by John Long, Head of School

“Brains are built over time,” says Jack Shonkoff, Director of Harvard’s Center on the Developing Child. “They also don’t come fully wired.” 

1500 Montessori teachers gasped in unison while watching a videotape of two nerve cells growing together after repeated ‘firing”, forging a new strand and strengthening an existing pathway in the brain. Speaking to an Association Montessori Internationale (AMI) conference, Houston neuroscientist Bruce Perry, M.D., PhD. (director of The Child Trauma Academy) affirmed Dr. Montessori’s observation that children construct themselves from their experiences.

Construct themselves?

When I first read ...

Why is it so important to continue my child in the kindergarten year at a Montessori school?  In the Montessori environment, the child is presented with endless opportunities to develop all his/her senses and his motor skills with the aid of self-correcting materials in a prepared setting. During the third year a child can not only work with these materials in more depth, thus gaining more insights from them, but, using this base, can move into the academic areas.

Next, having learned from older children, shared with his peers, and helped those younger than him self, he has the ...

MONTESSORI

Proven Method of Education created by Maria Montessori. 

Believes in Children’s Natural Intelligence, involving rational, empirical and spiritual aspects.

Three year range per class in order to promote adult-child continuity and close peer relationships. 

Teacher is an unobtrusive director.

Individual and Group lessons. 

Self correcting materialsInner discipline through natural, logical consequences.     

Uninterrupted work periods. 

Enhanced Curriculum.

Focused instruction in reading and writing with scope and sequence and clear cut domains that result in children reading before the age of 6.

Emphasis on individuality. 

Studies directly shows effectiveness of Montessori method in respect to reading, literacy, mathematics and motivation ...

Today we had our first one to one Keyboard lessons for our pre-primary children. Ms. Yanina was truly impressed with our children and we enjoyed her visit.

• Erik Erikson had Montessori training and taught in a small private school in Vienna with Peter Blos in the late l920.s. It was organized for the education of the children of Dorothy Tiffany Burlingham who was in analysis with Sigmund Freud. A student of that school describes his happy memories of it in our ERIKERIKSON: A LIFE.S WORK. The school had strong influences of Dewey as well, using the project method.
• Maria Montessori was a generation older than Piaget and Vygotsky. She was born in l870 and they in l896. Both men knew her work and commented upon ...