Name:
Elizabeth "E.B." Bartels
Years and program level (toddler, 3-6, 6-9, 9-12, MS) when you were at LMS.
3-6 and 6-9 (first year, middle, kindergarten, 1st, 2nd, 3rd grade)
Do you know what your parents were looking for when they enrolled you at LMS?
My mom has a master's in music education and studied early childhood development. She was drawn to the Montessori method of younger kids learning from older kids and the Montessori focus on self-directed learning that fosters confidence, direction, and independence. My dad, meanwhile, still jokes about how part of the application for me to get into LMS involved smelling and identifying a lemon -- but as a guy who loves flora and fauna, I think he appreciated Montessori's emphasis on learning about and appreciating the natural world.
What are some of your favorite memories from your time LMS?
Almost all of my favorite memories from LMS take place outside. I feel like I spent hours in the woods under route 2 building forts and looking at plants and animals, and I remember helping with the garden and learning how to plant and take care of seedlings. And for my favorite memories that were not outside, they all involve animals: I loved getting to feed the class pets (I will never forget the iguanas! Are they still alive?) and I still laugh about the turtles named Sam and Ella (I only understood that pun years later). My love of the natural world was really deeply fostered in my time at LMS, and it made such an impression on me I even write about LMS and our classroom pets in the opening chapter of my narrative nonfiction book GOOD GRIEF: ON LOVING PETS, HERE AND HEREAFTER.
In what ways did Montessori education fit your learning style?
I have always been a very visual learner, so Montessori's emphasis on hands-on experiences to facilitate learning helped me understand concepts much better than just having them explained to me. When I do multiplication in my head, I still picture those strands of colorful beads that I used to learn my times tables. Also, I've always been a fast reader and writer, and I loved that at LMS I was allowed to go off and do my own thing. I would sometimes get frustrated later in middle school and high school when I had to read the same book as my classmates at the same pace. I also really appreciated that at LMS when I completed the tasks I needed to do (like counting those beads) I could then spend my time focusing on my favorite things to do, like writing and illustrating my own books. (I remember that my teachers would even let me laminate the covers of them in the teacher's lounge!) That encouragement definitely motivated me to continue pursuing my passions for the rest of my life.
What was your education path after LMS?
I attended the Nashoba Brooks School of Concord for 4th-8th grade and then the Noble and Greenough School for 9th-12th grade. I got my BA in Russian language and literature (major) and studio art (minor) from Wellesley College in 2010, and I received my MFA in creative nonfiction writing from Columbia University's School of the Arts in 2014.
What kind of work do you do, and what are you up to now?
I am now a writer, which I am sure is absolutely unsurprising to my Montessori teachers. I have written and published a book, GOOD GRIEF: ON LOVING PETS, HERE AND HEREAFTER, which is a nonfiction work, a mix of memoir and reporting, about the ways that people mourn and remember their pets after they die. (It was published by HarperCollins in August 2022.) I also work as a senior editorial writer for Wellesley College's communications and public affairs department, and I have published essays and interviews in Salon, Slate, WBUR, Literary Hub, Catapult, Electric Literature, The Believer, and The Rumpus, among others.
What is your family situation now?
My husband, Richie, and I live in Arlington, MA with our son Luca, who was born in January 2024. He just turned ten months old! Our house is right on route 2, so I drive past LMS almost every single day to get home.
