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Philosophy
For children aged 18 months through 8 years, we offer a Montessori approach, which enables students to experience the joy of learning at an early age.
Our Montessori classrooms are committed to providing a loving, safe, and secure environment in which the unfolding of your child's potential can be nurtured. Each child's efforts are encouraged and appreciated so that intellectual, moral, creative, physical, and social growth flourishes.
Montessori is the approach to education that recognizes and attempts to develop the potential of the young child. This is accomplished by means of a carefully prepared environment, directed by Montessori teachers trained by the Association Montessori International (AMI) using special teaching materials. The Montessori environment provides the opportunities whereby the child may attain inner discipline and self-management. Children develop responsibility for themselves in the context of the community while exploring all areas of learning at their own pace and according to their own interests.
The basic principle of the Montessori philosophy of education is that every child has all the potentialities of the MAN or WOMAN each can become. To best develop physical, intellectual and spiritual powers, a child must have freedom - freedom that is achieved through order and self-discipline.
Dr. Montessori developed what she called the "prepared environment" which includes the concepts of freedom, structure, and order.
Children engage in activities that are real rather than fanciful. Each area of the physical environment has a specific and defined order as well as a sequence; thus enabling each child to develop at his/her own pace according to his/her own abilities in a non-competitive atmosphere.
Independence and Discipline
Since the children learn to work independently in the prepared environment, they can enjoy the presence of other children without necessarily working on the same task. The Montessori teacher, therefore, is able to work with each child individually.
A wide range of activities is available from which the child can select, thereby developing independence in making decisions. This freedom is established in a structured framework created by the teacher, with limits to provide security for the child and insure progress in all areas of development.
Discipline is established in a firm but loving way, always emphasizing the positive, and by using consistency in reinforcing simple, basic ground rules.
Self-Motivation
Dr. Montessori recognized that the only valid impulse to learning is the self-motivation of the child. Children naturally move themselves toward learning. Adults often intervene, with the best intentions, and place obstacles to learning in the child's path. Dr. Montessori stated that any UNNECESSARY help given to the child hinders his/her growth. The teacher prepares the environment, observes and directs the activity, functions as an authority and protector of the children and the environment, and offers the work according to the readiness and needs of each child.
The children become aware, not only of their freedom, but also of the corresponding responsibility to themselves and to others. This is the core of Dr. Montessori's philosophy. The aim of Montessori is to develop the "whole child." Creative, intellectual, physical, and social development are of equal value within the prepared environment.
Ungraded Classes
A Montessori class is ungraded and the children within the environment range from 3 to 6 years and 6 to 9 years of age. As a result, a child can simultaneously work with older children in one subject and with younger children in another and still have social interaction with children of their own age. This structure solves the difficult problem of skipping and retaining children who do not fit in academically with others of the same chronological age. Each individual child is not dependent upon others in his/her group for intellectual or social growth.
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