School Connections

This time of year brings many visitors to the children's house. While giving tours to prospective families and answering questions about decisions looming for parents of matriculating students, I stretch in my role as communicator. Striving for key points to stress about Montessori and education in general I am drawn to the idea of connection. Young children tend to develop emotional attachments to what is familiar and comfortable for them. The Montessori philosophy of education holds the environment of the child as one of the most important elements in development. Many who have not perhaps read much about Montessori, or seen it in daily action as we do,  may not realize the importance of this environment on the development of the child.

Freedom
A central tenet of Montessori’s pedagogy and philosophy holds that children must be free to follow their natural interests, leading to opportunities to develop their potential and increasing their knowledge of the world. Within the prepared environment, the child must experience freedom in a number of ways, including: movement, exploration, ability to interact socially, and the freedom to learn and grow without interference from others.

Structure and Order
On the surface, structure and order may seem at odds with the importance of freedom in the prepared environment. The prepared environment is meant to reflect the considerable structure and order of the real world and presents an organized system that children must learn to understand in order to make sense of their surroundings and, ultimately, the world.  The ordered environment supports children’s ability to reason and provides consistent opportunities for children to validate their expectations and interactions with the world around them in predictable and consistent ways.


Social Environment
The multi-age classroom groupings provide tremendous benefit to children as part of the prepared environment.  Any number of benefits accrues to children as a result of learning within the Montessori social environment.  The opportunity to be the youngest, middle and oldest student cohort over time affords children unique perspectives and experiences at each stage.  At different times they receive help from older children or aspire to do things that older children do, they serve as role models or mentors for younger children and they have regular opportunities to develop compassion and empathy for others. In addition, children’s ability to work and play in a variety of group settings is explicitly supported by the social environment that is intentionally created as part of Montessori’s methodology.

Intellectual Environment
The prepared environment ultimately aims to develop the whole child, not just the intellect, but intellectual development will not occur without the previous aspects of the environment in place. The above aspects of the prepared environment, coupled with the Montessori curriculum and unique Montessori materials, supports children in moving from simple to complex ideas and from concrete to abstract understanding and manages to do so in a way that is truly individualized and differentiated.

Experiences in Nature
The opportunities we give them to interact and develop a relationship with the natural world, will help them to develop tools for environmental responsibility and ecological understanding. With young children sometimes spending up to 50 hours per week in early childhood settings, early childhood educators have an important role. Opportunities for our young children to explore the wonders of plants, bushes, trees, flowers, and animals are diminishing. We have to give them time and places to explore and interact with nature before they can understand it well enough to want to look after it.

It is a lot to explain on a short school tour... and the purpose of this post is certainly not to overwhelm parents during the decision making process.  Our goal is to impart a bit of this way of looking at the world of the child. They truly know their own child and can envision an environment in which he or she would thrive. We hope that in their time with us they feel just that, and experience a real sense of connection.

Celebrating MONTESSORI EDUCATION WEEK!

Ten Reasons to Love Montessori

1) Cultivates students’ natural love of learning by allowing them to follow their own interest and direct their own exploration

2) Provides beautiful, stimulating mixed-aged learning environments

3) Nurtures each students’ learning style and interest

4) Gives students access to scientifically-based, hands-on learning materials

5) Students work at their own pace through core academic concepts and skills with the guidance of highly-trained adults

6) Curriculum is individualized and used by teachers as an educational guide rather than an educational rule

7) Classroom atmosphere fosters a sense of acceptance, responsibility, respect, and community

8) Encourages freedom of movement and positive social interaction

9) Develops a deep connection to the natural world and promotes exploration and experiences in nature

10) Focuses on character development as well as academic excellence

The Third Year--Montessori Kindergarten

It's that time of year at MCH when parents of our second year students begin the decision making process for re-enrollment. We applaud and support them in this important process. It can seem like an overwhelming responsibility to choose the best class for your child. We hold a special meeting just for them at our school to offer guidance and explain which choice we feel is the best for our Montessori students. While not everyone can stay for the third year at our school, our hope is that those who can will do just that. It is a gift that will pay huge dividends in the child's outlook on learning. We feel so strongly about it that all of our scholarship money in the past has gone to making the third year choice an easy one for parents. As an authentic Montessori school, we are committed to the three year cycle in the classroom and to offering the best possible Montessori primary education to each child. We serve the Watcher (3 year old), the Worker (4 year old) and the Teacher (5 year old). It is both our mission and our pure delight.
Here are some of the videos we'll share at the information meeting:

Montessori For All The Right Reasons

Watch and Wait

From the folks at Baan Dek:

On May 6, 1952, Maria Montessori passed away in the village of Noordwick aan Zee, on the North Sea, in the west of the Netherlands. As with those who were brave enough to live, great stories are told of how they met their end. In Rita Kramer’s biography, Montessori’s last moments are recounted thus:
“Maria had been thinking of making a trip to Africa, but it had been suggested that because of the state of her health she ought not to travel but arrange instead for her lectures to be given by someone else. Mario was with her and she turned to him and said, “Am I no longer of any use then?” An hour later she was dead of a cerebral hemorrhage.”

