From: Olga Bourlin (fauxever@sprynet.com)
Date: Sat May 18 2002 - 18:31:31 MDT
From: "Phil Osborn" <philosborn2001@yahoo.com>
> At the Montessori School I helped start, we introduced
> a school monetary system - on the cookie standard.
> The traditional Montessori school expects the kids to
> do various jobs around the school - wiping the tables
> after eating, sweeping the floors - as part of the
> learning process - part of the "practical life
> exercises" which also includes food preparations,
> shoestring tieing, buttoning clothes, etc. In fact,
> the Montessori director is not supposed to double as
> janitor. This is part of the kids' responsibility to
> maintain the environment.
Friendly warning. Montessori is definitely not for all children. I knew
scads of children who struggled unhappily (because of their parents'
expectations) in the Montessori program. Some of those children were
subsequently asked to leave or were taken out of Montessori by their
parents, and those kids subsequently went on and prosper in a different
school environment where they could "listen to their own drummer." In one
family I knew one boy who did very well with Montessori, but the other boy -
there's no other word for it - despised Montessori . As soon as the latter
boy was put into a less-structured school, he absolutely bloomed (and he
continued to do so throughout the rest of his childhood - to become the
happy and intelligent young man he is today).
Olga
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