MSFW is featured in TCU Magazine

Montessori School of Fort Worth Brings Success

Over the course of five decades, the school has developed lifelong learners.

Two years ago, Kristen Carr ’09 MS walked into one of the modest ranch houses on the campus of the Montessori School of Fort Worth and felt that something about the place was different. When her son, Grayson, who had just turned 1, started playing without hesitation alongside his future classmates, Carr’s butterflies disappeared.

Patrick McCarty walks his children, Nora (left) and Evan, to school. The Montessori School of Fort Worth was founded in 1968 and now educates students in preschool through eighth grade. The Montessori method encourages students to learn at their own pace. Photo by Carolyn Cruz

“Some of the programs we visited required kids to sit at desks, which is a more passive kind of learning,” said Carr, an assistant professor of communication studies at TCU. “In the toddler classroom, he could roam around and try things himself. He got upset that day when it was time to go.”

Grayson, now 3, continues to flourish at the private school. “A few months ago, he and I were in our playroom at home working with some of his magnet tiles, and he said, ‘Mama, this is an equilateral triangle and this one is an isosceles,’ ” Carr said. “I mentioned that to his teacher, and she said he’d never actually had that as an official lesson but must have picked it up listening in on a lesson for the older kids.”

Carr relishes that she found a school where her son’s abiding inquisitiveness propels his learning. “As someone who places a lot of importance on education, the No. 1 thing I think sets students up for success is curiosity, which is something the Montessori School of Fort Worth excels in fostering in even the youngest children.”