Reply to Franklin Montessori student age 3 left in Forest Hills Park by teachers today

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote]Why the split? Why did Montessori need to even fight it?[/quote]

I think that article explains the split in a pretty even-handed way, but an oversimplification is that AMI believes that Montessori programs should be implemented as faithfully as possible to Maria Montessori's original lesson plans, and AMS believes that her lesson plans, while very good and a departure point, are in some cases inconsistent with modern educational research, and in those cases, modern research should prevail. I see merits to both positions.

As for why her son was willing to sue over it, I don't know. Charitably, he sincerely believed the AMS standards were harmful. Cynically, like all children of famous people, he probably wanted to maintain tight control over his mother's ideas, both for personal and monetary reasons.[/quote]

I've had kids in both AMS and AMI schools, and they are pretty similar.  The big difference I noticed was that the AMS preschool did "circle time" and group lessons in addition to the individual Montessori lessons.  So, the day would start with everyone on the carpet and the head teacher introducing a short concept related to the larger theme the class was covering.  So, if they were learning about Antarctica, the teacher would show the kids some ice cubes or whatever and talk about the theme for a few minutes before releasing them to their individual "works."

The AMI school didn't do this.  Kids were brought together in small groups (by age cohort, I think) for songs or a group lesson but there weren't "themes" for the whole class.

I kind of preferred the AMS version, as it let the parents have more of a window into the child's day.  So, if I knew the class was learning about woodwinds, I could ask specifically about that at the end of the day. [/quote]

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