Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Pre-school Did anyone not have success with Montessori?

We're going the Montessori route so hopefully I'll be answer this soon. I've been very drawn to it due to the multi-age classrooms, focus on child-led learning, and the calm environment (DD would probably loose it in a play based classroom if there was a lot of noise and it was chaotic). I also love that they work with the child to be responsible for putting away their own things, prepare their own snacks, etc.

That's what I love about it... but will it be a perfect fit? Only time will tell. DD gets VERY freaked out when her hands are dirty but on the other hands loves to touch things so I'm guessing stuff like the sand paper letters will be a big hit for her (she also seems to focus more on writing than reading so again it seems like it might be a good fit). Our hope is that it will help with her fine motor skills since those always seem to be a bit behind the rest of her skills.

I will say, though, that we looked for a Montessori school that appears to be more focused on being a child-led environment than one that has to have everything in a certain order. So maybe it's not super strict in that sense?

All Montessori schools are not created equal so just because this one is a bad fit doesn't mean another wouldn't be too (I can't tell you how many times I've heard of families switching to a new one and loving it but hated their first or second tries).

Also, have you tried talking to the teacher about your sons problems at the school? Is there another classroom that he could switch too? Have you viewed the gifted school? Have you asked him what he thinks about switching schools?

I just thought I would update for anyone in the same situation. We had a parent teacher conference last week, and there hasn't been much change. We are going to go ahead and send him to the charter next year. Everything the teacher described as a problem, just screamed to us that he was bored. For example, DS cannot concentrate on washing the table work.


Thanks for all of the advice everyone!

We have had great success with montessori for my dd from 2nd grade thru 6th. My ds began in kindergarten and it has been great for him thru his current 4th grade. At our public charter school the 7th grade is quite different from the typical montessori classroom. I see that my daughter needs the classroom structure montessori offers in the lower grades so that she can then pursue her work with passion to the depth and width she so desires. The 7th grade is very teacher driven, not challenging enough and too loud. WE are partial homeschooling now and looking for options for next year. The school has been very flexible and really willing to work with us.

I've posted on this before. There is a huge spectrum of "Montessori" for schools. We were in a full-on, AMI Montessori school for my 2 gifted boys for 2 years. We were really unimpressed and moved to our public school.
The negatives to a "real" Montessori school:
1) Tends to have huge class sizes. My son's class had 36 kids with one teacher and 2 "helpers," who were not allowed to teach the lessons.
2) The child must get taught the lesson and then repeats it on their own. If they already know the lesson, they still have to do it, and do it "the Montessori way." That can be very boring for a gifted and/or creative child.
3) Frequently not alot of writing. Not alot of "traditional" topics like history, social studies, or hard science.
4) No accountability- no homework, no tests. Although that sounds great, how do you know that your child has learned what they are supposed to learn? It's a huge leap of faith on your part.
I will say that the math can be fantastic. My kids started exposure to multiplication and long division at age 4. My older one in first grade tested at 5th grade for math, partly due to Montessori.
Both my kids were bored silly by the Montessori. I realized how many deficits the curriculum had, and I ended up teaching them things afterschool to compensate.

PS- my little one loved to bake bread in the Montessori! He would bring home this (yucky) bread that he made almost every day. I finally told him, knock off the bread-baking and start reading!
HAHAHAH, but it's follow the child with Montessori. If your child doesn't want to read or do math, they can't/won't really force them to do that.

The problem is, he doesn't want to do anything. Lol. They finally got him to do some golden bead addition, so that's promising.

My older boy wandered around the Montessori room most of the school day, doing nothing and eventually just doing math. It took me six months to figure this out. The school shrugged their shoulders and said that they "follow the child." They expected him, at age 6, to come in, write up a list of what he wanted to do, and then do it!
Well, he didn't do it! I think he's average in that department. After awhile, I noticed that at least half the kids in their kindergarten level couldn't read; probably kids who didn't right away want to read or gravitate toward that "job.:

Yeah.... What they said. Our experience lasted one week and it was a complete waste!

Thanks for this thread. It's very helpful. I'm putting this here because I need to vent.

I really loved the primary classes for both of my kids. They were able to work at their own speed and flew through math and geography and science. By the end of primary, both were doing math, geography and science at the 4th grade level. I'm less impressed with the reading program. DS1 taught himself to read before we started Montessori, so that hasn't been an issue. DS2 avoids reading and they don't push him at all. DS2 also treated his first three years of primary as a big party. I'm okay with that, (it's his personality), but he wasn't doing a lot of work. At the end of DS2's kindergarten year, he is reading at a kindergarten level. I think he could probably do more; he just doesn't want to and they don't push it. I'm not sorry that I sent both my kids to Montessori for preschool and kindergarten. The math, science and geography was worth it.

Our elementary experience has been mixed. DS1 is finishing Lower Elementary this year. He has been in that classroom for three years. It has 15 kids, a teacher and an assistant. He had a rough year during year 1, mostly due to behavior issues and a speech/language disorder. He had a good year in year 2, because we diagnosed his 2E issues and got him into speech/language therapy.

He has had a terrible year in year 3, mostly because of boredom. He is through most of the materials that they are making available to him in 3rd year. (He has literally read every book available in the reading boxes.) They aren't making more material available to him. I finally started broke down and started working with him at home to design projects and sent books and materials to school with him to work on. He refuses to do many group lessons because he is bored with the material. He does a lot of creative writing, but his teacher insists that he isn't working when he is doing this, and will tell me that he isn't working when he spent two hours writing a story. His teacher complains that he talks about video games and super-heroes "all of the time." Yes -- he's writing stories about them and writing and designing video games. His focus on creative work this year has really been driving the teacher crazy. She doesn't see it as valid work. (I do. I'd love to have a kid who grew up to write and design video games as a career.) He does do other work. He's read a ton of American history this year and many biographies. She gets annoyed because he reads multiple biographies on the same person. (I think he read 5 or 6 long-ish middle school age books on Martin Luther King and other people involved in the Civil Rights movement this year,and then he read several on Ghandi because MLK was inspired by Ghandi.) He does lots of math, but prefers worksheets and math books to working with manipulatives.

It's been a frustrating year for me because of the constant complaints that he isn't doing work.I didn't know it was possible to get outside of the box at a Montessori school, but he's outside of the box. He is doing work at school. He just isn't doing what his teacher wants him to do.

We're not going back next year. I'm not unhappy with his academic work. His Iowa Basic scores were very good, with high marks in everything. He knows what he needs to know at this grade level, and knows a lot of other stuff besides. I am very unhappy with the constant tension and complaining over what he is or isn't doing. They're unhappy with his refusal to toe the line. He gets yelled at a lot. He makes his teacher miserable, she makes him miserable, and they both make me miserable.

OMG KateZ
I can't believe that wouldn't make 4th grade materials availible to him! That sounds very un-Montessori like!

How many more weeks of school are left?

Have you gone up the chain of command at the school to complain about this? I just don't want you to jump 'out of the frying pan and into the fire.'

Would your son have the same teacher next year? It sounds like the narrow box is in her head. Would he be moving to a new room and teacher next year anyway? To me it sounds like he had lots of time to do creative writing and that is a beautiful thing.

You have every right to vent, and I'd love to hear more about it.
Smiles,
Grinity