Reply to I'm a DC Montessorian. AMA.

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP here, as well as the two previous posts.

Folks, keep in mind that 25-30 is a good number, IF and ONLY IF the space is available. Cramming kids in is bad news bears, but that high number in a large classroom is perfect![/quote]

Please explain why 25-30 kids is necessary for Montessori to work.  I am genuinely curious.  I am the PP with a child at Franklin.  I am not convinced that you need that many kids in a classroom at all.[/quote]

OP: I'm going to post an excellent take on the subject but I just don't understand parents who send their kids to Montessori schools without researching some of THE most basic fundamentals. I hope this doesn't come across as snarky, but I just cannot wrap my head around it.

"Parents and traditional early childhood educators always begin by questioning our large group sizes and Montessori's tradition of working with three different age groups in the same class.

Traditional pre-schools strive for very small group sizes, and boast of ratios as low as five children to one adult. Naturally, with all this emphasis on small class size and low teacher/child ratios, parents often wonder why Montessori classes are so much larger.

The answer stems from a fundamental difference in our perception of how children can be best helped to learn. Traditionally, parents and educators have assumed that the classroom teacher is the source of instruction. By this reasoning, the lower the pupil/teacher ratio, the more time an individual child can receive and the better the educational experience.

The facts as shown by a number of studies is that, except where ratios fall as low as four to one or when they climb to more than forty students in a room, research has not been able to find that class size in itself is the link with effective teaching. As any parent who has worked with five to ten children will attest, each individual child is a real person with a demanding set of expectations, opinions, interests, and needs. In a traditional classroom, whether teachers work with ten children or thirty, they spend most of their time either talks to the entire class or working with one or two children at a time while the other child listen, daydream, or sleep. Teacher time is a very limited resource. The most effective teachers succeed not because their classes are smaller, but because they have found teaching strategies that really work. They allow excellent teachers, not matter what setting they teach in, to individualize instruction and facilitate learning for the entire class while they focus their attention on a few children at a time.

Parents and teachers sometimes fantasize about classes that are essentially one-on-one tutorial situations. But the best teacher of a three-year-old is often another child who is just a little bit older and has mastered a skill. This process is good for both the tutor and the younger child. In this situation, the teacher is not the primary focus.

The larger group size in the Montessori class puts the focus less on the adult and encourages children to learn from each other. By having enough children in each age group, all students will find others at their developmental level."[/quote]

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