Best Montessori School - What an honour!
The entire ‘crew’ at Westside is very honoured to be nominated by the readers of Parkdale-Liberty Villager Readers’ Choice Awards for Best Montessori School. Thank you to everyone who nominated us!
We love what we do!
Voting begins May 17th InsideToronto.com.
Cheers!
A Kind Gesture
I was in my office the other day after school hours and there was a knock on my door. I opened the door to a woman asking me if this was the Montessori School? I told her it was and she replied “Oh, fantastic! I heard about you from Richard (who runs the Community Garden that the School has had a plot at for 3 years) and he said that your School is such a lovely place. She began to reach into her bag as she was saying, “I want to donate a book to the School.” She pulled the book out of her bag. It was a signed copy of the Barbara Reid book ‘Picture a Tree’. This woman then went on to tell me how much she loves hearing the children from our School in and around the neighbourhood. Wow! How awesome is that! So, thank you Catherine for the book!
Catherine is coming in next week to read the book to each classroom. Pretty amazing!
Hello Jody,
Lovely to meet you. Thanks for the warm welcome. I’m just around the corner on Camden. I’m a former Grade 1&2 teacher and organized readers in the Reading Room at Sick Kids for years with Judy Boville, librarian. It’s been great to see the children walking through the neighbourhood, always chuckling and observing life. I work from home now so it’s easy to pop in if that’s an idea. I really just wanted to donate Barb’s great new book to the school, and, as I said, now I’m a garden plot neighbour, we may see each other digging in the dirt, or something!
Best,
Catherine
Drumming with Rick Monaco
Each an every year that Rick comes to Westside to share his spectacular drumming talent with us we are just blown away. The children at Westside are some of the youngest he works with. And his drums are loud! Really loud! This year the excitement in the air started as soon as the children walked into the School. And it didn’t stop until long after Rick was gone.
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You can also find some more photos on our twitter feed - @insidewestside
Montessori - Preparation for the future - It is an investment
Montessori seems to be coming up more and more often in the press, whether it be education reform, neurological research, executive function, or how companies function and run. Is it a coincidence that Google, founded by Montessori graduates has been Here at Google part of Fortune Magazine’s prestigious “100 Best Companies to Work For” for four consecutive years? And of those 4 years they have achieved a Top 5 ranking. In 2012 it was #1. In fact, they have taken the number 1 spot 3 times, which is more than any other company. Google says that ‘innovative benefits, flexibility, and the opportunity to pursue big ideas are just a few of the attributes that have continued to earn [them] this exciting recognition’. “People want to feel part of a family, even when they’re at work,” Google CEO Larry Page said.
SAS Institute in Cary, NC – last year’s top company – impressed Fortune researchers with its subsidized Montessori childcare as one of the perks.
Montessori, Montessori, Montessori. There just seems to be a link. Coincidence? Maybe. But we don’t think so.
The following is from Tony Evans - Head of School at Dundas Valley Montessori School in Dundas, Ontario.
‘Society has not only developed into a state of utmost complication and extreme contrasts, but it has now come to a crisis in which the peace of the world and civilization itself are threatened. More than to anything else it is due to the fact that the development of man himself has not kept pace with that of his external environment.’ -Dr. Maria Montessori, 1948, Childhood to Adolescence
Whenever I read Montessori’s later writings, I am literally astounded by how prescient she was about the evolution of education, technology, brain research, and the modern world. Last week, there were two inspiring articles in the Globe & Mail extolling the ability of Montessori Education to develop innovative minds.
Article 1: “Maria Montessori: Guru for a New Generation of Business Innovators.”
(View related artcile)
Article 2: “Rethinking Cubicle Culture.”
(View related artcile)
Please read the articles and forward them to anyone who asks why you are committed to a different model of education for your child. The model we are accustomed to was designed for children of the past (think industrial revolution). Montessori is designed for the leaders of tomorrow.
In the accompanying articles we examine how businesses are using Montessori principles to employ and engage employees with astounding success.
The Work World
An interesting perspective is offered by Ambiga Dhiraj, Head of Talent Management for Chicago-based Mu Sigma, a decision science and analytics services firm, in her blog post “Develop Leaders the Montessori Way” (View related artcile) at Harvard Business Review. She outlines how her company shifted to a Montessori approach to motivating employees.
