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Montessori Education

Chrissy - posted on 03/05/2009 ( 2 moms have responded )

I am looking into putting my son into a Montessori program when he turns one. Being an educator, I know the basic concept of Montessori, but I teach high school and have had very little exposure to it. Some questions:
1. Do elementary school teachers notice a difference between their students who had Montessori schooling prior to elementary school?
2. Do Montessori school kids have a hard time adjusting to a public elementary program?
3. What do you know about the way Montessori schools teach language?

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Jennifer - posted on 03/07/2009

I taught at a Montessori preschool while I was in college and I like some of their philosophies regarding their exploratory approach and teaching students to be independent. Once I graduated and taught first grade in public school and did notice that some kids who had come from a Montessori preschool did have some bad habits that were very hard to break. They teach students handwriting in preschool, however do not believe in correcting mistakes, so by the time they get to first grade they have developed these bad habits of holding their pencils and writing backwards, and I often had to seek help from the OT. Like anything, it depends on your philosophy, though. Every approach has it pros and cons.

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Sara - posted on 03/07/2009

I live in a city where we have a Montessori school, and a Waldorf school (similar conceptually) but have never had a students that I have know of to come from them. I think generally parents who send there kids for preschool continue to send them around here. I would love to be able to send our girls (even though I am also a public school teacher) I teach art and place extreme value on the exploratory learning and interest/ready approach used in the Montessori and Waldorf schools. Unfortunately for us it financially is not an option, nor is it possible with their schedule and ours for transportation and daycare (as I have a commute each day too). If you beleive in their methods I say try to make it work. I always wonder how different my child could/would be in that type of setting versus the public one. We do the best we can, right? I like to believe I bring what I can of that type of learning to my art students in the public schools.