mark Twain novel. Among other fantastic places. You can see where this was going, right? The game was on.

    A couple of years later—years enlivened with daycare, babysitting and other proto-pedagogical endeavors—I finally made the decision. I did want to be a teacher, everything in my life has pointed me to this. Thus, I set out one February morning, for lack of any good reason otherwise, to New Zealand. Having little more in my résumé than presence and enthusiasm, I walked (quite literally, in most cases) from school to school. I toyed for months on the edge of poverty and nominal homelessness on the other side of the world. I was determined. I worked, searched and yearned to find a job. Eventually, miraculously, I found myself in a Montessori school in Australia, teaching 4^th-6^th Grade. A couple of years later, I was teaching high school science as well.

    Now, after sixteen years in these and other classrooms, after full training in Montessori and a master’s degree in teaching, I move forward once again. The search never stops, for the need to grow never ceases. I’ve worked with students anywhere from three- to eighteen-years-old; I’ve communed with parents, children, teachers and management; I’ve witnessed the modi operandi of countless educational paradigms diverse across six of the seven continents. I have tasted the myriad-fold rewards of being an educator, evaluated my intentions and practices, and I have shattered my preconceptions about what a “classroom” is in the first place. Everyone, everywhere is striving for the best they can get in education, and children worldwide are filled with what Rudyard Kipling called “insatiable curiosity”. I have explored the world with inquiring, creative, constructive minds. As it turns out, having a degree in physics is decidedly useful for a childhood educator.

    I don’t know if everyone’s path into being an educator is unexpected^?“Anyone who believes that it is possible to educate the will without cultivating the insight that enlivens it is succumbing to illusion. Clear-sightedness on this point is a task for present-day pedagogy, but it can come only from a life-filled understanding of the whole human being.”– Rudolf Steiner, but I think that perhaps a winding way and variegated experiences help sculpt a balanced education. I come now to Maine more determined than I was even at the onset of my quest. The timing is at once ill-formed and perfect: my career needed no movement at all, but I am precisely positioned at this unique point in my life to take a chance on something I deeply believe in. I’ve come now to Maine to find, join, collaborate in, or even create anew a place in which to set down our long roots (or one single, strong, collective tap root, to borrow a phrase from the botany curriculum.) Thereon, we will lay our adamantine foundation with and for all the generations of children who come to imagine, learn, share, borrow and contribute.

    Gazing on all that is happening, I am amazed at its weaving. I look with both eyes peeled, and whenever I glance down at where I’m standing, I realize that the edge of believable is a few steps further than I’d thought. Part of the magic that I gleaned from Ol’ Jade (and she is old now!) is that if you keep your focus and attention gazed at the unknown, the ledge of understanding will shift ahead before you. I learned then that if one keeps inching onward, face forward against the temptation of turning back to perform one’s own perfunctory sleights-of-hand, then any next step might just be onto solid ground. The edge will be gone, but not the mystery.

    This is the dream of a Childhood’s Apprentice. This is my dream.

Understand, I’ll slip quietly
Away from the noisy crowd
When I see the pale
Stars rising, blooming, over the oaks.
I’ll pursue solitary pathways
Through the pale twilit meadows,
With only this one dream:
You come too.
(Rainer Maria Rilke)