Julia Hilson, AMI trainer at the 0-3 level, has four children. Three of them went to a Montessori adolescent programme in America.
Julia spoke to a group of 30-40 Montessori parents in London last month, sharing the struggles and joys of allowing her children to be halfway across the world from her during their adolescent years.
Tara Grant, mother of Lili (age 4), reports.
Why did I go to the talk?
I wanted to hear first hand what her experiences were, this would mean that I could see her eyes, read her face and body language and gauge her emotions. Was she emotionally detached from her kids anyway? Or did she struggle with the decision she had made? I wanted authenticity and this you cannot get from a second hand recount or from reading an article about it.
With this intention I made the trek up to London, arrived, said some hellos, then settled myself down into a seat and unwittingly sat behind someone who might possibly be the tallest man I have ever met! I’m 6ft, so he could have been 7ft and some… This meant that in order to see Julia’s face and ‘read’ her I had to keep shifting in my chair and do a little swan dance with my neck. Despite this minor setback I was not disappointed with what I saw and heard as the message that came across was a very powerful and heartfelt one.
Julia and her husband did not just decide that in order to get the ‘best’ education they would send their kids half way across the world, rather they observed carefully where each child’s interest lay and provided options and possibilities for them, but ultimately left it up to the children themselves to have the final say and decide what they wanted to do.
The Hilson family are English / Australian living in Australia. There are four children, the two older ones are a boy and a girl and two younger ones are girls. I think there is approximately a 10 -12 year gap in age between the older two and the younger two.
Julia is Montessori trained and all the children were immersed in a Montessori environment from the start, but as each of them came to secondary school age, choices needed to be made. Her eldest daughter who was very able academically, went to a local High school in Australia aged 16/17 and became deeply unhappy. She felt her teachers were limiting her even within the subjects that she enjoyed; she had interests that she was not allowed to explore as they were not explicitly part of the assessment objectives for her exams, she also had to stick to prescribed areas of study and conform to required forms of presentation. Though she was praised highly by her teachers, she became disengaged completely in her education.
Julia and her husband suggested she leave school, start work and attend night classes or pick up her studies again later in life. At this point it was the daughter herself who said to her parents ‘what about the new Montessori High School in America?’ Julia said that their response to this was ‘Oh my god it’s so far away…and we can’t afford it..’ etc. But her daughter managed to get herself a scholarship and that was that.
With their son Julia said it was a different story, they went to visit the Hershey farm school with him, they stayed and spent time there, they asked questions and tried to really get a feel for the place. They then applied and he was offered a place. On their return from America they asked him what he wanted to do and if he liked what he had seen; he said he needed a week to think about it. He then came back to them and said that he had decided not to go as his two younger sisters were toddlers at the time and he did not want to miss being around them while they grew up. Julia and her husband respected this and instead he attended a local technical college where he was very happy.
Julia’s recount of the decisions made by her younger two girls, however, was the most moving as the farm school was by then well established and intake started earlier. This meant that her next daughter was 11 when she decided that she did in fact want to go away to the other side of the world and study at Hershey. The same happened again a year or so later when their youngest decided that she also wanted to go (despite the fact that she had always said ‘I won’t leave you mummy’).
The younger two girls are currently still attending the farm school in America and this means that Julia and her husband see them twice a year.
When I heard this it put the prospect of a land school in Sussex completely into perspective and helped immensely to allay some of my fears around the thought of sending my own child ‘away to boarding school’. In stark contrast to the Hilson’s experience, the school would at most be an hour or so away, and there may also be the possibility of flexi-boarding. This would mean that if a child decided that they wanted to stay at home and attend just during the day, they could.
I was recounting the above to a friend who does not have a child at the Montessori Place and he said, but you are several years away from offering this kind of choice to Lili, why are you even thinking about it now?
I don’t know if he got it when I said that I am interested in this now because I want it to work, it has to work so that is an option for Lili to think about in 6 years time and decide if it is what she wants to do. In 6 years the very first cohort of students at the Sussex land school will still have 2 years remaining, which means that Lili will potentially be at school with that first cohort of students. Ensuring it works for them, ensures that it can work for Lili (if that is where she wants to be).
Going back to my decision to attend the talk it was evident, whilst she was speaking about her experiences, that Julia was a very loving, thoughtful and caring parent. She had not just detached herself from her kids and sent them miles away to the farm because it was fashionable and convenient. She was very emotional about it and she did not try to hide the fact that she and her husband had found the decisions to be very difficult and that they missed their children a great deal.
She also described how the children did become ‘home sick’ and they had been told by the school to expect this and to be in regular daily contact; but the children inevitably got through it after a week or two and became highly resilient, independent and caring young people. Which essentially is all that any parent could hope for.
– Tara Grant
