Because I was able to hire a babysitter at the last moment (a very lovely young lady from the school where I work) Bryan and I were both able to go. And I am so glad that we went. Much of what we heard, was not new information. But the experience was invaluable.
The assistant teacher took us through circle time, so we got to sing the songs that Riley sings everyday, and talk about the date, weather, and number of students in the room. We have a new category of things to ask him about when we have dinner and are talking about our days.
After circle time, his lead teacher took us through a lesson on the structure of the earth (core, magma, crust, etc) and a demonstration of the brown stair. And it totally brought back to me why I love the Montessori Method so much. There is so much information packed into the very simple looking activities.
I also appreciated the opportunity to see how Riley's teacher approaches her work and how she respects the children. While I adore Montessori, the one thing I think she got wrong was the issue of imaginative play and children. In a very strict classroom, a child taking out the brown stair who be corrected if they started to build a bridge with the pieces.
But Riley's teacher explained that a child who was engaged and not disruptive with the material could use it as they liked. It was exactly the answer I was looking for. I also appreciated hearing how she jiggered her class's schedule to allow for a longer work period. A three hour work session is the ideal, but hard to schedule in the average American preschool. I am impressed that she has a little more than 90 minutes set aside in the mornings.
It was just a wonderful evening. It makes me want to go reread my Montessori books again. And I can't wait to go to Megan's back-to-school might next week. I want to find out about her classroom too.
No comments:
Post a Comment