Parents, guardians, nannies, and overinvolved doulas, thank you for attending our open house and tour, where you’ll learn how a Montessori education can provide your child with the opportunities they need to grow and flourish. Our philosophy is complex and multifaceted, with years of research showing its efficacy, but if one were to try to simplify it, you could say that we’ve taken all the best parts of stoner culture and put it in the one place no one is allowed to get high. That’s right, at our Montessori School, we offer weed culture without the drugs.
Step right this way into the Hypatia Room, where students of all ages engage in tactile demonstrations of mathematics. In Montessori, we believe that a student needs to go from the concrete to the abstract, so for example, for young children to learn about numbers, we have them engage with these beautiful strings of beads that they can feel and count. As the child develops and begins work on more complex math, the beads get more complex too. When they get to long division, we focus on bohemian anklets. For fractions, we do hemp chokers with turquoise beads.
That’s right, in this Montessori School, we believe in the importance of being sober as a judge while tying natural stone beads into hemp. Some of you may be wondering if this really prepares students for high-level math classes. To you, our promise is this: By the time your child is in elementary school, they’ll be able to replace your basement door with a beaded curtain adorned with Grateful Dead skulls.
If that’s not real-world learning, then we don’t know what is.
Can you hear that? That is the sound of our drum circle starting outside. We hope that you and your child will take a moment out of your night to join in on the fun, sitting cross-legged in a circle with a variety of percussive world instruments and no drugs. That’s right, we’ve taken the best part of drum circles, and made them drug-free because in Montessori education, we believe that music plays an important role in developing gross motor skills and socializing for people of all ages. So please, plop down into the grass and, as clear-headed as a nun, improvise on a bongo.
And what’s that being passed around? No, nothing illicit of course. During our ever-popular drum circles, we pass around low-sugar Capri Suns for your children's enjoyment. While it has been argued by some parents at semesterly conferences, also known as “The Parent-Teacher Hang Sesh,” that high fructose corn syrup is a drug in its own right, at this point in time, we’re still offering it during our drum circles. You can rest easy knowing that your children are in great hands during this wholly improvised musical half-hour as our music teacher, Mr. Brian, used to be a roadie for Phish.
If all this work sounds exhausting, don’t worry: We’ve built in two to three hours of quiet time into every afternoon. Now, don’t mistake this for nap time, where a tyrannical teacher tells students they must nap. This is more of a transcendental “choose your own adventure” wherein each child decides how to chill out.
As you’ll see, some of these kiddos are drawn to the oversized bean bag chairs with the great view of the lava lamp. Others, who are more experienced in chilling, are more inclined to recline, letting themselves melt into one of the old La-Z-Boys, above which we project a constant loop of Bob Ross’s The Joy of Painting. Occasionally, Mr. Brian will pick up the old acoustic guitar and provide a backdrop of improvised noodling. With the cozy furniture, the music, and the television programming, we’re helping to create a space wherein both the children and the teachers can effectively relax, and even micro-nap, without the use of any microdose.
So if all of this sounds like something that your little “Sebastians” and “Adelaides” might enjoy, then we invite you to sign up for the fall semester. Mr. Brian is manning the sign-up table, where he’ll help you get registered after he first bends your ear for 20 minutes about his favorite bootleg recording of “Weekapaug Groove.” If you take that hallway and turn right at the blacklight poster of mushrooms dripping down in front of a tie-die moonscape, you’ll find him noshing on some grindage in the cafeteria. Just follow the smell of incense. But be warned, if you hit the Juggalo room, you’ve gone too far!
We look forward to providing your child with our very own version of drug culture without the drugs.