Reply to Help me understand the difference between Montessori and play-based preschool

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Hmmm... Thanks for that comment, but I still can't really see how this plays out in real life.  So, at a Montessori school, if a kid is playing with (working on?) a puzzle, and decides to pretend that the pieces are dinosaurs, are they corrected?[/quote]

In my experience touring a local Montessori - yes.  My 2-year-old took down a set of blocks and began stacking them, and the teacher quickly swooped in and corrected her, saying that the blocks were only for laying out in a specific pattern.  Same thing with different instruments on a shelf - 2 YO attempted to ring one of the lined-up chimes with a xylophone mallet and the teacher removed it from her hand.  YMMV, but this was a dealbreaker for me - we're sticking with play-based all the way.  I'm sure some Montessori schools are more or less strict, but I didn't like the rigidity at all, especially for such young children.

Another quirk: "true" Montessori is mixed age classes of 3-5 year olds (3-year learning cycle).  A friend of mine in CA felt that in practice, this meant the older kids in her child's program completely steamrolled the younger ones, "helping" them by drawing over their artwork, writing her child's name for her (and spelling it wrong), etc.  I think it would take a truly skilled teacher (and an equal mix of 3s, 4s, and 5s in the class) to make this work - but generally in this area, the classes skew either young or old.[/quote]

In my experience with a kid actually IN a Montessori program, no. There are some instructional materials — NOT toys — which are designed to teach math and language. It is preschool. But there are also toys (example: legos, farm animals, balls, whatever) and if a kid at my school is playing with the legos and pretending they’re rainbow unicorns or whatever the teacher doesn’t intervene. This PP probably saw a kid misusing one of the sensorial block kits, which are for math instruction.

Like other posters noted, Montessori programs are scheduled with chunks of work time and chunks of play time, and for 3-5 year olds work time is to do the educational stuff but play time is for play, same as any other daycare.

As for the steamrolling, it certainly could happen but in practice generally the older kids have their older kid buddies and the younger kids have their younger kid buddies. Older kids show younger kids how to do ‘life skills’ stuff, like washing dishes, but aren’t involved in most of the work period instruction.

I don’t know anything about play based in practice so can’t comment on that. [/quote]

PP here.  Not sure why it should matter what the blocks are for?  They're blocks, she's 2, and the teacher told her she was 'doing it wrong'.  This particular school was quite formal/austere in terms of Montessori approach - they did not have many, if any, toys beyond the 'work'; the schedule for an 8:30-3 day for 3 YOs was breakfast, 3 hours of work, 30 minutes outside, lunch, 2 hours of nap.  Once a week they had music.

I'm familiar with the research out of UVA's Curry School of Education saying that Montessori provides a significant school-readiness advantage for underprivileged preschoolers over play-based preschool.  However, I also know that our family consciously emphasizes early academic concepts (counting, basic math, letter recognition, fine and gross motor, etc.) for our child at home in a way that other parents may not have the time or resources to do - so for us, preschool is as much (or more) about social development as it is about school readiness.  I'm not making a judgement call on the Montessori philosophy one way or another - this thread illustrates the broad range of implementation strategies out there.  But OP asked if children are corrected in the classroom, and in a true Montessori, they are.[/quote]

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