Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Montessory Schools and the GT

They just don't get it! Moms didn't somehow "make" the kids like this, other than by giving birth to them! They are just more intense! It's like asking Mom to change the kid's eye color. It just ain't going to happen!

Our DS had a rather poor Montessori preschool experience. On the positive side, the classroom was quiet and the teachers were in control (as opposed to his first preschool experience). On the negative side, it was too boring and independent for DS. The teacher told me she told him "I am not your mother and I can't spend all day with you." So if he didn't like the work, he'd sit at his table doing nothing. When he brought home blank pages he was supposed to have colored, he'd tell me "I can't color. I can only scribble. I only go outside the lines." When I relayed that to the teachers, they told me, Don't worry. Boys develop fine motor skills later than girls. Turns out he had a fine motor delay. The old chicken and the egg story. Did he have a fine motor delay because he never tried, or did he have fine motor delay because he had a fine motor delay? We'll never know.

Also, speaking of tedious - to develop a tripod grip, they would cut out maps of the US and the world using pushpins. They would simply poke the outlines again and again and again until the paper separated.

Montessori was not a good fit for our DS, but there were plenty of other children who thrived and became early advanced readers. Also, I regret that we sent him to preschool that had no toys. They said a child's work is play, which is nice in theory, but our guy needed more fun.

ps - I don't mean to be presumptuous by saying DS is PG, just sharing our experience fwiw!

I really think it depends on the individual Montessori school and the teachers' ability to adapt to the challenges of a gifted or advanced student. Our son (now 8) was in a private Montessori program on the recomendation of his Psychiatrist for 1st and 2nd grades. It was an absolute disaster. They had an attitude of 100% accuracy and "perfect" penmanship before being able to advance in material. When I showed them that DS had the accuracy and legible penmanship for the first 2 weeks of a concept but it declined after that (often dramatically) the teacher (and head of the school) refused to allow him to advance to new concepts. In fact, they made him repeat the subject matter until he met there standards (2 years doing simple addition up to 20. Our son started at the school with a love of learning and an excitement for Math. It has taken us 6 months of intense counceling an a change to the public schools to begin to reverse DS's neagative attitude toward school. That doesn't even begin to mention the 2 years of lost learning opportunities.

The complaints I heard practically daily the second year were that he required to much supervision to complete his work, was loud, overly active and uncooperative. She even at times told me that he really wasn't gifted since he couldn't/wouldn't follow her rules. Although the public school is not perfect, they are doing the bare minimum on the gifted side. His teacher has been extremely positive experience this year.

I'm sure that our experience with Montessori is on the extreme side. However, I would caution anyone to make sure and monitor the coursework especially as the child gets into the elementary age range. If the teacher and school can work with the gifted I think the individualized education plan is great. However, many schools take the approach that a child has to do all the work before advancing even if the can show mastery of the concept much sooner. The individualized aspect refers to how many pages the child wants to complete each day to get done with the book sooner.

lol
The manipulative drove DS crazy! He could get the answers in his head faster than he could do the manipulatives. He also sees no reason to estimate since it is easier to get the right answer than it is to do more steps to estimate something.

Now I start to panic!

According to the teacher any child is allowed to do any activity: they just have to ask her and 'if she thinks the child is ready', then s/he may do it....

I just have the feeling that DD does not have much freedom in the choice of activities.

I guess you could ask the teacher to take you around and show you what DD is ready for from the teacher's perspective. Gulp!

My older one started writing at 4 too. I kind of left it up to him which probably wasn't the best idea since he picked up a few not so good habits on the way.

Do you live in US? Just asking since it sounds like school work starts later there than here.

You are reading my mind!

This is exactly what I was telling DH a moment ago.

I think I need a very precise list of questions to the teacher to understand better what is going on in the classroom.

Some 'homework' for me while we are on holidays.

Mmm, better then I check that she is taking the pencil properly and sits properly etc. Better safe than sorry.

We live in The Netherlands, but we are not Dutch.

It is a good country to live in, the standards of life are quite high and people are nice, but right now I start to wish that homeschooling were legal.

Handwriting has a good, and cheap, handwriting development program - lots of guidance and cool tools. I particulary love their paper.

I don't think you need a list of questions, just to go in and take notes, to see everything your daughter does, and what else is there that she isn't allowed to do, and what signs the teacher is looking for to 'prove' that she is ready for more. What criteria is the teacher using in each area. I'd come with an empty clipboard, a grid for "active name" "purpose" "what she's doing now" "criteria for moving up" and "what's next for this area."

Actually you may want to go in an observe quietly, so you can fill in your grid as much as possible from watching the other children, and save your contact time for the "what she's doing now" and "criteria for moving up" columns. It may take awhile, but a good investment. People inside a system tend to underestimate to what extent they talk in code.

((Us for example - it is actually nescessary if one is thinking outside the box to find some new landmarks.))

If you can learn the lingo first, you can get more from your talk.

Happy Holidays -
Grinity

A lot of Montessori schools won't let you observe that closely though, at least that's true in our area. Mine let us observe--which is one of the reasons I chose that particular school over others--but only from behind a 1-way mirror. No following from area-to-area was allowed, and I couldn't hear anything.

I don't know why they're so much more weird about observing than other schools, but they are around here!