Stephen Tan was born in Illinois to Filipino immigrants. Raised Catholic, he and his five siblings were homeschooled with the Mother of Divine Grace Homeschool Program after some time in the traditional school setting.  He went to the University of Mary for a Liberal Arts Degree with minors in Catholic Studies, Business Administration, and Biology. After college, he returned to Illinois to tutor reading with Lindamood-Bell Learning Processes. After a few years and paying off his loans, Mr. Tan returned to North Dakota to work at St. Joseph Catholic Montessori School. There, he discovered his favorite thing about the method. It allows for the education of the whole child, intellectually, socially, emotionally, and spiritually. Over the last three years, he has enjoyed working with the community at SJCMS, the children, staff, and families.  Their support has been extremely helpful over the last year when he took an AMI Elementary Certification Course. His life consisted of daily Mass, work, adoration, homework, and sleep on Monday-Saturday. On Sundays, he took some time to go from being a machine to being human. After emerging from that year, he discovered that hobbies still existed and went back to doing sports, playing board games, playing music, reading, and eating food.