"Children have the potential to create a world we cannot imagine. This is our hope." In choosing Montessori, O'Shaughnessy says that we are choosing the road less traveled. We are choosing education as an aid to life. We are choosing an approach that respects the innate and unique potential of each child and that calls upon us to serve the child. It is through observation that we realize how each child will be best served. Observation "is the heartbeat of everything we do" O'Shaughnessy tells us, and when we use it with love of that which we observe (the child), when we use it to better our understanding and to strengthen our practice, we are using it with the hope of a new humanity. A bibliography is included. [Paper presented at the North American Montessori Teachers' Association (NAMTA) Conference, Part 1 (Golden, CO, Nov 5-8, 2015).]