Reply to Lee Montessori open slots for 1st and 2nd

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My eldest is in K at Lee and is working on precursory skills for multiplication after having already done addition and subtraction. The parents who complain about "lack" of academics likely don't understand how the Montessori method works, and probably would feel more comfortable at a school that drills their kids to do well on standardized tests. I just don't see that as a priority. [/quote]

That's unusual for any kindergartener, it's possible your kid is simply naturally gifted at math and this has nothing to do with his school. Most kids do not start doing multiplication in K, whether Montessori or no.

It's not that people want their kids doing drills for standardized tests. Most parents hate that stuff. But pretty much all parents want their kids to learn to read, write, and do math at a competent level. Montessori often relies on the idea that children will naturally gravitate towards those things if they are offered in the right way, and for some kids that's true. And for some kids it's not true. It's easy to believe that your 3 yo will do well in Montessori, but once they've gotten past the pre-academic stuff, lots and lots of kids gravitate not towards academics but other things, and need more structure and focus in order to learn these basic skills.

I guarantee there are kids in your son's K class who can barely do any addition. And the question for them is whether they will get enough math this year to keep them at grade level. And the issue compounds after K because you are no longer doing foundational work but building on foundations. So if you lack sufficient phonemic awareness or have not mastered the concrete mathematical concepts, it is basically impossible for you to work on your reading comprehension or abstract math skills at grade levels.

Which is why parents often leave Lee and other Montessori programs in 1st or 2nd. It's not that they desperately crave rote memorization of standardized testing subjects. It's that their child is not performing at grade level on basic subjects and they worry that if they wait too long, the problem will compound and become harder to address. Parents with kids who LOVE math and reading and push themselves to go further in these subjects on their own don't get it and like to feel superior. But criticizing parents because they want their children to learn to read and do math is ridiculous.

Montessori is not for everyone, and it is especially not for everyone past ECE.[/quote]

+1000.  If I had a nickel for [b]every ECE parent who thinks everything's great at their HRCS and the whiny complaining older-kid parents [/b]just don't understand [Montessori/immersion/their school's special sauce/whatever], I'd have enough to pay for 30 minutes of tutoring!

Look, it's hard to acknowledge that your lottery "win" isn't actually that great beyond ECE.  But if your kid falls below grade level it's going to cost you in money and time to catch them up, and it can really affect their mental health.  At some point you won't be a Montessori parent, or maybe you'll need them to be competent in math or reading to do some other activity.  How long are you willing to wait for your child to be on grade level?[/quote]

THIS. +100. I was this parent; I was proven very wrong as my child got older. By 3rd and 4th grade at my DS's former charter the outsized focus on community and social justice at the expense of foundational academics (multiplication, division, fractions) left him far behind grade level (even with expensive tutoring to support). [/quote]

+100000000 We were at a HRCS. At some point the outsized focus on social and emotional development seemed to be just a crutch or excuse for not supporting rigorous academics. The pandemic saved us because our school relied heavily on computer programs so our kid was able to advance, but that was in spite of, not because of, our HRCS. The irony is that the social and emotional stuff also failed because they treated 4th and 5th graders like ECE and the kids got over on all of the teachers.

FWIW I don't think this is specific to charters; I think this is par for the course in DC. We were fortunate to get out when our lottery came up roses. We sometimes sit around and ponder what we would have done had we not gotten lucky.

P.S. The term "supplementing" is gross and I really wish DCUM would stop using it. For generations parents have supported kids' learning outside the classroom without the need for yet another buzzword designed to reinforce how special and privileged they were.[/quote]

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