Three years before, at the Sorbonne in Paris, Montessori was awarded the Legion of Honor from France. She was also nominated for the Nobel Peace Price in 1949, 1950 and 1951, respectively. It was a time of great hope and promise – a certain sense of renewal and dedication to the future was everywhere self-evident.
The life of Maria Montessori, to be sure, was replete with travel and adventure. There was a great sense of personal and professional achievement. Yet, her singular purpose was a fearless commitment to see her newly discovered science of education disseminated across the world. Of course, her ambition was not merely to spread her observations, it was much more centered on how to empower children to follow their interests.
Montessori trusted that while her original insights would eventually be validated by science, as indicated by her global recognition, what mattered most wasn’t the method, practice or even implementation, but rather, the adoption by children. If the Montessori approach to education was to be truly successful, it would have to be at the hands of children.

It wasn’t teachers, or even parents that would see to the success of Montessori. No, it was future generations. It was, as Montessori might have said, not the fact that society was focusing its attention, but rather, what that attention was pointed towards: the child. The child held promises that had long since expired, or in the least faded away, in adults. Nevertheless, everyone could readily identify in the child, the outlines of what was to come.
Rita Kramer makes the case that, “An educator and teacher, Montessori ended her life by saying that neither teaching nor education brings about the child’s development.” Kramer continues, in a somewhat radical and far-seeing summary of the Montessori philosophy, one that contains the heart of what makes this approach so special:

“ all educators and teachers can do is refrain from placing obstacles in the child’s path by providing him with an environment in which he is “free to create himself ”

As we look back and reflect on this magnificent life Montessori led, with the vantage point of nearly three quarters of a century, we are humbled by her project and her willingness to, even at her last moment, engage in the noble effort to spread a different set of values throughout the world.
Montessori was once asked to sum up her new approach to education. “Attendee, osservando – watch and wait.”

Connection

This time of year brings many visitors to the children's house. While giving tours to prospective families and answering questions about decisions looming for parents of matriculating students, I stretch in my role as communicator. Striving for key points to stress about Montessori and education in general I am drawn to the idea of connection. Young children tend to develop emotional attachments to what is familiar and comfortable for them. The Montessori philosophy of education holds the environment of the child as one of the most important elements in development. Many who have not perhaps read much about Montessori, or seen it in daily action as we do,  may not realize the importance of this environment on the development of the child.

Freedom
A central tenet of Montessori’s pedagogy and philosophy holds that children must be free to follow their natural interests, leading to opportunities to develop their potential and increasing their knowledge of the world. Within the prepared environment, the child must experience freedom in a number of ways, including: movement, exploration, ability to interact socially, and the freedom to learn and grow without interference from others.

Structure and Order
On the surface, structure and order may seem at odds with the importance of freedom in the prepared environment. The prepared environment is meant to reflect the considerable structure and order of the real world and presents an organized system that children must learn to understand in order to make sense of their surroundings and, ultimately, the world.  The ordered environment supports children’s ability to reason and provides consistent opportunities for children to validate their expectations and interactions with the world around them in predictable and consistent ways.


Social Environment
The multi-age classroom groupings provide tremendous benefit to children as part of the prepared environment.  Any number of benefits accrues to children as a result of learning within the Montessori social environment.  The opportunity to be the youngest, middle and oldest student cohort over time affords children unique perspectives and experiences at each stage.  At different times they receive help from older children or aspire to do things that older children do, they serve as role models or mentors for younger children and they have regular opportunities to develop compassion and empathy for others. In addition, children’s ability to work and play in a variety of group settings is explicitly supported by the social environment that is intentionally created as part of Montessori’s methodology.

Intellectual Environment
The prepared environment ultimately aims to develop the whole child, not just the intellect, but intellectual development will not occur without the previous aspects of the environment in place. The above aspects of the prepared environment, coupled with the Montessori curriculum and unique Montessori materials, supports children in moving from simple to complex ideas and from concrete to abstract understanding and manages to do so in a way that is truly individualized and differentiated.

Experiences in Nature
The opportunities we give them to interact and develop a relationship with the natural world, will help them to develop tools for environmental responsibility and ecological understanding. With young children sometimes spending up to 50 hours per week in early childhood settings, early childhood educators have an important role. Opportunities for our young children to explore the wonders of plants, bushes, trees, flowers, and animals are diminishing. We have to give them time and places to explore and interact with nature before they can understand it well enough to want to look after it.

It is a lot to explain on a short school tour... and the purpose of this post is certainly not to overwhelm parents during the decision making process.  Our goal is to impart a bit of this way of looking at the world of the child. They truly know their own child and can envision an environment in which he or she would thrive. We hope that in their time with us they feel just that, and experience a real sense of connection.