Montessori in Elementary Schools
A Montessori student experiences a great amount of freedom not often seen in traditional public elementary schools. This includes the freedom to move, freedom of time, freedom of communication, and the freedom to mistakes.
Freedom to move: Learners are free to move from activity to activity anywhere in the classroom.
Freedom of Time: Learners can spend as much or as little time on an activity as they choose.
Freedom of Communication: Learners are encouraged to talk about their activities, challenges, and ask other learners for help.
Freedom to make mistakes: Learners are encouraged to learn from failures. Failure is seen as an opportunity for refinement rather than judgement.
In addition, Montessori schools are filled with mixed age learners. This naturally fosters a growth mindset among the children. The younger children learn from watching their older classmates and the older classmates are able to master their skills by teaching younger learners.
Consider how this changes when a student moves to a traditional elementary school. Same-age students will sit in rows, have classes for a fixed amount of time, are expected to remain quiet and listen to the teacher, and are faced with quizzes, grades, homework and tests.
These are not trivial differences. So how do you transition a Montessori child to a public school? Jeff Sandefer had the same question and that question led to a journey to build Acton Academy:
In Courage to Grow, Laura Sandefer relays the discussion with Jeff about their two twin boys:
“We’re not doing this school thing anymore,” he said. He watched the kids play.
I wasn’t sure where this was coming from. Taite was happy in her traditional elementary school, and the boys were in a fine Montessori school; they were still too young for elementary school, but we had started thinking about where we should enroll them.
Jeff explained.
When he picked up Taite, he dropped in to talk with her math teacher. He told him we were looking at more mainstream options for Sam and Charlie, who up to that point had, in their Montessori school, choice about what to work on during the day and lots of opportunity for movement.
Jeff asked, “How soon should we move them to a more traditional school?”
The teacher said, “As soon as possible.”
Jeff asked why, and the teacher said, “Once they’ve had that much freedom, they’ll hate being chained to a desk and being talked to all day.”
Jeff couldn’t help himself. “I wouldn’t blame them!”
The teacher looked down at the floor, and Jeff was worried he’d offended him. When he looked up, there were tears in the teacher’s eyes.
This teacher, known as the best teacher in the school, said, “I wouldn’t either.”
Jeff turned and looked at me. “Laura, I’m done,” he said. “Charlie and Sam can learn without being trapped at a desk all day. We have to find another alternative. We’ve talked about how much the world has changed since we went to school. We need to either homeschool or create our own school.”
That is the story of how Laura and Jeff decided to launch Acton Academy.
The question Jeff and Laura asked themselves was ‘If the Montessori principles are so well regarded why can't they be applied in traditional schools?’ Why can’t Ideas of mixed classrooms, growth mindset, and learning by doing be adapted into our public schools?
Acton Academy does just that. Students are given the freedoms of a Montessori school. Taking a closer look at what 360 Academy will do to bring the principles of Montessori to life:
Furniture: Tables, sofas, and the freedom to move around
Freedom to choose work within guidelines: Students choose the books they read, the core skills they want to work on
Mixed-age classroom
Growth Mindset: Encourage learning and growth… not grading and exam scores.
Independence: Learners set their own daily, weekly goals
Guides rather than teachers: Learners drive their own learning. There are no lectures.
Freedom to “fail”: The focus is on mastery of skills so there are no grades, tests, quizzes.
Learn to do: Students work on projects and building products.
Maria Montessori provided the blueprint for how learning happens, not just for preschoolers, but for children of all age. At 360 Academy, we’ll leverage her lessons, along with the lessons of Reggio Emilia, Socartes, as well as best practices from modern education, to inspire our children develop a lifelong love of learning.