Montessori schools

http://www.shelton.org/montessori/default.html

Thanks! I’ve been to their site before. It looks like they group their children more like Montessori call for-early childhood, lower elem, & upper elem. I think Montessori would be great for my children, if they weren’t all clustered into one class, ages 5-13, all ability levels. Plus, there’s only one assistant with me and she is of little help, but that’s a whole different story. The people at the special ed. office were going to pair me up with another school where I would have grades 1-3 & the other school would have grades 4 & 5, but after they got my hopes up they discovered that there were too many older children to do the grouping that way. The last thing I heard was that they would let me know “before school starts” as to what grades I will be teaching. I think I would need materials for all age groups, but I’d have to have a room the size of the cafeteria for that! If I’m lucky I’ll get a regular sized class next year, so either some of my students won’t get what they need or my room will be very cluttered. I apologize for the negative tone in this post, but I’ve been questioning this since October and no one in my district has been able to answer anything for me. I’m very frustrated. I did email someone at the Shelton Center, though, and maybe they can point me to someone in a similar situation.

I teach in a Montessori public school but all my students are in inclusion classrooms. We have one self-contained class, which is mostly for those with behavior problems in the lower grades, and those who are very far behind in the upper grades. The self-contained class is taught as a traditional class, with no Montessori materials. The problem with this is that, if the children are able to be moved to an inclusion setting at a later date, they have no experience with functioning in a Montessori environment.

It sounds like your class is an afterthought :-( I’d be a pest if that would help… basically imploring in writing to as many peole as possible about your concerns, pressing whatever buttons you think they’re most likely to respond to and mentioning any others (legalities, parental concerns, the kids being warehoused while the rest of the school gets to take on this new adventure…)

Like I said, I bugged my principal for months about what was going to happen to us when the changes were made. I feel like she couldn’t give me an answer because she didn’t know either. She was new to the school, too. The old principal was responsible for requesting this grant, & according to the teachers who were there last year she’d said that “self-contained had no place in Montessori” whatever that means. So for months I was told by the principal that either my class would be moved to another school location or we wouldn’t change over to Montessori. This was probably based on the fact that the pub. school in VA that they visited had a self-contained class, but it was traditional. I was not only concerned about my students, but myself. The training for Montessori is very extensive & I’m only teaching under a special ed. conditional license, which expires next summer. I have classes to take over the summer so that I can be certified, or I can’t teach period. When I shared these concerns with the principal, she said that the certification was my priority, but she thought that the only part of the training I’d have to attend this summer was a week long overview. A few months ago when the trainer came to visit our school, he informed me that all classes in the school had to be Montessori, even mine. He was puzzled at the grouping of the students as well, again no answers. So I do feel like I’ve been put on the back burner here, as well as my students. I mentioned my concerns to the special ed. director, but I don’t think much consideration has been given to them. I think that this is something that our highly paid curriculum planner should be looking into, although once she said to me, “you know what your students will need.” I know what they need, but getting it is another story! I intend to keep bugging people until someone checks into it for me.

I don’t know if this is a public or private Montessori school but it IS a Montessori school for children with learning differences. I believe Joyce Pickering runs the school - she started out as a speech pathologist and is a lifelong Montessorian as well (I think). I’ve heard her speak. You might want to contact her because if anyone knows anything about Montessori schools and learning differences, it would be Joyce or any of her teachers. The website for her is

http://www.shelton.org/personnel/jpickering.html

In a way, special ed teachers are made for Montessori because you have to think of all the different ways that children learn. Montessori is a multi-sensory approach - you may be way ahead of the other teachers in your school philosophically (which I think is 75% of the battle when it comes to finding a good Montessori teacher) because special ed teachers think that way all the time. Good luck.

My kids have both been in a public Montessori program through 4th grade. One is a special needs child (NLD) one is not. Like your school, ours uses an inclusion model for all children that can possibly be serviced that way. After all, that was why Maria Montessori developed her program!

I LOVE Montessori, and think it was a wonderful experience for both of my kids. It is only this year, finally, in 5th grade and out of the Montessori program, that my NLD son realized that his school experience is any different than any other child’s. The SPED teacher was in the classroom for half of the day, and an aid for the other half of the day. She helped other children as needed too. And since all lessons in a Montessori classroom are individual or small group, my son never felt singled out. Even when he needed OT services, they were delivered in the classroom, and the OT pulled a couple of other children who were not on ed plans, but could benefit from the same work, out to work with at the same time.

