Montessori is more strict?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can some one describe what a child does when arranging flowers? Are they directing to arrange by color/height/or variety? How long does a preschooler focus on this?

At my school there are little vases around on all the tables. The kids will go to a big vase with all of the flowers (think like a big bunch of carnations from the grocery store) and arrange them into the vases.

There’s no right or wrong to that kind of activity typically, it’s more for littler kids and more of a sensory activity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think people are butting heads because there’s a distinction between the montessori purists and the Montessori inspired. Some of them are really cultish and you need to figure out how much flex they have. I suggested uphread questions about cursive and the work cycle as good proxies, but the play pretend question is also a good one.
I agree with PP that in a good Montessori classroom, there is a lot of collaboration, often between older/younger kids.

I agree with about half of this but my very cultish Montessori school values free time and play and imagination and all that kid stuff.

BTW, that ‘blocks’ thing that people are talking about isn’t blocks as you know it — it’s the first part of the Montessori math curriculum. And yeah, they are supposed to do a specific thing with them. However, there are other blocks that can be ‘played with’ in the most free form way. You can’t ‘play’ with pink tower or brown stairs blocks, but you can play with other blocks — just like kids at traditional school can’t ‘play’ randomly with, like, compasses or whatever.

I just don’t understand the benefit of it. Play based preschools teach all the same concepts, but without all that rigidity.

It doesn’t feel rigid to me, and play based has its own curriculum too. (Draw the picture of how you’ll play with this doll, then go do it, then write about it, etc etc etc). Curricula by design have structure. Montessori is just one approach.

The benefit of any program is what it is. I don’t know whether Montessori is ‘the best’ (I assume no? But I wouldn’t even know how to measure that) but the particular school my kids go to is amazing and it’s Montessori and I watch my 5 year old doing all sorts of cool things. He’s probably be fine anywhere, but he and we all love his school. From reading this thread, there are a lot of misconceptions based on some of the terminology and I just feel like addressing those.

It’s not the terminology. Read some of the posts on here. They sound cultish. “School is for work, not goofing around.” Does that sound like a normal thing to say about a preschool?

No, and I wouldn’t send my kid to a school that espouses quotes like that. But that sounds more to me like a disgruntled parent’s interpretation of what he saw, not what the school would actually say.

‘Play is the work of the child.’ Says it all, I think. And that’s a real quote.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think people are butting heads because there’s a distinction between the montessori purists and the Montessori inspired. Some of them are really cultish and you need to figure out how much flex they have. I suggested uphread questions about cursive and the work cycle as good proxies, but the play pretend question is also a good one.
I agree with PP that in a good Montessori classroom, there is a lot of collaboration, often between older/younger kids.

I agree with about half of this but my very cultish Montessori school values free time and play and imagination and all that kid stuff.

BTW, that ‘blocks’ thing that people are talking about isn’t blocks as you know it — it’s the first part of the Montessori math curriculum. And yeah, they are supposed to do a specific thing with them. However, there are other blocks that can be ‘played with’ in the most free form way. You can’t ‘play’ with pink tower or brown stairs blocks, but you can play with other blocks — just like kids at traditional school can’t ‘play’ randomly with, like, compasses or whatever.

I just don’t understand the benefit of it. Play based preschools teach all the same concepts, but without all that rigidity.

It doesn’t feel rigid to me, and play based has its own curriculum too. (Draw the picture of how you’ll play with this doll, then go do it, then write about it, etc etc etc). Curricula by design have structure. Montessori is just one approach.

The benefit of any program is what it is. I don’t know whether Montessori is ‘the best’ (I assume no? But I wouldn’t even know how to measure that) but the particular school my kids go to is amazing and it’s Montessori and I watch my 5 year old doing all sorts of cool things. He’s probably be fine anywhere, but he and we all love his school. From reading this thread, there are a lot of misconceptions based on some of the terminology and I just feel like addressing those.

It’s not the terminology. Read some of the posts on here. They sound cultish. “School is for work, not goofing around.” Does that sound like a normal thing to say about a preschool?

No, and I wouldn’t send my kid to a school that espouses quotes like that. But that sounds more to me like a disgruntled parent’s interpretation of what he saw, not what the school would actually say.

‘Play is the work of the child.’ Says it all, I think. And that’s a real quote.

But Montessori schools aren’t play-based, so that makes no sense as a quote associated with Montessori schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think people are butting heads because there’s a distinction between the montessori purists and the Montessori inspired. Some of them are really cultish and you need to figure out how much flex they have. I suggested uphread questions about cursive and the work cycle as good proxies, but the play pretend question is also a good one.
I agree with PP that in a good Montessori classroom, there is a lot of collaboration, often between older/younger kids.

I agree with about half of this but my very cultish Montessori school values free time and play and imagination and all that kid stuff.

