Awe and wonder

“If you could only sense how important you are to the lives of those you meet,” said Mr. Rogers. “How important you can be to the people you may never even dream of.”

For 40 years, “Ms. Martha” Pfaff guided generations of children who attended Children’s Community School (CCS). By any definition, Pfaff’s kindness, wisdom and generosity of spirit have been immeasurably important to those people and their families, and by extension all they have achieved as they grew and flourished in the ensuing years. Every day, locally and in the vast reaches of the diaspora of people who started their lives here and have since moved on, people love, laugh, cope with hardship and care for others because of things they learned from Ms. Martha.

Pfaff started working at the Montessori school in 1985, taking over as its director in 2014. She retired from that position in August of this year. Jessica Jackson has been named the new director, but Pfaff remains active at the school as both a substitute teacher and consultant.

In all, she has taught for 45 years, including traditional, Christian, co-op and Montessori schools.

“I grew up in rural Wisconsin on a farm,” she said. “So, I didn’t have any playmates. I had my brothers, of course, but I was always with the animals, which is where I learned a lot about compassion.”

In her youth, Ms. Martha spent time with a young neighbor who was attending the University of Wisconsin at Platteville to study elementary education.

“She would do all this fun stuff with me,” she said. “We would play games, play piano, sing, and I was like: ‘This is what I want to do when I grow up!’”

When Pfaff got older, she attended the same school and studied the same field. The rest is history, and while she may have harbored a fleeting desire to pursue a career working with animals, her heart was always focused on caring for children.

“My only passions were to be a mom and to be a teacher,” she said.

Just as new buds emerge each spring in the forest, the halls of CCS, which is now in its third building, filled  each year with the chatter of young children who were seeing the world for the first time. Pfaff found herself reinvigorated time and time again by this annual injection of youth that coincides with the beginning of each school year.

“It keeps your spirit young,” she said. “Even if you’ve had a tough morning, when a child comes up to you and gives you a hug, or says, ‘I love you, Ms. Martha,’ your day just blossoms all of a sudden.”

“They are giving so much back to me,” she continued. “Not just in love and caring, but in experience. At this age, everything is awe and wonder. To see their little eyes sparkle when they say a first word or recognize their shapes. They draw you in.”

The thousands of children she helped raise were not merely prepared for the academic world; they were readied for the emotional world, too, as Pfaff worked with her colleagues to help children develop social and emotional health. Pfaff said the key was always talking to children, and listening to them, regarding their feelings.

“We need to engage them in conversation,” she explained.

Children’s Community School was founded in 1976 by Sally Flood and Pence Revington. Pfaff worked closely with them, and she said they always strived to put the Montessori philosophy into action.

She feels that the smallest of words or actions can have the largest effect on individuals, families and even societies.

“Maria Montessori always said that peace started with education,” Pfaff explained. “And we have always taught peace here in subtle ways.”

When Pfaff saw children caring for the environment, getting a band-aide for a classmate who had skinned a knee, a tissue for someone who was crying or a warm embrace for someone who was struggling, she saw peace manifested in the present and the future, in the classroom and in the greater world outside when that person grew up.

Teachers and caregivers, she said, must be role models, teaching respect and empathy, not only in what they say, but in how they treat those around them, especially the little people who are in their care.

When asked if there is anything she won’t miss when her time at CCS eventually comes to a full end, she laughed.

“Well,” she replied. “I won’t miss somebody throwing up on my shoes. That doesn’t happen often though.”

The list of things she will miss is much longer.

“The smiles. The hugs,” she replied. “And just the feeling when you walk into CCS. Just the feeling of pride and love and I’m just forever grateful to Pence and Sally for starting this.”

Pfaff marvels at CCS’s newest home at 1175 Cox Drive, talking about the many ways it helps educate and engage children. She’s still a little wistful, however, when she remembers the charming old two-story house, sitting just across the street from Grundahl Park, where she and her colleagues taught generations of kids.

“I loved that old school,” she says. “And now we’re making new memories in this new space.”

Wherever the school is located, it remains a tightly knit community, she said.

“It’s Children’s Community School, and when you come here, we’re a community,” she said.

That community faces different challenges today than it did in 1985. But the core ideas remain the same.

“Screen time has changed the dynamics of the children,” Pfaff observed. “I suppose I’m old school, but when children come to CCS I look at it as three hours in a calm environment without any screens, just hands on exploration.”

“In Montessori, we prepare the child to concentrate, and concentration is a little more of a challenge these days,” she continued.

There have been other challenges and opportunities, too. A little over a decade ago, Pfaff helped guide CCS into a partnership with the Mount Horeb Area School District when CCS began offering four-year-old kindergarten.

“I suppose I could say it was a good challenge,” she said. “It made us think a little more outside the box. I think we’ve done a good job collaborating with the district and implementing the curriculum.”

Pfaff really has been like Mount Horeb’s very own Mr. Rogers, imparting soft-spoken wisdom, offering patience and compassion, and even changing out of her fancy shoes before taking the kids outside to play, just like that PBS icon. The similarities are myriad.

And as Mr. Rogers said, “Often when you think you’re at the end of something, you’re at the beginning of something else.”

Ms. Martha is at the end of her time as director of CCS, but she’s still there, still guiding another generation, still teaching empathy, compassion and community.

“There are days that make you feel old,” she laughed. “But old in a wonderful way, because of all the wonderful experiences you’ve had.”