Visit to a Montessori School

Visit to a Montessori School

13th April, 2016

Alex talks about his recent visit to a local Montessori school and some practices that caught his eye

I first heard about Montessori Schools at University when our tutor briefly mentioned a few types of alternative education. Ever since then I have been interested in understanding how a Montessori classroom works, and while there was plenty of information, I heard mixed reviews from people about their experiences. I decided to investigate by contacting a local Montessori School and asking to observe a few different classrooms over the course of a day. They were happy to oblige and now I’m taking the chance to pass on my experience in a younger years classroom.

What is a Montessori School?

This is only a brief overview – for more information check out the Montessori Australia website

Montessori refers to the philosophy created by Italian physician and psychologist, Dr. Maria Montessori. She opened her first “school” in 1907 and applied a particular method and outlook to teaching children. Since then Montessori Schools have begun to spring up all over the world and have been agreed, by research, to have various elements that lead to positive social, emotional and academic results for children. The Montessori philosophy suggests that children transition through four planes of development from birth to adulthood, and each plane has a natural development that education should take advantage of. The second plane, childhood, is the one that takes place at primary school when children are 6 – 12 years old. A well known element of Montessori classrooms is the use of a prepared environment, where pre-made activities are available to be independently worked through at the child’s pace. One more element to note is that the classrooms are organised into cycles, not years – they are composite classes. I observed a cycle two classroom (years 1, 2 and 3) and a cycle three classroom (years 4, 5 and 6).

Cycle 2 (Years 1 – 3) Classroom

The overview of cycle two is a focus on independence, order, concentration and coordination. The classroom I visited was beautiful, with child-sized wooden furniture, desks, shelves and chairs, as well as various artefacts such as posters, flowers, and even a little kitchen. The activities are all based in the shelves and this is perhaps the first aspect that can confuse –the teacher described it to me as the curriculum being on the shelves. Students have access to different challenges and curriculum areas to work on independently. The prepared activities are all said to be self-correcting; if you’re doing something wrong it will become evident without the teacher needing to tell you. The classroom environment was truly wonderful and the students also seemed to have a sense of independence as they were able to direct their own learning, rather than relying on the teacher.

While it was fantastic to observe the students going about their own learning, it is also interesting to note that Montessori Schools have their own curriculum to lay over the top of the Victorian Curriculum. I was only around for an hour or so but there were a few things I would like to sum up:

• The classroom is beautiful and makes sense. Children are using the classroom so everything should be child sized. Classrooms are where we will spend the majority of our time, they should be beautiful places.
• Hard to tell it’s composite. All the students were completing the same activities, but the teacher varied their expectations depending on their age, meaning they could achieve at their own rate.
• Activities promote independence. Not only the activities but the Montessori teaching philosophy promotes independence – a powerful idea which I believe has many learning benefits.

I’m still making up my mind about Montessori Schools, but I think they are an extremely valid form of alternative education. In fact, I think there are a number of things the public system could learn about from Montessori. I’ll do another post soon to talk about the cycle 3 (years 4 – 6 ) classroom.

- Alex