Hello. We had our daughter (age 2.5) tested because our city has a gifted private school with a preschool program. Her scores qualify her to apply. If we decide to venture down the private school path, I am torn between the gifted school and a Montessori school. They are in some ways diametrically opposite programs.
My hope is that my daughter has the opportunity to work at a challenge level in school, and that she develops time management and task persistence which allow her to harness her abilities in whatever undertaking she decides to pursue as an adult.
The gifted school focuses on issues of challenge by working all the kids at the equivalent of at least a one-grade skip. To develop organization and time management they give lots of homework. They use lots of extrinsic motivation - publicly visible behavior charts, rewards, etc. The use of extrinsic motivation is a mismatch with our choices at home, we have avoided rewards and punishment so far. At this point our daughter finds learning to be its own reward. I don't want her to lose that.
Montessori is a better philosophical fit with our discipline methods and preference for intrinsic motivation. However, I've read through this forum and find mixed reviews from families with real-world Montessori experience. I'm worried about what would happen in the third year of the multi-age classrooms if she was to be unchallenged among younger children. I'm also concerned by reports about kids who have been made to repetitively work through material they have already mastered. I have talked to a parent whose children attend this Montessori school, and she says they have been willing to seamlessly allow her children to visit older classrooms for instruction in subjects where they are working above grade level. That sounds promising, but her kids are outliers in working that far ahead.
TLDR: Does anyone have advice about whether gifted child might gain more from being prodded (firmly) into confronting challenges and given rewards and consequences to keep her on track ... or put in a more open-ended environment without external pressure, where she might or might not be capable of more than what they expect?
Thanks!
