A journey into Montessori teaching
BY DAVID ROBINSON

(Main Line Times, Thursday July 11, 2002, Page 11)

As educators constantly test and implement theories of learning, standout alternative to traditional classrooms have been the child-centered methods of Maria Montessori. As Montessori schools flourish throughout the world, locally, one teacher has experience with both traditional and Montessori methods.

Meg Bolton teaches elementary students at the Gladwyne Montessori School, but her career has taken a circuitous route. She began studying elementary education at West Chester University. She remembers, “It was a great school but since this was the 1960s, nobody mentioned learning differences.” One day, a teacher asked the students whether a classroom should be run in democratic, autocratic or child centered way. “I was the only one who said, ‘child centered.’ She looked at me and said, ‘You ought to go into Montessori teaching.’ I had never heard of it.”

After graduation, Bolton went to Lancaster County to teach second grade. According to the standard curriculum, they would study plants for three weeks, then study of the moon. One of her students was still interested in plants, because his grandmother grew herbs. He wanted to make a chart of medicinal plants.

“I said, ‘Go ahead,’” Bolton remembers. “I found if the children were interested and concentrating, they were learning to read, write and think. I couldn’t think of any reason why I should stop him from learning something. He could always catch up with the study of the moon. Later, I found out that this is what we do in elementary Montessori.”

She also learned that all children do not learn in the same way. In their reports, some did fine in reading to understand the material, but others understood the material by making a model. She found that making models then became a small group activity, in which they were talking, interacting and happy

By the end of the first year, she had them rearrange their desks in groups or four. These changes did not go unnoticed. “The other teachers came to my door and said, ‘Meg, your students are talking!’ I said, ‘They are working on projects together.’ The teachers said, ‘The desks aren’t in rows!’ I said, ‘They have to put the desks together to work together.’

“Some of the students were quicker in math than others, and they wanted to go faster. I said, ‘Go ahead. If you hit a rough spot, come to me and we’ll go over it.’ The books were very repetitive. By the middle of the year, they had finished the book. So I asked a thirdgrade teacher for her math book. Well, she rose up, folded her arms angrily and said, ‘If I give you the third- grade math book, what will I teach them next year?’ I asked her if she didn’t believe in math grouping. She said, ‘No, all of them have to do the same work together!’ I remember thinking to myself, ‘Why can’t each child go at his or her own pace, which is what we do in Montessori?’”

After that experience, Bolton went to the Vanguard School, near Frazer, where students had physical and learning differences. “I taught math and social studies,” she says “and got to work with terrific people who were physical and occupational therapists. I saw how they broke down actions and the learning steps into small parts.”

Then Bolton heard that a Montessori center was nearby in Philadelphia at Ravenhill Academy. The academy was run by Mother Isabel Eugeni, a student of Maria Montessori. “Mother Isabel had a sense of fun, and I imagine that M a r i a Montessori must have also had that sense of fun. Mother Isabel was a member of the Re l i g i o u s Order of the Assumption, but she didn’t teach religion, she showed us the spirit of the child. The Montessori training experience is life transforming. A person walks in there wanting to learn a curriculum, and walks out wanting to serve children.”

In the Montessori concept, children from infancy through age 3, ‘outreach,’ learn through their senses. In the Montessori “assistance to infancy,” certified teachers help parents understand this stage and assist their children. Infants are learning shapes and the size of objects (squares, diamonds, circle, thick, thin, tall short, etc.) and watching their own coordination develop, as the brain says “grasp,” “put in,” and “take out.” At this stage, children will practice over and over until they are happy they have mastered the task, then they move on to something else.

“In Italy,” Bolton remembers, “I once saw a baby playing with the keys in her mother’s purse. When the baby was put in the crib, the crying started and the mother had no toys and no idea what to do. I saw there was nothing in the crib and realized the baby was frustrated. The little mind was at a moment of learning, and had been stopped. I put some very small boxes that fit inside one another into the crib, and the baby played quietly for the next hour. You have to be amazed at the ‘dignity of the child’ in this moment when they conquer a task.”

