One is red, eight is brown(or is it pink?), and ten is green.
Ok…so I which the best to moggy. And don’t forget to get your certifications!!!
Jojo, writing the numbers was one of my favorite things to do.
Ahh…such happy memories…in Montesori I felt so happy. At least the elementary school I went wasn’t so conventional.
I guess its family day on the SDMB. (Hi hedra and tranquilas)
The thing I would add is that Montessori moves the burden of learning to the teacher. I’ll explain in case that’s not clear.
Using the example of my son again, because he’s an auditory learner, the teacher had to modify her approach for several of the lessons so that he could get it. In fact, one of the elements of Montessori is that the teacher has to modify the lessons to suit the students methods of learning. As a result, there isn’t any one way to teach anything. There is a standard way to initially show a lesson, but after that it gets modified to suit.
I have a friend who tells a story of someone he knew in college that he called “the Montessori student from Hell”. In class, he would say to the professors, “I don’t get it. Tell it to me a different way.” Now, in college I would expect my son to compensate for differences in teaching styles and methods, I am glad that now he is getting teaching that works for him.
Oooh, I am SO into this! This is so groovy. The school where I used to work had their own training program that was mandatory even if you worked in the afternoon (that position was nothing more than a glorified babysitter). They covered everything from writing lesson plans, to room arrangement, to health & safety, to guidance & discipline. They also offered a deal where you could take classes to get your CDA (Childhood Development Associate) through the school- the teacher of the CDA classes is a prof at a local college and she’s also a bigwig in the school’s corporation. I took all 3 classes, but I never went ahead and got the CDA itself- one reason being that you had to pay something like $350.00 to take the exam, which I think is ridiculous. I also didn’t see the point in spending the money since I plan on being a stay-at-home mom, which hasn’t happened yet (Momhood), but my husband & I are trying to get pregnant. I WAS a teacher’s aide for the past year but I found that I just didn’t like it. I’d rather have my own class, and although my co-worker & I got along, she was too much of a control freak, and I think she wanted someone who would stand at the back of the classroom and applaud how wonderful she was. I think she was intimidated by me and liked the idea that someone was “underneath” her because to her, ‘aide’ meant lackey/servant/yes-man. Oh well. Thank goodness I’m free of that. I REALLY miss the kids though, and working with them.I’ve always loved kids and have always had an ability to talk to them at their level. A friend said to me, “Maybe working with children is your gift.” And I think she was right. I’m going to see if there are any Montessori schools in the area & maybe I can volunteer for a little while, or at least get started working part-time and take off a while when I have my first child. THANK YOU EVERYONE- this has really gotten me excited!! 
Um, my excitement got me off on a tangent. The POINT of all that was that I have had some training and taken some classes in Early Childhood subjects, which would look good when applying for a job- even though I didn’t get the degree. So I’ve got a better chance at being hired/considered than the average Joe Schmoe. Plus it sounds like you have to be flexible and willing to be a little unorthodox, and dare I say it, intelligent to work at a Montessori school. I feel like a snob when I say this, but to be perfectly honest I felt like I was smarter than most of my co-workers. That was another reason why I wasn’t that comfortable working there- I wanted to expose the children to classical music and famous artwork and such, but most of my co-workers weren’t interested in that sort of thing. My consolation is that hopefully someday I can have my own class where I can do what I want- maybe in a Montessori setting!
Good luck in the baby-making! Learning some Montessori method in general will help as a stay-at-home-parent, and especially if you decide to stay home longer and do something like become a home-daycare provider, that background will help. Our (well-loved) former (home) daycare provider is actually pursuing her certification in Montessori, as well (she applies much of the method already just because she thinks it works so well… though she didn’t exactly tell us that initially, because some people - presumably based on bad experiences elsewhere - RUN when they hear the term).
Montessori certification isn’t cheap, either, but it seems to me to be worth it. And yes, it helps to be intelligent, because the level of complexity you have to process effectively is pretty high. You sure won’t stunt your brain on it!
(and we sent in my son’s Sounds of the Orchestra CD to class for sharing … can’t remember if it was to illustrate “T” for Timpani, or what, but the teacher asked us to send it back in when they did their section on Europe… they talked about instruments developed in Europe, and also listened to symphonies by European composers… so yeah, classical music could work in with no problem!).
Hope your baby plans turn out well. Kids are indeed cool.
A correction about where the Montessori method comes from - it predates the Second World War by several decades. Maria Montessori was a medical doctor in Italy. In 1901, she became director of an institution for “deficient” children in Rome. Most of the kids would be called mentally retarded today. She started her educational work with these kids, at first just to give them something purposeful to do instead of leaving them to stare at the wall all day, and in time several of the children took and passed the third-grade exams (at the time only 3 years of schooling were compulsory in Italy). Later, in 1907, she was asked to help with a project at a slum in Rome, and she used what she’d learned working with the institutionalized children to set up a primary school for the children That was the first “Montessori school” as we’d recognize it today.
Flodjunior just finished first grade, his third year in the Montessori system. He has thrived. He’s a bright kid who has grown from a clumsy introvert to an active, social boy. Given his physical challenges and his intelligence, I don’t know what the public schools would have done with him. (He’s too handicapped to be healthy and too healthy to be handicapped!) In Montessori he has learned to read and write, he’s learned arithmetic and geography, biology and botany. He has learned to plan ahead, take things step by step, and follow the rules. Equally important, he has gained fine motor skills and learned to deal with sensory input in constructive ways, and he has made good friends with children and adults.
Montessori is a “leap of faith”. You have to believe children are capable of things that we normally think are impossible. Most of the problems I’ve seen when the Montessori method doesn’t work arise because either the parents or the teacher(s) are not willing to make that leap.
Browsing through the threads, there was one about sex ed. Well, the first sex ed. I got(aside from my parents) was in Montesorri. They even had a book written for children so they could understand where babies came from. Also, drug education was also freely discussed. In every opportunity they got. I remember a chat a group of us kiddies got at the birthday party of another kid. This was part of the independent living stuff I mentioned before.
Flodnak’s comment about faith reminded me of a comment I made once to one of the teacher’s at the school:
“Well-meaning parents are a Montessori teachers worst enemy”
At my son’s school, the children carry their own backpacks, hang up their coats and bags when they enter the classroom, prepare snack for the class, and in general do things for themselves. As a parent I’m not expecting that level of skill. At home he won’t even put on his shirt, but I find out that at school he gets undressed to use the potty, and then re-dresses himself completely. So the temptation to help them is strong, and has to be resisted at times.
Write me down as conflicted. As a parent of a former Montessori student, I was amazed at her progress. She started at about 3 1/2, and was reading at a 5th grade level by the time they tested her at the public school for kindergarten. Gotta give 'em their props for that.
However, as a former university instructor and coming from a family of teachers (grandmother, 2 aunts, and my mom), the lack of structure and discipline in the program can cause problems later, anywhere from 1st or 2nd grade to the university level. Kids who can’t sit still are a pain in the ass, to be blunt. That’s why we pulled our daughter from Montessori to public school for the most part–one of these days she’ll have to be able to deal with boredom.
Six of one, half-dozen of the other, I guess.