Children who need intensive remediation in reading or speech to get pulled out for those services, but again, it’s no big deal. Since the children work on their own work, on their own schedule, so no one is “left out” because they need to leave the room for a while.

Good Montessori programs are wonderful. Unfortunately, poor ones can just be chaotic and stressful for students and teachers alike.

Karen

I don’t know why it would have to be all or nothing. Our Montessori program is acredited by the powers that be in the Montessori world, but it is NOT the only program available in the school. We have a choice between Montessori, Traditional or French Immersion classrooms. There are inclusion classrooms in both the Montessori and Traditional programs.

Karen

It’s written differently in different school districts. Some DO have an all-or-nothing approach. Anonymous, have you spoken to someone from the Montessori training program who will be training these teachers this summer? Has anyone from your school spoken to you about any training whatsoever? Ordinarily the organization doing the training will also oversee the course of implementation of Montessori throughout the year. There should be Montessori consultants available to the entire staff. Every teacher should be able to discuss concerns with these Montessori consultants.

So I’d yell, yell, yell for help from a Montessori consultant. That would be the person who can help you figure out the very best way to maintain your class under this new setup. It may very well be that, once they see your class structure, they’ll try to work with you on an overview to help you become familiar with what’s going on in the classes while still continuing your own class structure as before.

Two questions:

1) I was told Montessori is not good for LD children because they need, “structure, structure, structure”. My tutor said my daughter would excel in areas that were her strengths and ignore those that weren’t.

2) Karen - you don’t have a problem with your son “sharing” his OT in an inclusion classroom? My daughter was in inclusion (not by choice - in fact we had her pulled and put into gen ed), but she qualified for OT with the public school - which means you are pretty severe if you qualify - and she had 30 min pullout. Next thing I know, they are sharing my daughter’s 30 min with 3-4 other children as well in the inclusion classroom. I didn’t want that. I told them my IEP said “30 min pullout” and that’s what I wanted. If my daughter qualifies for OT and I spend my time and $$ (off work) to meet and get services for her then I don’t want to share them with others. I want her to have 1:1 OT. How much time does she get to learn keyboarding (no one else has a keyboard in the classroom) if she is sharing that time (30 min/1x wkly)with other children? If a child qualifies for a service, like OT, then the problem is severe enough to warrant specific instruction. Needless to say, the next week she was back on 1:1. Of course, that’s JMO.

I did speak to the Montessori trainer and he informed me & my principal that my class would have to be a Montessori classroom. He didn’t know what to tell me about the set-up of my classroom, in fact he was confused about me teaching all grades in one class. He suggested that I take the elem. training b/c I have elem. age students, but noted that they function on the early childhood level. So everyone’s confused. I’ve been asking questions for months and just when I think I get an answer, they turn around & tell me something different. I’ve signed up to take training this summer because there might not be stipend money to pay teachers next summer. I also feel that the elem. concepts will be over the heads of the majority of my kids.

Then do try to contact someone from the Shelton School. I attended a conference featuring them. They use Montessori materials but they modify them for their students. Any good Montessori teacher does that naturally, of course, but they had good ideas and suggestions. As far as I know, in Montessori they’re the leading professionals when it comes to LD’s. It would be wise for you to contact them so that you can discuss with the trainer the feedback they’ve given you.

The Montessori elementary training is wonderful but don’t let anyone kid you - it’s a LOT of work to complete. It can be done over two summers - 6 weeks one summer, 3 the next, but it’s extremely concentrated when done during the summer. I think that it would be good for you to do an overview but to expect you to take both primary AND elementary training is too much, esp. since the elementary training itself is broken up into two sections: 6-9 year olds and 9-12 year olds. They’re two separate training programs. So, essentially, you’re talking three programs. It’ll take years to complete them. I’d be inclined, in your shoes, to want the overview of each program and then to visit schools to see it in action. Take what you can from it philosophically and contact the Shelton School for advice. Perhaps your school district will pay for you to visit Shelton since their Montessori work is entirely for kids with LD’s.

The elementary Montessori training for 6-9 year olds takes two summers to complete and the 9-12 year olds takes another two summers. You can overlap one summer.

