Montesorri vs. Play Based Preschool

[Anonymous]

DS #1 was enrolled in play based preschool and seems to have done OK there. For #2 we are considering a Montessori school which is in a more convenient location for us. My question is whether different personality types tend to do better in the Montessori setting? DS #2 is a talkative, outgoing kid who can sit and play by himself at times, but also loves to start dancing and singing at the drop of a hat. Any thoughts on whether the quiet environment at Montessori might hinder his social/emotional side at the expense of his "academic" development?

[Anonymous]

I was in a similar situation and tried a Montessori school for its location. I thought my active, bright, easy-going son would do well there but no, the school did not fit him. 1. He was given very limited number of lessons in class, like "washing the table," and "polishing the silver," and was getting bored; 2. There were many restrictive rules (like using materials properly), many of which I don't agree with. Search "Montessori" on this board and you'll see a lot of posts on it may not fit how little boys in particular.

I withdrew my son after one semester and sent him to a play-based (Reggio) preschool "to-the-extreme" 20 minutes away from home and can't be happier with the experience. He gets muddy, acts silly, and is happy, everyday. My daughter (#1) also attended two Reggio schools, one more authentic than the other, and we had good experience with both.

As for academic development, I found a little home supplement goes a long way at this age with my kids. For example, DS learned the alphabet in a week with my husband. So, I'd rather he has a good time at preschool and we do a little home school on academics.

[Anonymous]

I would not send my boy to Montissori. They can't talk at lunch, and I don't want to stifle his imagination. For instance, if he wants to pretend a car is blasting off like a rocket. He would be told not to use it in an unintended way. A car drives on the road. Plus, it's very expensive. No thanks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would not send my boy to Montissori. They can't talk at lunch, and I don't want to stifle his imagination. For instance, if he wants to pretend a car is blasting off like a rocket. He would be told not to use it in an unintended way. A car drives on the road. Plus, it's very expensive. No thanks.

Please. It's ridiculous to say all Montessori is like this because it's not. Not talking at lunch is NOT a requirement of Montessori.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would not send my boy to Montissori. They can't talk at lunch, and I don't want to stifle his imagination. For instance, if he wants to pretend a car is blasting off like a rocket. He would be told not to use it in an unintended way. A car drives on the road. Plus, it's very expensive. No thanks.

Those are not Montessori rules.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would not send my boy to Montissori. They can't talk at lunch, and I don't want to stifle his imagination. For instance, if he wants to pretend a car is blasting off like a rocket. He would be told not to use it in an unintended way. A car drives on the road. Plus, it's very expensive. No thanks.

Those are not Montessori rules.

+1. This is pure fiction.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DS #1 was enrolled in play based preschool and seems to have done OK there. For #2 we are considering a Montessori school which is in a more convenient location for us. My question is whether different personality types tend to do better in the Montessori setting? DS #2 is a talkative, outgoing kid who can sit and play by himself at times, but also loves to start dancing and singing at the drop of a hat. Any thoughts on whether the quiet environment at Montessori might hinder his social/emotional side at the expense of his "academic" development?

We have a son who sounds very similar to yours who has done very well in a Montessori environment. His favorite activity is "dance party," which he asks for every night before bed. He has a number of ways of exploring these interests at his school. For one, his room has a musical instrument set up that he uses a lot. (I have, to be fair, heard the teacher ask him to be quieter on it once, but he was literally hitting a drum as hard as he possibly could while some other children were sitting next to him trying to read, and it seemed like a pretty darned reasonable request). The school has a spectacular art program that my son adores that has let his creative side blossom. It is also good for physical kids, since they tend to do a lot of dancing and listening to music while they work. He also takes an optional additional art class, since its his favorite topic. My son is fairly social, so he tends to do his Montessori "work" with one or more other kids, as a group project. When you watch them, it seems like they are just playing and laughing, though surprisingly they usually do get their work done. He also has a group he likes to eat his lunch with, and he tells me about their discussions at the end of the day, which are often pretty funny (I am certain my school does not disallow talking at lunch, as one of the PPs claimed). It is also a little easy to over-imagine how much of the day is "work time" to begin with. They have lunch and snack time, music time, multiple trips to the playground, etc. so at the end of the day, the amount of time they are really expected to be choosing a "work" is pretty limited.

If you read previous threads on Montessori, you will hear a really wide divergence of opinions on whether the classroom environment appears too quiet. Some of this depends on the individual parents' perspective, but I think a lot of it must depend on the school as well. I think on DCUM we tend to get a little over-focused on the difference between educational philosophies - literally every preschool you're likely considering is a play-based school, including the ones that we typically refer to as non-play based on this forum, such as Montessori. Being comfortable at your particular school is more important.

[Anonymous]

Also, regarding "not using things in unintended ways," it is possible Montessoris may vary, but I have literally never seen a teacher at my son's school stop a student from exploring materials in a new way.

