Having your father publish your diary is certainly not the dream of every teenage girl, but Anne Frank was very special. Her writings, which have been translated into 67 languages with millions of copies sold globally, have come to symbolize and humanize the struggle of her circumstances as a Jewish girl in the 1940s. John F. Kennedy, in a speech in 1961, said of Anne Frank, “Of all the multitudes who throughout history have spoken for human dignity in times of great suffering and loss, no voice is more compelling than that of Anne Frank.”
Anne wrote only for herself, and found great comfort and strength in writing as an emotional release. This, by itself, is not unusual or out of the ordinary. What makes Anne’s voice so real to us as readers is her style of writing and the thoughtful observations of the world and happenings around her. These skills, relied on in a time of great stress and confinement, were developed through years of careful cultivation at a Montessori school in Amsterdam, which now carries her name.
Anne unknowingly produced her best-known work away from a classroom, in the Secret Annex. The skills that she acquired through classic, time-honored Montessori lessons, and by her teachers guiding her to follow her passion for writing and journalism, served her brilliantly. Anne’s sentence structure and style has the markings of a writer well versed in the rules of grammar, learned using symbols that our students used to proudly decorate their Gingerbread Castle. Anne’s handwriting is careful script, learned from materials that our own students utilize in their language and writing lessons. The earmarks of great potential in a diligent Montessori student are visible on each page of The Diary of a Young Girl.
To a Montessori student, there are no limits to greatness. We are excited to see where our students’ passions and determination take them!
Is your child reaching their potential at their current institution? Schedule a tour to come see why parents consider The T.E.C. Schools the best Montessori school in Massachusetts.
