Ben Tucker, Parent Alumni

“In 2009 we were looking at options for Ben as he was entering into his Kindergarten year. We attended an open house that spring and met with Paula Vargas there. As she explained the Montessori method and philosophy to us, we instantly fell in love with it as an education and enrolled Ben that fall in the primary program with Lisa VanVechten. The following year we put Evie into Lisa Maltese’s class as a first year primary and thus started our WMS education. 

We ended our 8 years there in 2017 with Ben having completed through 6th grade and Evie through 4th, moving them to Allendale Columbia.  I had concerns about them moving to a more traditional educational system, worried that they missed things, that they wouldn’t be ready. The opposite turned out to be true.

Both kids were more than ready for the rigor of Allendale, but it was beyond the academics that I realized the true value of the Montessori education. Montessori taught my kids to think, to research, to come to their own conclusion. So many times at WMS they would ask their Directress a question. Instead of being spoon fed the question, it was so often turned around to them and they were encouraged to find the answer themselves. They learned to do research to write conclusive papers starting in first grade. I remember the day that Evie came home in January of that first year telling me that she was going to learn how to write a research paper, something that she had been doing for 3 years already. 

Beyond that they learned how to be both learners and teachers in the classroom. Through the benefit of being in class with mixed-grade levels, as the younger students they learned from the older. As they moved through the 3-year cycles that turned later into helping the first-year children learn. This greatly re-enforces what they know and gives them confidence and a sense of accomplishment. 

As both kids moved through the program I watched in wonder as my 4 and 5 year olds did division, multiplication, learned about plants, people, cultures. I remember walking by Nicole Franchot’s room when Evie was in first grade and hearing her teach them about the stock market crash of 1929.  Being the only school philosophy they had known, this seemed perfectly normal to me, and it was… for a Montessori trained child.

Today both of my kids still carry with them the foundation that was built at WMS. They can think critically, they learn by doing, they challenge themselves. And while today they are focused on more traditional rote learning and tests, they speak fondly of their time at WMS and the community that they had there. 

Because lastly, WMS is more than a school. It’s a family, all of us. I learned that when our own family had a personal tragedy and the whole school pitched in to be there for us. Everyone was supportive and I knew that everyday when I sent my kids off there, it was with a group of parents, teachers and administrators who were there to watch out for them and care for them in the same way I would have at home. 

I can’t say enough about this school, this method, and the people that it has helped my kids become.”