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Anonymous wrote:Does "Montessori" have any minimal standard whatsoever? I don't think so. Anyone can claim to be Montessori.

There is accreditation. You can't stop someone from saying they are Montessori, but only accredited schools that follow the model and have trained teachers can claim to be accredited, which is a differentiator.

One of my kids went to play-based preschool and one did Montessori. They are both very bright and learned to read early, but no question the one in Montessori learned more, across many dimensions (math, geography, practical life, science).

Things my non-Montessori, play-based preschool attending son could do before K:

--Knew the capital of every state
--Knew the location of every state (i.e. hand him a blank map and say, "Where is New Hampshire?" and he could point to it)
--Knew the planets in order
--Knew how to add and subtract numbers 12 and less
--Could read fluently (like Frog and Toad type books)
--Wrote sentences himself (as in, he'd sit down and would write on his own, unprompted: "Pleas do not tch this diaree. It is min" for "Please do not touch this diary. It is mine."

And this is why I CANNOT STAND when parents mention Montessori preschool as being some end all/be all of education. Kids are different. I just sit there with my mouth shut smiling at you "sympathizing" about how unstimulated your "poor" kid is in kindergarten but I'm thinking: STFU. My kid isn't unstimulated and it is hard to envision yours is above mine as far as his/her learning.

Maybe your friends are assholes. Maybe they're really excited that they've found a preschool that works really well for their kid. Maybe you should take it less personally, or be friends with people who don't suggest that your kid is stupid.

You misunderstand...this is NOT from the preschool attending set that blabs like this - it is from the kindergarten set. MEANING: Their kids formerly were in a Montessori preschool, and are now in public elementary school, and talk to me like "Oh poor Sally who has to sit there all day bored to tears because the curriculum is so, so beneath her ability because she went to (past tense) Montessori." All the while I'm thinking, seriously...stop.

When DD started public preschool, there were a lot of people who complained about their child's experience of the transition - whether that was from daycare, from a nanny, from a stay at home parent, or whatever. Maybe the curriculum IS beneath their child. The point of kindergarten is still to acclimate children to being in school at all. It doesn't need to be academically rigorous, and kids who are already acclimated to being in school at all may very well be bored with that agenda. It doesn't mean your kid is stupid so chill out.

I'm not going to 'chill out' - MY point is that I don't think kids get bored unless parents put that idea in their heads. My child has never said he is bored and he is the one reading far above kindergarten level. (If he is one of a few kids out of 60 who is pulled out for enrichment and he isn't bored...why would yours be?)

It sounds like you're just projecting your own insecurities onto others. The fact that someone said something that implied they are proud of their child was not an insult to you or a form of one upsmanship and they don't have an obligation to not say it around you to protect you from your own insecurities. The fact that their kid happened to go to a Montessori as opposed to play based or any other preschool that could have made kindergarten seem unchallenging by comparison is entirely immaterial and pretending that you've made a poignant observation about parents if Montessori children when really you've just failed to deal with your own issues is kind of sad.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does "Montessori" have any minimal standard whatsoever? I don't think so. Anyone can claim to be Montessori.

There is accreditation. You can't stop someone from saying they are Montessori, but only accredited schools that follow the model and have trained teachers can claim to be accredited, which is a differentiator.

One of my kids went to play-based preschool and one did Montessori. They are both very bright and learned to read early, but no question the one in Montessori learned more, across many dimensions (math, geography, practical life, science).

Things my non-Montessori, play-based preschool attending son could do before K:

--Knew the capital of every state
--Knew the location of every state (i.e. hand him a blank map and say, "Where is New Hampshire?" and he could point to it)
--Knew the planets in order
--Knew how to add and subtract numbers 12 and less
--Could read fluently (like Frog and Toad type books)
--Wrote sentences himself (as in, he'd sit down and would write on his own, unprompted: "Pleas do not tch this diaree. It is min" for "Please do not touch this diary. It is mine."

And this is why I CANNOT STAND when parents mention Montessori preschool as being some end all/be all of education. Kids are different. I just sit there with my mouth shut smiling at you "sympathizing" about how unstimulated your "poor" kid is in kindergarten but I'm thinking: STFU. My kid isn't unstimulated and it is hard to envision yours is above mine as far as his/her learning.

