In most urban areas, a public bus ride can be a solitary experience. Most people don’t talk to each other. Many disappear into their headphones. Children go unnoticed. But when four young boys from blue montessori got on the bus for a field trip in the Anacostia neighborhood of Washington D.C., their habits of curiosity, self-discipline, and trust made it different.

In an era of education technology, learning apps, and sophisticated reading programs, Margaret McDonald's most powerful insight about teaching reading is straightforward: "The priorities are the basics. Keeping it simple. Making sure it's something we can sustain."

What Kate Lechner and Sarah Tupper have built at Indigo Montessori, a Wildflower school in Baltimore, Maryland, isn't a revolutionary reading program. It's something harder to replicate: a school structured to give every child what good reading instruction has always required – consistent 1:1 lessons and real time to read.

Tommy's story answers what it looks like to center the child – when energy spent on control becomes available for curiosity. But it raises the question: how do two people sustain that kind of work — constant observation, flexibility, release of control — without burning out?

At the start of this school year, Leah and Kirsti, Teacher Leaders at Spicebush Montessori, a teacher-led Wildflower school in Glen Mills, Pennsylvania, were facing a decision no educator wants to make. Tommy, a neurodivergent four-year-old, was pushing, scratching, biting, hitting, and throwing things at students and teachers every single day. Staff took turns helping him regulate, one exhausted teacher handing off to the other, all day long. An expulsion conversation was on

As we step into 2026, we’re returning to a core question: what becomes possible when teachers are trusted to lead—and children are known deeply?