It is true that all of the materials are designed to be self-corrective. That is, they won't look quite right when you're done unless you've done them in the way the curriculum intends. It is also the case that you're not "done" with the work until you've completed a particular set of acts. So, for example, you might need to stack a set of blocks from largest to smallest to complete the block tower, and a teacher wouldn't tell you its "done" until you've done that. But I've literally never seen a teacher come over and tell a student who is building a castle out of the blocks or intentionally trying to stack the blocks from smallest to largest that he is doing it wrong and needs to stop. The whole point of the self-corrective materials is that the students are supposed to figure it out on their own through exploration.

[Anonymous]

OP, following this thread as we are deciding between Montessori and center that says it is based on reggio emilia philosophy. My real concern with the Montessori school we are considering is that the center is in the midst of switching from play-based to Montessori, so the teachers are newly trained in this philosophy which makes me question how good they'll be.

[Anonymous]

I have a lively boy who just finished his first year of Montessori. I had worried a bit because his sibling that had thrived in Montessori classrooms have very different temperaments, and the school we chose for him has a reputation for being SUPER committed to Montessori.

It has been fine. He gets at least an hour outdoors a day, playing in the dirt, using his imagination, and being as loud as he wants. Inside the classroom, he is allowed to talk to his friends and work collaboratively but is also asked to work alone at times, which I don't think is unreasonable.

He's also learned all sorts of independent skills to "help" around the house, which is really nice.

Basically, any preschool with competent, well-trained caregivers is going to be fine. Play-based is fine. Reggio is fine. Montessori. Also fine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would not send my boy to Montissori. They can't talk at lunch, and I don't want to stifle his imagination. For instance, if he wants to pretend a car is blasting off like a rocket. He would be told not to use it in an unintended way. A car drives on the road. Plus, it's very expensive. No thanks.

Those are not Montessori rules.

+1. Unfortunately, it seems that the Montessori school that you tried had their own rules in addition to the Montessori rules that they imposed. As with any type of school, each school is individual and outside of the general teaching practices, procedures vary.

For our experience, Montessori has been wonderful. We are about to switch our preschoolers to a play-based preschool, but it has nothing to do with the school, but due to external reasons. After being on the wait-list for 2.5 years, we got into the preschool at my work and the convenience plus a number of other factors led us to move them for K this coming fall. One of the things we love is that our school has a sense of community. It's a small school and we seem to have have a birthday at least once a month. We get invited to parties for kids in the other classes sometimes because the classes often mix on the playground. We go to parties and we see a lot of kids and families that we recognize. A lot of families are local to our suburb and we have bumped into other families at the supermarket, local restaurants, etc.

In our Montessori, the kids do talk a lot at lunch. So much that they have favorite friends they like to sit near. Lunch and playground times are the times that they have a lot more leeway to do things including blasting off like rockets, singing, etc.

As for using things in the "right way", every Montessori project has a lesson to be learned. The teachers guide the students to learn that lesson. After they have accomplished that lesson, they can spend as long as they want with the project doing whatever they want with it. In observation I have seen a child learn the lesson and then spend 15 minutes being creative and playing with the project like open play in a play-based program. The director of our Montessori school is a second-generation Montessori teacher. She was taught by two of Maria Montessori's early students so she got a lot of guidance pretty close to the source. She has said that this is true to the way that Maria Montessori suggested, e.g. that every project does have a lesson to be learned and that students need to be guided to learn that lesson, but that after the lesson was learned, the child had plenty of time to be creative and explore.

That said, just as any other form of education, one size does not fit all. And judging by our kids' classroom and classmates, there is no "type" that does best in Montessori. We have pretty active Tasmanian Devils who do well there. They have classmates who are very different types. A quiet and shy boy that needs to be encouraged, and the teachers do. A bossy, center-of-the-known-universe queen be who is the center of the kids playgroup on the playground and the teachers handle her very well. One hyper child who has difficulty sitting still and the teachers work with him. He works off his energy by doing a lot of movement. How? When he picks up his projects, he picks them up one piece at a time. He goes and gets piece A, brings it back to his work area. He goes and gets piece B, and stops to look at little Larla's project, goes back. He goes to pick up piece C and stops at the water fountain on the way back. He finally gets all of the pieces and the teacher makes sure he learns the lesson. He takes 4 trips to put things back. It's fine. They keep an eye on him and keep him from getting too distracted but they do give him leeway to be hyper. I have also seen several kids of similar types who were at the Montessori only a short time and the parents opted for a different form of preschool. So, I think it is much more about the individual child and the individual school than it is based on style of school.

[Anonymous]

OP here. Thanks everyone! It is helpful to hear everyone's perspective. 10:14 must be considering the same school, because i have similar concerns about the teachers' lack of Montessori teaching experience (school is currently Fun N Friends and is changing to Lewinsville Montessori with changeover being completed by Sept). I think the one good thing for us is that we are on the wait list at one of the "more sought after" play based preschools in our area and we should get in next year, so if we feel like he isn't thriving in the Montessori setting we could always switch him, although it would actually be more expensive in our case to go to the other center, and the other center has shorter hours and more days off during the year. go figure!