TO MONTESSORI OR NOT: How to Flourish at School

Perhaps there's a rising three-year-old in your life - or there once was, or will be - you may be thinking about preschool and the best environment for this child.  Google defines the word flourish as follows: "to grow or develop in a healthy or vigorous way, especially as the result of a particularly favorable environment."  Bring your precious three-year-old back to mind, and follow me on a thought journey through non-Montessori and Montessori three to six-year-old environments.  Let's determine where that child has the greatest opportunity to flourish and thrive.

Enter your neighborhood preschool: non-Montessori or Montessori.  Like any school, it could have an exemplary reputation, an average one, or one that's poor or unknown.  Hopefully, you live somewhere with more than one choice.  Like any preschool, it could be housed in a stand-alone building, an office complex, church, or someone's home.  And it could have a brand name like Goddard or KinderCare, a generic one like Little Sprouts Academy, or follow a specific philosophy of education such as Waldorf, Reggio-Emilia, or Montessori.  This school could have a variety of state or national accreditations and/or accreditations associated with a particular educational philosophy.  Depending on the type of school, these can be absolutely critical indicators of a program's quality, especially true for Montessori schools since Montessori is not a patented name.

Non-Montessori preschools predominantly serve same-age cohorts of children (the Sunflower Room for three-year-olds, the Marigold Room for fours, etc.), which creates an environment and set of challenges not experienced in a mature, accredited Montessori community.  Since children graduate from rooms yearly based on age, individuals in a community have equally limited experience with a classroom’s adults, culture, and physical space.  Children in same-age cohorts also face similar developmental challenges, reducing the opportunities for peer-to-peer learning and necessitating greater adult coordination and control. 

It is no wonder with these challenges that many non-Montessori preschools shepherd children through a series of group activities during the day.  Often short, these activities attempt to accommodate limited attention spans and might include singing, arts and crafts, or movement activities.  Fun, harmless, and ubiquitous, right?  But often, this structure and these activities favor children who can sit still and control impulses, and disadvantage children with more varied needs.  This adult-centered, lock-step system also offers more constraints and less potential for academic, social, and creative development for children than appropriately accredited Montessori programs for children of three to six-years-old.

Picture a rambunctious three-year-old entering school for the first time.  She moves quickly, she touches everything, and she uses words not acceptable at school.  In a non-Montessori preschool environment, the aforementioned behaviors would either be acceptable norms, or curbed by the teacher through repeated re-directions.  Most likely, the response would be a combination, yielding both a more chaotic environment and a child who, as a result of re-direction, may receive negative labels from children or teachers.  These labels can compound in impact and stickiness through years of schooling.  To be sure, experienced, empathetic, and skilled adults serve children in non-Montessori environments every day, but the nature of the communities they lead makes it harder, if not impossible, to achieve the kind of calm, orderly, and self-correcting cultures of mature, accredited Montessori programs. 

When the same rambunctious three-year-old joins a mature, accredited Montessori community, she might experience the following: Across the room, someone is scrubbing a table and covering it with soapy bubbles; in the child’s excitement to see more, she runs the length of the room.  When she stops, a settled four-year-old looks up from her button sewing and says in a mothering tone, “We walk here,” and pushes her needle through the fabric with a calm smile.  The busy three-year-old, who hadn’t realized she was running, looks around and sees many children and adults moving slowly and gracefully.  A new challenge!  She might not be capable of controlling her body consistently yet, but she has something to practice and aspire towards and many role models to offer reminders when she forgets. 

The girl wanders away from the child scrubbing the table after watching for some time.  She moves more slowly for the moment.  She sees children pushing in chairs when they stand up from tables.  She sees children returning objects to shelves.  The objects look so beautiful and inviting!  She reaches towards a wooden board with divots on which a child is carefully distributing beads, counting, and recording products.  The six-year-old looks up sharply, as if startled, and says, “Please don’t touch my materials.  If you want to watch me, you can put your hands behind your back.”  Oh!  The three-year-old puts her hands behind her back.  She is drawn in by the child’s peaceful concentration and lingers while he touches the beads and counts aloud… “61, 62, 63… 9 taken 7 times equals 63.” 

After observing several multiplication problems, the girl walks away.  Feeling a bit hungry, she notices a seat available at snack.  She gets a ceramic plate and serves cucumbers, strawberries, and cubes of cheddar cheese with tongs at the snack buffet.  An older boy, also preparing for snack, helps her put some strawberries back so there will be enough for other children.  Then they get fresh cloth napkins for their laps and sit to eat.  The little girl has admired the boy sitting before her, and she starts to giggle and act silly.  The boy smiles at her and asks her if she knows how to clear her plate after snack.  The girl responds with a goofy grin, and exclaims, “Poopy!”  “Oh, we don’t say bathroom words here,” the boy responds matter-of-factly.  “Yes, I know where to put my things,” the little girl replies.  After eating, she takes her plate to a dish bin and puts her napkin in the laundry basket next to Cloth Washing where a child is elbow deep in soap suds, working a metal washboard.

Now the teacher approaches her.  The adult squats so that she can look the three-year-old in the eye.   “I’ve noticed you observing your classmates,” she says kindly.  “Would you like to join me for a lesson on using a zipper?” The child looks at the teacher with wide eyes.  She is just getting to know this person, but other children in the class have known her for two, three, and even four years.  The child nods her head and follows the teacher to the shelf.  Over the next few days, the child will learn that she can only use materials she has had a lesson on.  And she will have many one-on-one lessons to expand the repertoire of materials she can choose.  Even though the room is full of children, the teacher is watching this new person in her midst: watching to see what she gravitates towards, what comes easily to her, and where she needs practice.  The teacher will be working to make a connection and gain her trust, just as she had with the many children who came before.

Think back to the three-year-old - or once was three-year-old or will be three-year-old - in your life.  In which environment do you see your child flourishing?