Bolton then went to Richmond, Va., teaching ages 3-6, which is called “primary” in the Montessori schools. Maria Montessori taught children with almost no education from the tenements of Italy. She saw how the older children helped the younger ones and how the younger ones wanted to emulate the older students. Putting children of three grades in the same classroom has become part of the Montessori procedure.

“In primary,” Bolton explains, “the children are seeking ‘closed nurturing.’ They are not venturing out into the world, but curious about mastering the tools within the classroom. They want to know the names of things. With the guidance of the primary teacher, they explore the classroom, at their own pace, following their own curiosity. They learn to take out and put away the tools, as they use them. The hand is a main teacher as they manipulate tools of practical life (buttons, zippers, dishes, pitchers), sensorial m a t e r i a l s (color, weight, shape, texture, size, sound and smell) and the academic materials (writing, reading, arithmetic and geography.) At the same time, they are learning concentration, coordination and good working habits. The teacher watches for what Dr. Montessori called sensitive periods. This is a time when the child’s mind is most ready for a lesson.”

After four years in Richmond, Bolton was ready for the next level. She went for training at the Washington Montessori Institute, where she was certified as an elementary teacher (ages 6 through 12). She also took Psychology of Reading at Temple University, received her master’s as a reading specialist, and arrived at The Gladwyne Montessori School “As teachers, in elementary, we facilitate the children’s transition from ‘closed’ to ‘open nurturing.’ Now, the children learn to see the whole world as their classroom and they come knowing how to plan their day by choosing to do the writing, the math, sciences, geography and individual reports. The children are kept accountable by weekly meetings with me, where we talk about their progress.

“The individual reports are about the outside world, so we use the expression ‘Going Out Trips.’ If a student decides to do a report on jellyfish, they are encouraged to read and write about it as much as they can about it and then go to the aquarium accompanied by parents and ask questions of the people there. Then when they come back, they report on it to the other students. Listening to them, we are showing them that we value what they have learned and it builds their self-esteem.

“This year, one student wanted to study the human body. We started making a model on paper with cutouts of the internal organs, muscles and skeleton. Others became interested and began making models. It became apparent that they were not only working together here, but that they needed to take a trip to Franklin Institute. The result was that they each chose a body part to focus on for their report. Another major benefit of the group work was that one of the students, who reads at a higher level and is much more comfortable working alone, learned a great deal about working with others.”

At this age, they want to know how, why and where. They are ready for the “great lessons,” as Bolton calls them, such as the Big Bang, which begins the process of answering the question: How did we get here? The other great lessons are the history of the English language, the history of the alphabet, the history of numerals and the demonstration of rivers. They see they life cycles of plants from the earliest to most recent. They learn about countries through the land, water formations and products. They learn about cultures by learning the way people adapt to the land and climates. Ultimately, they are learning humanity, how we are more alike than different, and that human beings all have the same needs and desires.

Bolton continues, “Sometimes, when I am presenting a lesson to a particular group, I’ll invite other children of different ages to sit in on a lesson. These children may stay or leave according to how they feel that the lesson fits them. Some older children enjoy the review. The younger children may just be curious about what is ahead.”

From 9 to 12 years, they move back into an “inward” stage, according to Bolton. They don’t want to go out as much. They tend to zero in on aspects of science, history, English or math that interest them. They like to do deep studies that may take months. They have a craving to know. “They know what they want, she says, “and we just have to trust them to do it. They are very interested in comparisons, such as literature or religions of the world.”

Equally important is the socialization, which Bolton says is as important as the academics. By age 12, their social focus is totally with their peers and they are creating their own community. This means they have to learn to deal with differences in gender and rate of learning, and they have to find their similarities. In the Montessori classroom, because they are with each other for three years, they learn a great deal about cooperation and life in a community.

One graduate reported that he and some other Montessori students went to middle school and were given a project. They immediately began talking about it, while the other kids were fooling around. He said, “The teacher looked at us working together on the project and said, ‘You must have come from a Montessori school.’”

Bolton notes the difference she sees when a traditional student transfers to a Montessori school. “When students come from outside, they are passive, because they are used to the tradition ‘sit in your desks and look to the teacher.’ It takes a few months to show them that they have choices and that they are responsible for running their day.”