I most important memory for me is that Montessori allowed me to excel. It was exceptional at getting out of the way and letting me learn if I was interested, a

I most important memory for me is that Montessori allowed me to excel. It was exceptional at getting out of the way and letting me learn if I was interested, and I most certainly was. What I remember most from my Montessori education in my early years (preschool through elementary) was that we were allowed to progress at our own pace. Our teacher(s) set up various tracks of things to complete, for example we had math cards you could study and then do some problems on and eventually take a test to move on to the next set, or we had a series of books and you needed to select one from the set and answer some questions before moving on to one from the next set. About half of our time was allowing us to work on whatever we wanted. If you got ahead in a subject, the teacher would find more for you to do on it. If you got behind, the teacher would try to help you get over whatever hurdle of understanding you had. As a result, I was a few years ahead of myself in math. Every time the teacher got a new set of math cards I would do them all as quickly as I could and I prided myself on being a few years ahead. However, my reading was a bit behind because I never really cared to do the in-school reading as I preferred sci-fi. There were other children who were just the opposite. The benefit was that I didn't have to sit in a class room doing the exact same boring lessons as the rest of the class. If I could figure something out in 5 minutes I didn't have to sit through a 1-hour lecture on the subject.