Choosing preschool: Montessori vs Gifted?
Dr. Laura,
Deciding
if a private gifted school or Montessori is the best choice for my very
smart, soon to be 3 year old boy who is currently in daycare and
has that odd birthday where he will need to start kindergarten late.
Would love your thoughts on Montessori.
The research shows that children do best with
play-based, child-led learning, as opposed to academics. This is not
only better for their emotional development, it is best for their
intellectual development. A child's work is play, and that is how children learn best.
The
gifted schools are often very academically oriented. This is actually
not effective in producing a curious child who loves to learn. It
ignores the research on how young children learn. However, that is not
true for all gifted schools. Some have extraordinary teachers and a
play-centered philosophy and are terrific. Sometimes what their
literature says is less important than watching what goes on in the
classroom. Are they "teaching" the kids, or helping the kids to explore?
Are they pushing the alphabet, or getting kids excited about stories
and books and acting out plays?
I love some things about the
Montessori approach and I confess that I have a personal fondness for
the Montessori manipulatives. However, the Montessori philosophy is 100
years old, and is fairly rigid. The traditional Montessori approach
does not seem to allow much room for creativity and it definitely does
not derive from play, or the child's interests. There is a very
specific series of manipulatives that the children work through.
However, it is important to note that Montessori schools vary widely in
the way they implement the Montessori ideas, and it seems almost any
school can call itself a Montessori school, so you will want to check
out the school near you. If at all possible, observe in a classroom to
see what you think.
Choosing a school is as much about the people
as the learning. You are looking for an "emotional" home for your son,
where the teachers bond with the children in a warm, loving environment.
You also want to be sure that the school promotes social values that
encourage emotional health. All schools say they promote respect, for
instance, but some do it through discipline while others have programs
that are designed to promote empathy. You don't want a school that uses
timeouts as their approach when kids "misbehave," you want a school
that understands misbehavior as a red flag that the child needs some
help from the teacher.
I'd love to hear from others who have an opinion on this!
Ask the Doctor RSS
more. The Montessori Method is the path I have chosen for my children and they are very creative. Art and expression is a large part of their curriculum. I have found from being in the classroom that children do love working with manipulatives, and when there
are "toys" in the classroom area they choose the "work" as opposed to playing with the toys. Children are inherently born to learn, to explore, out of curiosity and Montessori does just that. Children create a love of learning that starts from a young age.
I know this as a parent of Montessori. My oldest child is now in a traditional school and has lost her love of learning, of curiosity and just feels she has to get her worksheets done. She isn't supported to follow her own curiosity, but that of the lesson
plan. She went into this school with skills way above other kids, and is now bored. I see this with other students as well. We have many children reading at second grade level, doing complex math, and learning several languages. So I think by giving a child
a great start of following their own curiosity, they show us what they can do. And it's impressive. The 100 year old philosophy is just that, a philosophy. But the basics of Montessori are tried and true. I've seen it with my own eyes and couldn't be more
impressed.