*Part three of the series: Teaching as a Spiritual Path: Soul Work for the Teacher in the New Paradigm.

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I remember the moment I first saw a child’s soul.

It was about three years into my teaching career.

I was mid-conversation with a young student when something in me shifted. For the first time, I paused, not just externally, but internally.

I let go of the habitual busyness of “teacher mode,” took a breath, and dropped into my body.

Everything around us slowed. And then, as I met her gaze, time suspended altogether.

In that stillness, I looked directly into her eyes and felt myself falling into something vast, ancient, unspoken.

I realized I could see through her eyes into her soul.

And her soul, clear as a bell, spoke to me:

“Why are you making me move so fast? Can you see my pain? Can you see me trying? Can you see me?”

Without hesitation, my soul responded:

“Yes. I see you. I am here. I get it.”

This conversation never happened out loud. It happened in the quiet fabric of a millisecond, a sacred thread of presence woven between us.

That moment changed my teaching forever. I discovered that when I slowed down enough to connect soul to soul, urgency dissolved. What once felt like draining “behavior management” softened into mutual recognition. Children no longer resisted. I no longer burned out. What passed between us was not strategy, it was a transmission.

And I realized: the soul responds instinctively to being seen.

From Moment to Method

Later, as I reflected, I laughed at myself: hadn’t I just stumbled into the very essence of Montessori’s method?

Observation, Maria Montessori taught, is the teacher’s first preparation. We are trained to watch without interference, to notice the child’s patterns of concentration and engagement. But true observation is more than scientific. It is sacred witnessing.

Montessori reminded us that the teacher must prepare not only the mind but also the spirit so that her seeing becomes clear and her presence unobtrusive. Observation, at its deepest, is not about recording what the child does, it is about learning to see who the child is.

That day, I wasn’t simply observing her actions. I was observing from soul.

The Exhaustion Teachers Carry

Most teachers don’t get to soul often. Classroom life is relentless, endless redirections, 1,500 micro-decisions a day, constant motion. Even in Montessori classrooms, where independence is honored, teachers find themselves caught in reactive cycles simply because the sheer volume is overwhelming.

But, I discovered that when I led from soul, everything shifted.

Resistance fell away.

Children softened.

And instead of exhaustion, I felt renewal.

Teaching soul to soul is not a technique. It is a transmission. Presence, not performance.

Observing Soul Work

In Montessori environments, you can feel when a child is in their soul work.

It might be when a child polishes the same brass object for 10 minutes, not to clean it, but because the repetitive motion satisfies something deeper. Montessori called this state normalization: continuous and joyful work, self-discipline, inner order. In these moments, mind, body, and spirit align.

Interruptions, whether from a teacher’s correction or a schedule that cuts short, break the thread.

The soul’s work is left incomplete. You can witness this duress in the child who is asked to interrupt and stop short their soul work.

That is why Montessori insisted on the uninterrupted three-hour work cycle. She saw that concentration itself was sacred. It wasn’t just practice for academics, it was the soul shaping itself.

To protect this space for children today is an act of rebellion. In a culture that worships speed and performance, we choose instead to honor their inner timetable.

Soul-to-Soul Relating

Relating soul to soul is a choice and a skill.

It means:

>> Meeting a child’s gaze without agenda.

>> Listening for what is unsaid as much as what is spoken.

>> Responding to the energy behind the behavior, not just the behavior itself.

>> Holding the child in the wholeness of who they are.

When this happens, the child feels safe enough to be real. And growth becomes organic.

But this isn’t about doing it every moment. We live in both the personality and the soul, and teaching must move between them.

Sometimes children need a boundary, humor, or practical direction. Other times, they need the depth of being seen.

The art is in discerning when to shift.

Seeing the Divine

To meet a child soul to soul is to meet their divinity.

Montessori called children “the builders of humanity” and “the transforming element of society.”

She knew every child carried a sacred blueprint of life.

In Tantra, there is a practice called transfiguration: seeing another not as their surface self, but as an embodiment of the Divine.

This is exactly what happens in soul-to-soul teaching. We look beyond behavior or ability to see the eternal spark that animates them.

Such moments are not simply good teaching. They are holy encounters.

The Larger Work

Montessori wrote in Education and Peace:

“Establishing lasting peace is the work of education; all politics can do is keep us out of war.”

Every time we choose presence over performance, connection over control, we are tending not only to the child before us, but to the soul of humanity itself.

To teach soul to soul is to say yes to this larger work. It is to recognize that classrooms can be temples, children our guides, and teaching itself a path of initiation.

The Initiated Teacher is not just an educator. They are the stewards of the sacred, tending to life itself.

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* This article is part three of a six-part series titled: The Unseen Curriculum: Soul Work for the New Paradigm Teacher. This article is based upon Chapter 6, “Teaching Soul to Soul” of my forthcoming book, The Initiated Teacher: Reawakening the Soul of the Montessori Educator in the New Paradigm.

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Read part one of this series: The Teacher’s Unseen Curriculum: Naming the Pain we’re not Supposed to Feel.

Read part two of this series: The Teacher’s Unseen Curriculum: Learning to Die.

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