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[quote=Anonymous]

PP here

I can only speak on my individual experience - and what I posted was true of [i]my experience[/i].  My children completed the primary program so we are quite familiar with the philosophies and I agree with you, they were way ahead of their peers when they emerged from primary.  However, elementary was pure chaos - for us.  I can't speak on your experience, only mine.

9:17 wrote this and I agree:
[quote]Basically the kids can choose what they want to work on, leave their main classroom for French, the library or a special whenever they want, etc. So if the teacher isn't making sure the kids are doing something, it would be easy for them to mess around all day. [/quote]

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11:08 here. My only point is that it is meant to be "chaos" sort of at least in the early elementary years.  If it is all ordered in the classroom then it is either a primary class where order is the key or it is not a Montessori class. Kids have to have freedom before they can make real choices. That is the whole point. So there may be days in early elementary when kids do not appear to be doing much. Certainly my kids had days like that. What you seem to be missing is it is meant to be like that. They are not doing work sheets or busy work. They look like they are just hanging out. They do the odd vague lesson here and there and then it seems like nothing else is happening. I get that we all saw that as parents and worried about it.

Then gradually they learn to chose to work. It is an incredible thing to watch happen. And if you look at the fifth graders that is what they are doing - really working and really learning. They are doing something quite different than a kid in traditional program who is completes the work sheet or write the required book report or what ever. They are actually working in a self motivated and focuses way. My DS at this stage wrote "a book" about USA history. ( It was not really a book of course but it was to him). He became obsessed with knowing everything there was to know about Benjamin Franklin and planned and executed a trip for him and his classmates to Philadelphia to add to his understanding. Later in middle school he went on to win the DC National History Day prize (as have many Montessori Alumni).  My daughter on the other hand got obsessed math and Shakespeare.  But they could only do that because they were so self motivated to work and that self motivation comes from the freedom. If you pull the kid out of the program when they are at the stage of just acting freely and  choosing not to work then you are missing the whole point of Montessori. I know it sounds like an act of faith, and probably does sound like we have all drunk the kool aid but it is not like that. When you see you child with a love of learning, acting in a self motivated, driven fashion in the later elementary years the whole thing suddenly makes sense. The people who leave the program never get to see it and go on endlessly only about the chaos. But from that freedom come genuine self motivation.

I do get that Montessori is not for every parent. You have to let go a bit and trust your child. People used to say that to me and I found it probably as irritating as you do now but I decided to take a deep breath a try it and found they were right. It is an awesome program and the so called 'chaos' at elementary is not an aberration it is key part of the program.

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