Is my montessori school a real montessori school?

Question

I am currently working in the first montessori school of my country which only opened for 15 months. I had in-house training for montessori method which i checked online was very accurate. But my doubt is the way my school runs. My school is only for children of 3-6 yrs olds. Everyday children have 1 hour of work period which means working with the montessori materials. Every week the children have 2 30mins collective lessons which teach about invertebrates, solar system, enerygy forms and etc. Can the children their ages absorb such complicated topics? and is 1 hour of work period enough for them? do they have seperate time for music, art and PE like my school? my school starts at 8:30 till 11:30.. is it too long or too short? How do montessori schools in another countries run?

Answer 1

see in montessori page

Answer 2

hi my 3 children attends the only Montessori school in the Memphis city school system here in Tennessee. The way the Montessori school they attend is ran as the following:during the morning the children have "regular" work (non Montessori lessons) after completing these subjects they are allowed to participate in Montessori method material. After lunch they would complete other subjects. If no other work is assigned they would engage in more Montessori material work. I think that since your children are so young, the time frame allowed is very good because you need to build on their attention spans and this is a very good practice for them. Children learn better when you have their attention. I believe they can learn such complicated topics if you can relate the topics to them and their "little" lives. Try to find a way that would grasp their attentions and interest them. I believe the 1 hour of work period is enough for them right now as they grow, increase their work period time an extra 30 minutes or so. They woul also have their other extra activities such as music, art, and PE. They still need to be well rounded in these areas also. Montessori schools here in the U.S run on regular school times. As for my children's school, the time is 8:15am -3:15 pm.

Answer 3

I’m glad that you asked.  The name Montessori is not copyrighted and so some people open up a “Montessori School” without the right training, materials, schedule and so on.

To begin with, a red flag goes off in my head when I hear that you did not have training at an accredited training center.  I have heard owners say that they believe in training their staff themselves because it reduces the amount of misconceptions their staff has.  I understand this way of thinking, but I also know that there are schools who train their own staff so that they are not aware of actual Montessori philosophy and therefore cannot be upset with non-Montessori processes.  I have heard of more than one Montessori certified teacher in certain schools being told to “get off their Montessori high horse and get with the program”.

Another thing that sends up red flags is that in a 3-6 classroom you only have one hour of work time.  Most Montessorians agree that a 3 hour uninterrupted work period is one of the things that makes Montessori so different and special when compared to other programs.

The two 30 minute group lessons are fine by most Montessori standards.  As far as the children being able to absorb the content, I would have to say that it depends on how it is introduced and at what level of abstraction is required.  If it is introduced in a multi-modality concrete way, focusing on naming the parts of the invertebrate or the solar energy cycle, and that not too much information is given at one time, there is nothing developmentally inappropriate about it.

As far as the school only being 3 -6, that is completely staying with the Montessori philosophy of working with children of multi ages who are in the same developmental plane.  According to Montessori and most other child development researchers, children younger than 3 and older than 6 (give or take a few months or so) process information in different ways and so need their very own environments set up to work with the way their brains think.

PE, art, music and such are different at different schools.  Usually schools have specific times set up, but not always.  By looking at the schedule of your school it would be impossible to give the children everything, a three hour work period, group lessons, PE, art and music if the children only go to school for 3 hours a day.  

I sense that you are not completely happy where you are.  That is not a healthily situation, Montessori or not.  My suggestion to you is to consider taking an accredited course. This way your questions will be answered more completely, you will understand and be more comfortable with the Montessori method, and then you will be able to make an educated decision as to where and why you work some place.

Here is a start for you to look into some training centers.

http://www.montessori.edu/info.html

http://www.amshq.org/teacherEdPrograms.h...

http://www.montessori-ami.org/training/t...