DC Montessori in Practice
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Anonymous
This is PP. My own kids did great on the tests and I was happy with the school overall and didn’t sweat how some other parents’ kids did and decisions they might have to make (or avoid making). |
Anonymous
Not quite true. We send our child to a DC public middle Montessori school. We felt the in-bound Ward 3 school might be too traditional of an environment for our child after attending the Open House. According to their age, they would be in the 7th grade. In their school, which has multi-age classrooms of 6th-8th grade age students, they, and a few other students who love math are learning and excelling at the 9th-10th grade math level. Last year, our child struggled with 6th grade math and worked with their teachers to get to a standard level for their age. Our child did not want to go to Mathnesium/Kumon and said they'd work on improving on their own. Some 7th grade students helped mentor them. To be clear, we (the parents) are not math whizzes so could not help out if we wanted to. The STEM teachers (there are 2 per class) told us that our child now asks for and chooses do more advanced work now. In contrast, our child's science level is 7th grade while their humanities level is at the 9th grade level. That being said, their social-emotional development is standard for a 12 year old so they are in classes with kids their age. If they were in a traditional school, they might be bored academically most of the time or if placed in an "accelerated" program or told to "skip a year", they would be with kids who are far older than what is appropriate for them. Montessori curriculum is based on the belief that children's knowledge need to be respected and the teachers guide and support them where they are until they are ready to master a new concept. The school day starts at 8:45 am and then the work cycles begin. There is very little "homework" on a regular basis as the students are encouraged to do all of their classwork in the classroom. They try to instill good time management skills in the students. The teachers present new concepts for 30-45 minutes and then the kids do their individual work based on the daily instruction during the 90 minute work cycles. The students have 30 minutes for lunch and 30 minutes for recess. There is an afternoon work cycle and then an elective class. One if their elective classes is called "Enterprise" where they learn about/practice personal finance, help out with the small chicken farm and do group projects with other students that require them to learn project management/logistic skills. One of the projects was that they had to plan a small group field trip from their school to a DC neighborhood which included the public transportation plan, travel costs, maps and itinerary. A teacher accompanied the group however, the students were responsible for selecting the neighborhood, doing research on the neighborhood history, selecting places to eat/visit and providing background information to all of the other students. It seemed like our child and their classmates learned good lessons about planning/schedule management from the experience. In lieu of grades, they have bi-monthly progress reports that are based on the following: Below expectations for skill, Approaching Expectations for skill, Meeting Expectations for skill and Exceeding Expectations for skill. Progress is on a continuum versus a finite decision. It is based on skills within a concept, not one final grade (for example, from their Geometry progress report " Explain a Proof of the Pythagoreum Theorum and its converse, Understand that a two-dimensional figure is similar to another if the second can be obtained from the first by a series of rotations, reflections, translations and dilations, etc..." Hope this gives some insight into what Montessori education looks like beyond the elementary school levels. It's grounded in practical life skills so may not be for every kid/family. Our kid seems to like it right now - that could change as they get older so we are grateful that DC has a lot of different options to fit different learning styles. Good luck with your school journey- |