Montessori Monday...

Ask Ms. Lacie...
Question Forum...
I was recently asked, what is the difference between a Montessori school and a traditional school?

The differences are vast. One main difference is that Montessori serves the child. The child recieves lessons given individually by the teacher until the child has mastered a specific task. Say Suzy is learning her sounds, but Johnny has mastered his sounds. Johnny is ready to start blending those sounds together to form words, and Suzy is still mastering learning all of her sounds. They are both working on language but they are each individually doing work that is challenging to them respectively. In a traditional classroom, they move on, maybe even if Suzy isn't ready or Johnny is 'bored' with his work waiting for everyone to catch up. Instead, each child is presented lessons according to his/her cognitive ability. When a child has mastered that work, then a firm foundation is set and further appropriately challenging lessons can be given.
Keep in mind that while each child is given lessons on an individual basis, they can and do work together in small groups or in partners. Montessori does value social interactions and builind relationships.

I then recieve the question after explaining this asking if there is any structure within Montessori.

The answer is best explained by a response from my trainers: Montessori is freedom within structure. There certainly is structure. Children are respectful of themselves, each other and thier environment. They are taught to care for themselves and others in a respecful manner. As a teacher, I respect them as people, they inturn respect me as well. Children learn thier are consequences for thier actions. If their is a dispute, the children resolve the conflict using thier words. Because they are given the tools to resolve conflicts on thier own, they do. Children just want the tools to learn how to function in the world. That's what Montessori provides.

I then recieve various other questions. The main one is how do Montessori adapt to a tradtional school after being in a Montessori environment?

The answer is VERY WELL. These children have all the tools they need to 'survive in the world'. They make friends easily and they addapt to any situation like a duck to water. I have had several students make the switch to a traditional school when it was time to enter first grade and they mde friends easily, they worked hard (and yes, when it came to testing, these children did score higher on the test than many of thier peers). The reason why is these children were given the tools they needed to suceed and they then built a strong foundation for learning, and they fostered a life long love of learning. They will carry this with them throughout thier lives, in any situation they are in. Because learning was introduced to them as fun exploration, they will always associated learning in a positive way.

I hope my posts are not too long or too boring! I am SO very passionate about teaching young children (I call them young sponges because they are in the absorbant stage of life- they soak everything up like a sponge- why this age is CRUCIAL to learning!) if you have any questions about Montessori or teaching please let me know- I am ALWAYS happy to answer any questions. It took me two years to fully understand all the intricites of Montessori, so I will try and aswer your question directly and concisely.)

So feel free to ASK!
Have a beautiul Monday...