When people talk about Montessori not having structure, they are only showing that they don’t know much about Montessori. A good Montessori classroom is VERY structured. The structure is just so different that it might not seem obvious to people who are used to a traditional classroom. What most NLD kids need (and that is my child’s problem) is a structured program and setting with a flexible teacher. That’s what he got in his classrooms.

>> My tutor said my daughter would excel in areas that were her strengths and ignore those that weren’t.<<

A good Montessori teacher knows which children have to be “moved along” or guided into work that they might not choose on their own. My son can get very “stuck”. The teachers knew that they had to move him on to other work. Like many NLD children, he also has a hard time making choices. So the teachers would narrow it down for him… “Would you like to do math with the Golden Mat or with the Stamp Game?” Rather than just asking him to make a math choice. My experience has been taht good Montessori teachers know when a child NEEDS to be allowed to stay with a particular type of work, and when they need that little push out of the familiar into something new.

>> My daughter was in inclusion (not by choice - in fact we had her pulled and put into gen ed), <<

I’m not sure what you mean by this. In our school system, inclusion classrooms are automatically “general ed” classrooms. Most of the children are not on ed plans. Only children whose problems are severe enough that their needs cannot be met in the general ed classroom are serviced in self contained classrooms.

As far as OT and pull-out is concerned, I think it depends entirely on the child and the isues being addressed. When my son was working with the OT on handwriting (printing really) in first grade, it was appropriate for him to be working with the OT and a couple of other children in the classroom. There were other children who were getting OT for gross motor issues, and they were done in a pull-out model. For my son, it was less stressful, and therefore he learned more, when he could stay in his familiar classroom, working with a couple of classmates.

I agree that keyboard instruction, particularly with a child with motor issues (my son doesn’t willingly use his right hand for anything, and had trouble even keeping it on the keyboard to begin with) needs to be one-on-one. In fact we just finished a year of keyboarding 30 minutes 3x per week at school, and will continue on our own with a tutor through the summer. He was taught after school, one-on-one.

But I think keyboard instruction IN the classroom wouldn’t make sense. As you pointed out, no one else would be doing it anyway. So what would the benefit be to staying in the classroom. If you need to single the child out, you might as well remove them from the classroom and distractions.

Karen

So you do find Montessori to be structured? I’ll be honest, I don’t know much about it except that it’s supposed to be an excellent teaching method and I was just going on what my tutor said.

We have a magnet program in our county and one of the magnets is Montessori - I may look into it in January for my daughter (going into 4th grade) - do you think it is too late to get her started in this kind of environment?

Montessori if done properly is _definitely_ structured. The whole concept revolves around the “prepared environment”.

HOWEVER, like any other program, the success is very much dependent on the implementation. So if you have a great staff, you’ll have a great experience. Poorly run Montessori is probably at least as bad as bad traditional.

I’d ask a LOT of questions before switching a child into a Montessori program that late. Montessori builds on skills developed from a 3-6 year old program on. Part of the process is the younger ones watching and learning from the older ones as they grow through the program. Joining a Montessori program at the 4th grade level might be like getting thrown into the deep end of the pool. Even an NT child would probably need LOTS of support to learn the ropes and transition successfully.

I’d think you’d need a really, really supportive staff. Maybe one of the Montessori trained teachers on the board will chime in on how hard it might be for a child to transition in at that age.

I know in our school system, unless a child is coming from another Montessori program, they are hardly ever allowed to join a Montessori classroom after their “first grade” (1st year in the 6-9 classroom) year. Even then, it is expected that they will need some extra training in the Montessori way of doing things. As I mentioned, Montessori done right is VERY structured, but it is not the same type of structure as found in a traditional classroom. It’s going to take a while for a child to learn the ropes.

Karen

Adding to Karen’s very accurate posts, I think it’s important to know that kids who enter Montessori in the mid-elementary grades often DO seem to be a bit lost the first year. I’ve taught 6-9 year olds and the students we’ve had who enter new to Montessori as first graders have it much easier than those who enter as 3rd graders.

