So, who is Miss Lena?

Halloween with the littles 2023

I started teaching when I was 21 years old, in a very poor neighborhood in Lebanon.

At the time, I actually had another option: I could work in a translation office.

Languages were something I was good at. I spoke them, I loved them.

But when I imagined myself spending my days behind a desk, translating documents and barely moving, something in me resisted.

It wasn't really about the desk.

Teaching felt different.

When I was with children, I felt that what I was doing mattered. I felt there was a purpose to it, something I was meant to contribute. It wasn't simply a job or a way to earn a living. I felt, quite deeply, that this was what I was supposed to be doing.

So I chose the children. And I have never really stopped.

Later, I moved to Ukraine and began working at a private school. After that came a very different experience: a private preschool rooted in the old Soviet educational tradition.

And that was where I really began to notice something.

I could make children laugh. I could make lessons engaging. I could connect with them. I could see their curiosity.

But the system itself? That was another story!!!

I eventually found myself questioning the obsession with grades, scores, repetition and doing things simply because “this is how we have always done them.” ( agh!)

I even got into trouble once for giving an eight-year-old more credit than she technically earned on a test.

Why? Because I knew she had tried.

And I knew the number on her paper didn't tell the whole story.

I would do it again.

Then came 2015.

I left traditional school.

I began teaching online while researching other approaches to education, looking for something that made more sense to me something that respected the child rather than constantly trying to fit the child into the system.

And then I discovered Montessori.

Oh là là!

Everything clicked.

What fascinated me wasn't just the philosophy. It was the science behind it. The observation. The prepared environment. The respect for the child's development. The incredible tools given to children from the very beginning.

And, most importantly: It worked in real life.

I started applying it.

And the more I did, the more I understood that education doesn't have to be a performance imposed on a child.

It can be an environment carefully prepared for the child.

For years, I've guided children according to their individual needs, their tempo, their interests and their development while remembering that every child is, inconveniently for anyone who loves a formula, completely different.

I have an AMI diploma in my back pocket.

But I'm not interested in waving a certificate around and calling that education.

I'm interested in what happens when the knowledge actually meets a child.

That's where the fun begins.

And that's probably why my teaching style doesn't look quite like everybody else's.

I love language. I love mathematics. I love the science of how children learn. But I also love experimenting, questioning, adapting and finding the unexpected way into a child's mind.

No one-size-fits-all scripts!

No learning just to collect grades.

Just a carefully prepared environment, a curious child, and an educator paying very, very close attention.

And somewhere along the way, I realized:

I've taken the traditional script, thrown it out the window, and created a cinematic experience where every child is the star.

Welcome to Miss Lena.