In January of 2014, Wildflower Montessori School opened its doors for the first time. Almost immediately, it was clear that something special had happened. Months later, a second Wildflower school sprouted, followed by a third. Today, there are over 20 schools in five states and Puerto Rico, with more in development each year.
For the 5th anniversary of our first school, we decided to revisit Wildflower’s roots and document the rationale for our model. We have assembled it all together in a new paper we are excited to share with you, “Our Roots in Research: The Ideas and Evidence Behind Wildflower Schools.”
In part, we created this for ourselves, to help our own growing community connect with the founding ideas. In part, we created it to challenge the conventional wisdom that shapes too much of modern education. But most importantly, we created it to help us develop a strong, connected community of peers who would share ideas and feedback with us and conduct research – to help us test our intuition, evaluate new ideas and incorporate external insights.