As Karen said, it’s a very structured environment. But it doesn’t appear to be so to new kids entering the classroom from traditional schools and that’s where the problem is. Initially, they really do see it as freedom. They eventually come around and recognize that they must finish their assignments and not shirk any area of the curriculum. It takes a lot of guidance on the part of the teachers. The school I work for takes new students of any age but is very experienced in transitioning new students into the environment. Despite that, it can be up to a year before a child is really working up to the expected levels. Some kids walk in and embrace it but some walk in and spend time testing the waters before realizing they’ll have to work hard.

I sent an email to Dr. Pickering and heard from her assistant this morning. To summarize what was said to me, Montessori would be great for my class, but I need the right training.
Of course, later in the email I learned that the Shelton School doesn’t teach children with Down’s syndrome, mental retardation, or emotional disturbances. Most of my children have ED and MR. The age grouping wasn’t discussed, but by looking at their website, it seems as though they have the children grouped more as the Montessori philosophy calls for and not warehoused in one class as my students are.
So, my quest to find another teacher in a similar situation continues….
What I really want to know is, does my arguement that having K-5 in one class will be chaotic in a Montessori environment? Should I be pushing for division of the ages?

Karen & JFG - thanks for the input. Might be a little overpowering for an LD student, huh? She is gifted, and attends gifted resource, does handle change very well, but I’d hate to waste a year of academics to learn the ropes. I just thought it would be very good as she loves “hands-on” kinds of things, experiments, etc. - I would think those are the kinds of things Montessori excels in?

Re “What I really want to know is, does my arguement that having K-5 in one class will be chaotic in a Montessori environment? Should I be pushing for division of the ages?”

I wouldn’t say that it’d be chaotic but extremely impractical and not possible unless there’s at least two fulltime trained Montessori teachers and at least one assistant. I don’t know how you could stock the classroom with enough supplies for that wide an age group. There’s a LOT of Montessori supplies and materials in each classroom that spans 3 years. I couldn’t imagine it being done with a 6 year span.

I’ve known some Montessori schools that’ve combined K-2 or even K-3 but I’ve never known any combining K-5 and I’ve been in Montessori for 20 years.

I know some classes that have Downs kids and they’ve been very successful in the Montessori structure. They’re in regular classes but are pulled out for remediation. The difference, though, is that there’s just one or two Downs kids per class. You, of course, have an entirely different setup on your hands.

If I were you, I’d want to either split it into two classes (but where’s the funding for another classroom and teacher?) or not be required Montessori but continue along the lines of what you’re doing already.

I still maintain that special ed teachers are intuitively Montessori because you have to address many learning styles. You’re already, I’m sure, using concrete materials with some and working towards abstraction with others and pacing each student’s work individually. Philosophically, you’re probably already closer to Montessori than the reg ed teachers. Maybe you can push to keep your current setup based on that.

Thank you for your input. That’s one of the questions I had all along-what kind of age divisions have been used in other spec. ed. Montessori programs. I thought it would be impractical to put all those grades into one classroom. It was tough enough in a traditional classroom.
What’s kind of ironic in this situation is that our new sped. director wanted to take all the cross-cat classes in the division and pair them with other schools so that one school has the younger students and the other has the older students. It sounded like a really nice idea and worked out well for the other schools in the division, but guess who was paired with another school who has mostly the older children? Yes, yours truly. There seems to be a larger number of grades 4-5 in our area than K-3, so right now I don’t know how they’re going to handle the situation. I was told they’d let me know “before school starts.”

It sounds terribly disorganized and un-thought-through (how’s that for a word?) I don’t envy you. I don’t see how a school can just suddenly become Montessori. When I took my elementary Montessori training, I was in a class with public school teachers who were being forced to retrain in Montessori over two summers or lose their teaching jobs. I don’t have to tell you they were furious. They not only lost their summers to the training but it’s a very intense training at that. There’s an awful lot crammed into 9 weeks (6 weeks the first summer, three the next in the program I used. Some training programs organize it a little differently). There were teachers who’d been teaching for years and were comfortable in their professions. While I love Montessori and couldn’t work within another system, I still felt for these teachers who had no choice.

I remained in touch with one of them for a couple years. Their program was shaky and I have to believe it was because the teachers weren’t committed to this new method they’d been forced to learn.

It seems to me that the only real way to “go Montessori” is to start from scratch. Hire a trained Montessori teacher for the preschool age, then as the kids move up through the grades, add classes. But to change an already existing school over into Montessori as if waving a magic wand seems downright unstable to me.