Which schools, if any, excelled during the pandemic?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Lee Montessori rocked DL and quickly came up with a plan.

I mean, no Montessori can rock DL but hey, you do you.

Sometimes I just think people have been Stockholm syndromed into thinking this year was great and fine.

Why wouldn’t a Montessori school be able to rock DL? Dr. Montessori herself said people completely missed the point with her philosophy on education by focusing on the materials.

Environment is essential for Montessori. It's not about the Montessori-approved materials (you could stock a Montessori classroom with stuff from a couple garage sales and a trip to Walmart if you needed to), but the environment does need to be set up in a specific way. And for a true Montessori education, you really need a classroom with multiple children in order to fully embrace the kind of child-led exploration the approach dictates. Plus the reason Montessori teachers generally have certifications is that the style of leading/teaching in Montessori requires a specific skill set (and honestly is not conducive to a limited amount of online instruction a few times a day).

So unless everyone at Lee just happens to have a very relaxed home life with enough space, and at least one parent with the time and skills to facilitate, then Lee failed at providing a Montessori education to their kids. I'm sure some kids had a good experience, but those are likely kids with a SAHP and means and consistent schedules who could homeschool and be fine. A lot of Lee kids don't have anything like that, and they barely got an education at all this year, much less one grounded in Montessori philosophy. Come on.

Eh. I'm sure Maria Montessori wouldn't see things so inflexibly during a pandemic.
I bet the staff had a good sense of what essential aspects of Montessori needed to be implemented at home. Youtube videos show plenty of options for handwritten paper pieces instead of beautiful wooden blocks, for example. and yes, a peer group is super important in Montessori, but it is too in all models of education!
And a relaxed home with space and a parent with time are elements that helped kids thrive in distance learning in all models.

Honestly, this is an utterly absurd argument. There's no way any educator, much less a Montessori ECE educator, would ever claim with a straight face that DL works.

What element of my little six line paragraph is one utterly absurd argument? I say a few things. You say none, other than angry pronouncements of failure.

the idea that Maria Montessori would think DL was anything but a travesty - she who devised her method to help teach SN and disadvantage kids, who emphasized the prepared environment to create autonomy, who emphasized hands-on learning and teaching ...

She devised something new, while using what was available to her to work with. Such a huge emphasis on the little everyday domestic tasks in the very early years. What better environment than a loving home? She created that environment for children much worse off than Lee Montessori students. DCPCS students by-and-large have at home what Maria Montessori had to recreate inside of a children's home.

As a social worker, no. You do not have the slightest clue what students have in their homes. I'm glad that YOU and your peers have beautiful loving homes full of food and supplies, but to say that the students "by and large" have that?

How self-absorbed.

[Anonymous]

It's hard to find another city in America that did less for kids during the pandemic than D.C. Literally everyone in the entire country did better than we did.

[Anonymous]

Someone called out my kids school on this thread as being good. I disagree. It was fine. One kid had a pretty good experience, the other did not. Communication was blah, support was available for certain issues (they did an amazing job with providing food for the community… but not at meeting other needs). Because of that support, at no time did I feel like my kids needs were important enough to the school. I do think they did the best they could under the circumstances. But it by no means was a stellar example. It was just fine.

Point being, don’t assume that your school experience was the same for everyone.

[Anonymous]

My kids are at Lee. Last spring they pieced it together and it was... ok.

Putting my rage feelings aside about generic online schooling during the pandemic, they did great in the 20-21 season until they brought all kids back who wanted to be back.

I have a primary and and elementary kid-- they purchased real Montessori materials including sandpaper letters and sent them home with every single kid in the school. They had hotspots and laptops for all kids who needed them. My younger one had 1 on 1s an 2 on 1s plus small groups every week.

My elementary kid had small and large group lessons every day and Montessori materials to guide through them as well.

I hated distance learning existentially. I have no perspective from what other schools did, but I felt like my kids were seen, supported and stayed on track.

Their favorite part was social lunch each Wednesday with joke telling, project presentations and more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lee Montessori rocked DL and quickly came up with a plan.

I mean, no Montessori can rock DL but hey, you do you.

Sometimes I just think people have been Stockholm syndromed into thinking this year was great and fine.

Why wouldn’t a Montessori school be able to rock DL? Dr. Montessori herself said people completely missed the point with her philosophy on education by focusing on the materials.