Maybe your friends are assholes. Maybe they're really excited that they've found a preschool that works really well for their kid. Maybe you should take it less personally, or be friends with people who don't suggest that your kid is stupid.

You misunderstand...this is NOT from the preschool attending set that blabs like this - it is from the kindergarten set. MEANING: Their kids formerly were in a Montessori preschool, and are now in public elementary school, and talk to me like "Oh poor Sally who has to sit there all day bored to tears because the curriculum is so, so beneath her ability because she went to (past tense) Montessori." All the while I'm thinking, seriously...stop.

When DD started public preschool, there were a lot of people who complained about their child's experience of the transition - whether that was from daycare, from a nanny, from a stay at home parent, or whatever. Maybe the curriculum IS beneath their child. The point of kindergarten is still to acclimate children to being in school at all. It doesn't need to be academically rigorous, and kids who are already acclimated to being in school at all may very well be bored with that agenda. It doesn't mean your kid is stupid so chill out.

I'm not going to 'chill out' - MY point is that I don't think kids get bored unless parents put that idea in their heads. My child has never said he is bored and he is the one reading far above kindergarten level. (If he is one of a few kids out of 60 who is pulled out for enrichment and he isn't bored...why would yours be?)

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:I'm not sure where these parents have their preschoolers, but I'm also sick of the "my child is bored in kindergarten" postings. As if all children who start out in K will forever be bored for the rest of their lives and no other children will ever catch up to them. One parent made such a fuss near us that they ended up having to leave the school after it was determined that little Jonny was super high in math, but couldn't even write a sentence in 1st grade whereas most of the other kids from play based schools had surpassed him in this regard. We did play based and Montessori for our kids and there were positives and negatives to both. Seriously comparing two great preschools, I didn't see that one was better than the other in terms of the whole child. Just different and they emphasized different things. Yes, Montessori is known to be more academic, so I don't get why these parents complain when they put their child in public school. I want to tell them, "feel free to enroll your kid in a private elementary Montessori." I do wish parents would do searches on this subject before posting about their bored kindergartener or 1st grader 2 months into a new school. There must be a hundred "My kid is bored in K" postings both here and on the individual state public school forums.

Truly gifted kids don't get bored.[/quote]

+1 but you'll get flammed for this.

Only because you are both wrong. Go over to the davidson academy forums to see the stories of the profoundly gifted kids. Some of them are truly gifted and bored in the wrong learning environment.

Right - but that is for the profoundly gifted. Not the run of the mill advanced (gifted) DCUM kid.

I'm sorry, but that is idiotic. Yes, my kid gets bored in school. Is it because he's super extra gifted? Well, no. But he is smart and capable of quickly doing his assigned work. When he finishes, he is allowed to do exactly one thing-free draw. The kid hates drawing. With a passion. If his teacher would unbend enough to allow him to read a book instead he would never be bored. "Only boring people are bored" only applies when a person has at least some autonomy in choosing their activites. Within his classroom, my 1st grader has virtually none.

And yes, in Montessori preschool he didn't get bored because he didn't have to wait on the other kids. He did his work and moved on to the next thing. So yeah, I do wish I could put him back in that environment. If only money grew on trees, I would.

My kids are both advanced (at least a year each) in every core subject and neither has ever reported he/she is bored. Sorry - I think this is ridiculous. It isn't as if your child is drawing 6 hours/day. If he has pencil and paper - he could certainly write, do math, etc.

So is mine. That doesn't, in first grade, make him super special. He reads on a second grade level and is in a second grade math class. And the work is still easy peasy. And he isn't bored every minute of the day, so no, he isn't drawing for six hours a day. But he is bored frequently because traditional schooling involves lots of waiting. The teacher has to read directions to the class, which he could do faster himself but others can't, the slower writers take 10 more minutes to finish, his teacher is new and sucks at classroom management...Whatever. He's bored. I would be too (and was). I don't think he learned more in his Montessori preschool than other kids necessarily, I do think that the style of instruction allows for a lot less twiddle your thumbs time, and THAT is where the boredom originates.