BTW, that ‘blocks’ thing that people are talking about isn’t blocks as you know it — it’s the first part of the Montessori math curriculum. And yeah, they are supposed to do a specific thing with them. However, there are other blocks that can be ‘played with’ in the most free form way. You can’t ‘play’ with pink tower or brown stairs blocks, but you can play with other blocks — just like kids at traditional school can’t ‘play’ randomly with, like, compasses or whatever.

I just don’t understand the benefit of it. Play based preschools teach all the same concepts, but without all that rigidity.

It doesn’t feel rigid to me, and play based has its own curriculum too. (Draw the picture of how you’ll play with this doll, then go do it, then write about it, etc etc etc). Curricula by design have structure. Montessori is just one approach.

The benefit of any program is what it is. I don’t know whether Montessori is ‘the best’ (I assume no? But I wouldn’t even know how to measure that) but the particular school my kids go to is amazing and it’s Montessori and I watch my 5 year old doing all sorts of cool things. He’s probably be fine anywhere, but he and we all love his school. From reading this thread, there are a lot of misconceptions based on some of the terminology and I just feel like addressing those.

It’s not the terminology. Read some of the posts on here. They sound cultish. “School is for work, not goofing around.” Does that sound like a normal thing to say about a preschool?

No, and I wouldn’t send my kid to a school that espouses quotes like that. But that sounds more to me like a disgruntled parent’s interpretation of what he saw, not what the school would actually say.

‘Play is the work of the child.’ Says it all, I think. And that’s a real quote.

But Montessori schools aren’t play-based, so that makes no sense as a quote associated with Montessori schools.

? It's a direct Maria Montessori quote.

[Anonymous]

The TEACHER is the most important aspect of a child's school experience, and not the philosophy.

---Montessori teacher and mom

[Anonymous]

Aside from all the jabs and cross-talk re: the words play and work here, I'd like to know if we've answered OP's question? What was his / her definition of strict? As another post here mentions, another day care won't call a child by his nickname. Is that the definition of strict?

Also, re: the Montessori-inspired vs strict, that's a huge distinction. Also, some have after care play time (e.g. NE Stars Montessori - from 3-6pm is "free play")

[Anonymous]

Montessori Teacher here chiming in on this thread

Some parents see a Montessori classroom and believe that no pretend play takes place but Dr. Montessori observed children and concluded that their pretend play comes from a child's interests in being like their parents. Children want to use materials in the same way they see their parents using them (or how they think their parents use them haha). To meet this interest the Montessori classroom provides children the opportunity to actually engage in these tasks instead of just pretending to do them. Instead of pretending to serve dinner or run a restaurant, in a Montessori classroom a child will prepare real food themselves (such slicing a banana with a child size butter knife), and serve that food to real people, either themselves or their peers (instead of dolls or stuffed animals). Instead of pretending to have a tea party, in the Montessori classroom that child will actually heat tea (to a safe luke warm temperature, far from boiling), pour it themselves into a real ceramic mug/tea cup, add a real tea bag and then actually drink the tea. Instead of pretending to build something in a plastic workshop, in the Montessori classroom a child will use a real child size screw driver to screw real screws into a real piece of wood (with pre-drilled holes). These activities, banana slicing, tea making, and screwing are the child's "work" and I could on and on with the examples. According to Dr. Montessori, actually doing these tasks is more fulfilling to the children than pretending to do them because the children are excited to be just like the adults in their lives. A good Montessori program should allow the children to have freedom within the classroom and there should still be structured and unstructured time outdoors.

I could speak more on the how social skills are learned in a Montessori classroom and more on structured vs unstructured time during the work cycle but this is already going to be a long post haha

With that being said I have also worked in an amazing play-based program and a less than stellar play based program before teaching in Montessori schools. The good play based program first gave children a lesson on a topic for the day, such as birds, then they took a walk to look for real birds, and then back in the classroom they had to option to pretend play as a bird or engage in other centers. At each center the children played at I would cycle around the room to speak with them. My goal was to ask them questions to extend their thinking and help them to put their ideas into words. In the less than stellar play based program the children genuinely had indoor free play and unstructured outdoor time for the entire day (of course besides lunch and nap time).

To parents looking for a preschool program I would advise to first think of what skills you want to child to obtain by the time they leave preschool and then find a method and a school that highly values those skills. And there is several: Montessori, Reggio Emilia, Frobelian, Piagetian, Creative Curriculum, Nature based, Tools of the Mind, to name a few. If you can, definitely observe the classroom for as long as possible before enrolling your child, but also ask to observe once your child is enrolled. In every preschool I've worked in, we get to conferences and I realize that the parents have no idea what their child really does all day even though we have an open flow of communication. Most of them would be either disappointed or highly impressed if they actually came in and observed.