Environment is essential for Montessori. It's not about the Montessori-approved materials (you could stock a Montessori classroom with stuff from a couple garage sales and a trip to Walmart if you needed to), but the environment does need to be set up in a specific way. And for a true Montessori education, you really need a classroom with multiple children in order to fully embrace the kind of child-led exploration the approach dictates. Plus the reason Montessori teachers generally have certifications is that the style of leading/teaching in Montessori requires a specific skill set (and honestly is not conducive to a limited amount of online instruction a few times a day).

So unless everyone at Lee just happens to have a very relaxed home life with enough space, and at least one parent with the time and skills to facilitate, then Lee failed at providing a Montessori education to their kids. I'm sure some kids had a good experience, but those are likely kids with a SAHP and means and consistent schedules who could homeschool and be fine. A lot of Lee kids don't have anything like that, and they barely got an education at all this year, much less one grounded in Montessori philosophy. Come on.

Eh. I'm sure Maria Montessori wouldn't see things so inflexibly during a pandemic.
I bet the staff had a good sense of what essential aspects of Montessori needed to be implemented at home. Youtube videos show plenty of options for handwritten paper pieces instead of beautiful wooden blocks, for example. and yes, a peer group is super important in Montessori, but it is too in all models of education!
And a relaxed home with space and a parent with time are elements that helped kids thrive in distance learning in all models.

Honestly, this is an utterly absurd argument. There's no way any educator, much less a Montessori ECE educator, would ever claim with a straight face that DL works.

What element of my little six line paragraph is one utterly absurd argument? I say a few things. You say none, other than angry pronouncements of failure.

the idea that Maria Montessori would think DL was anything but a travesty - she who devised her method to help teach SN and disadvantage kids, who emphasized the prepared environment to create autonomy, who emphasized hands-on learning and teaching ...

She devised something new, while using what was available to her to work with. Such a huge emphasis on the little everyday domestic tasks in the very early years. What better environment than a loving home? She created that environment for children much worse off than Lee Montessori students. DCPCS students by-and-large have at home what Maria Montessori had to recreate inside of a children's home.

As a social worker, no. You do not have the slightest clue what students have in their homes. I'm glad that YOU and your peers have beautiful loving homes full of food and supplies, but to say that the students "by and large" have that?

How self-absorbed.

I stand by the 'by-and-large" qualifier. Do you know that charter school? I know that Lee students are well-cared for, and I'm pretty sure needed services reach the households and the kids. You're jumping on me over something important, sure, something that is everything you've devoted your life to, but it isn't what's being discussed here. We are not talking about whether DL is getting in the way of helping children whose homes are not safe. We're talking about something a lot less important, whether Montessori can be done in DL during a pandemic, and whether that model is any worse than others in DL. And hanging square raggedy hand towels to dry with clothespins, wiping down tables, and pouring water into glasses can be easily adapted to do at home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lee Montessori rocked DL and quickly came up with a plan.

I mean, no Montessori can rock DL but hey, you do you.

Sometimes I just think people have been Stockholm syndromed into thinking this year was great and fine.

Why wouldn’t a Montessori school be able to rock DL? Dr. Montessori herself said people completely missed the point with her philosophy on education by focusing on the materials.

Environment is essential for Montessori. It's not about the Montessori-approved materials (you could stock a Montessori classroom with stuff from a couple garage sales and a trip to Walmart if you needed to), but the environment does need to be set up in a specific way. And for a true Montessori education, you really need a classroom with multiple children in order to fully embrace the kind of child-led exploration the approach dictates. Plus the reason Montessori teachers generally have certifications is that the style of leading/teaching in Montessori requires a specific skill set (and honestly is not conducive to a limited amount of online instruction a few times a day).

So unless everyone at Lee just happens to have a very relaxed home life with enough space, and at least one parent with the time and skills to facilitate, then Lee failed at providing a Montessori education to their kids. I'm sure some kids had a good experience, but those are likely kids with a SAHP and means and consistent schedules who could homeschool and be fine. A lot of Lee kids don't have anything like that, and they barely got an education at all this year, much less one grounded in Montessori philosophy. Come on.

I'm inclined to agree with this. My younger daughter is way beyond her older sibling and there was a very heavy reliance on parents to step in that was not present at the other school we're enrolled in. We were fortunate enough to have an adult attend EVERY SINGLE CLASS with our daughter all year. Not ideal, but we made it happen. Either way, there just wasn't enough material covered in a meaningful way to build a base of knowledge. And managing the gaps was terrible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's hard to find another city in America that did less for kids during the pandemic than D.C. Literally everyone in the entire country did better than we did.

I work in NOVA and it was terrible. We used a concurrent model and kids attended 2 days per week. My kid at a DC charter went to school 4 days and was taught by an actual teacher not “zoom in a room.” DC is not the worst.