Our kids attended Mountain Laurel Montessori School from Toddler through most of Elementary (ages 1-9). We found that the Primary (ages 3-6) program was strong in helping our kids to grow socially and academically. From our experience with the Elementary program and an in-depth observation of the Jr. High program, we found that there was a lot of emphasis on free choice and team building, but there was very little academic pressure and accountability. The students had no real consequences for not completing homework or projects and were given no grades (except in 9th grade). In Elementary, the teachers only indicated, on progress reports, the lessons that had been presented. There was little sense of a student's progress toward competency or mastery of a concept. If a child was having difficulty, the typical answer from Elementary faculty was that it will come in time - we should not pressure.
This educational tactic may be great for some children. However, we found that our Elementary children consistently chose easy, familiar work. They often did not recall all the steps to a lesson - leading to avoidance of new work, and basically found many ways in which to busily goof off while we were paying large tuition bills.
In an Elementary classroom, the teacher and assistant could have around 25 students. Some students formed pairs or small groups in which to work. Others worked alone. Each group or individual was often working on a different piece of work or project on varying subjects. This was around 12 different activities to monitor, guide, and provide follow-up activities. For the teacher and assistant, this required an incredible amount of multi-tasking. Each group or individual was able to get the basic, essential attention. However, it was difficult for either adult in the classroom to provide sufficient monitoring of on-task behavior, in-depth follow-up and extensions to make sure lessons were learned and connections to other concepts were made.
Our son was set back in his math progress by the academic system used in the Elementary program at Mountain Laurel. Not only did he fail to make progress in his math work (beyond learning many of the basic addition, subtraction, multiplication and division math facts), but also was unable to recall the steps of the lessons and did not grasp many of the concepts behind using the math manipulatives. Because of repeated failures and a lack of success in understanding the Montessori math work, he developed a negative feeling about math. By 4th grade, he felt that he was a big failure at math.
This situation had been developing for several years without us knowing about it. He did not mention it to us at home and his teacher did not indicate that anything was amiss during conferences. We started to ask questions, of my son and his teacher, in his 4th grade year, when nearly all of his independent math work consisted of one or two concepts. He seemed stuck. Basically, he was choosing work that he understood and felt confident doing on his own. Unfortunately, this left him with only a few options. The teacher didn't seem to notice this, nor did she act concerned when we brought this to her attention. She did repeat a few lessons with him, but he still did not "get it". The teacher had one way to show him and if he didn't comprehend that, her only solution was to show him how to do it again in the same way. Instead, he needed a more concrete way to see the logic of the process and then he needed lots of practice - that day and in the weeks that followed - not whenever he chose to pick up the material again.
Since leaving Mountain Laurel Montessori school, we have transferred our children to Warren County Public Schools. The transition has been much smoother than we anticipated. We have been pleasantly surprised by the high quality educational opportunities that are available to our children through the public school system. Our older kids came in to the school having little or no experience with making a graph from data, extracting information from word problems, calculating elapsed time, reading for comprehension, knowing how to make a structured paragraph, describing the setting, plot and problem of a story, inferring meaning from context, and many other vital skills. They are now getting concrete lessons, practice, follow-up and tests on these and many other topics. We are so glad that we transferred them out of Mountain Laurel when we did. read more