“We believe this intrinsic motivation - an employee’s love for what she does - is better than money and promotions,” writes Dhiraj.
John Steen, member of the Technology & Innovation Management Centre in the School of Business at the University of Queensland, Australia, and founder of The Innovation Leadership Network blog, also sees the advantages of bringing Montessori approaches to the work world. In “Montessori Lessons for Innovators,” (View related artcile) Steen argues that bringing Montessori-principled prepared environments into the workplace is the best way to advance innovation.
The environment “is structured but the structure supports experimentation and learning rather than dictating what will be learnt and what the experiment will be,” says Steen.
Then there’s “the move to incorporate more co-op experiences into graduate school programs.”
(View related artcile)
From the article:
“At a basic level, it is a Montessori approach. What works well for kindergartners works well for engineers,” says Bryan Dansberry, who chairs the American Society for Engineering Education’s Co-operative & Experiential Education Division (CEED) and is a higher education experiential programs specialist at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.”
Montessori can contribute to lifelong success in ways that might not be initially obvious. Here we have examples of how Montessori not only contributes to children’s development, but how it can also contribute to aspects of grown-up development as well.
The Brain
When it comes to the internal skills that lead to success, Dr. Judy Willis has written an article much-discussed by Montessorians recently. In Whose Children Will Get the Best Jobs in the 21st Century, (View related artcile)
Dr. Willis postulates that “The best jobs will go to applicants who have the skillsets to analyze information as it becomes available, the flexibility to adapt when what were believed to be facts are revised, and to collaborate with other experts on a global playing field requiring tolerance, willingness to consider alternative perspectives, and articulately communicate one’s ideas successfully.” These skills are part of the set of skills neurologists refer to as executive functions.
Willis relates the development of sound executive function skillsets to educational models and says, “What is important is that today’s students have the education they need to choose the career path that will give them the most satisfaction.” She explains that “children who have opportunities to use and strengthen their developing executive functions early” will have a greater likelihood of success in future educational and vocational endeavours.
She outlines the kinds of skills children should learn in school - focusing attention, organization, prioritization, and active participation - and gives some examples of things parents can do to foster executive function abilities, such as having children make plans or set goals and experience the consequences of their choices in accomplishing (or not) the plans they have made, and how parents should respond when seeing them make poor choices.
All of this is exactly what Montessori does. Many business professionals are just now beginning to recognize the advantages of Montessori as providing both valuable employee skills and as a model upon which corporate structures and practices can be based. Choosing Montessori for your child, and learning more about how it can help your own business, has never been a better choice.
And, we agree, she was Superwoman! What do you think?
View related artcile
http://montessorimadmen.com/
Check them out!
Apple is Montessori
View Montessori and the Mac Article
Alan Kay conceived of and designed the first laptop. He also coined and helped create object-oriented programming and windowing graphical user interface design (trust me that was important).
In this 1995 interview at a Congressional Hearing, Kay explains how the Apple user interface uses the same motivational, self-construction ideas found in Montessori classrooms.
We may have learned in the wake of Steve Jobs’s death that he was both brilliant and ruthless. One thing that is certain is that he knew a good, original idea when he saw one. I am not surprised that his innovations had Montessori ideals in them.
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This was originally written for a newsletter posting by Dundas Valley Montessori School’s Owner, Founder and Director, Tony Evans.
Why Montessori for the Kindergarten year?
Why Montessori for the kindergarten year?
by Tim Seldin with Dr. Elizabeth Coe
This article originally appeared in Tomorrow’s Child magazine.
Every year at reenrollment time and in thousands of Montessori schools all over North America, parents of four-almost-five-year-olds are trying to decide whether or not they should keep their sons and daughters in Montessori for kindergarten or send them off to the local schools.
The advantages of using the local schools often seem obvious, while those of staying in Montessori are often not at all clear. When you can use the local schools for free, why would anyone want to invest thousands of dollars in another year’s tuition?
It is a fair question and it deserves a careful answer. Obviously there is no one right answer for every child. Often the decision depends on where each family places its priorities and how strongly parents sense that one school or another more closely fits in with their hopes and dreams for their children.
Naturally, to some degree the answer is also often connected to the question of family income as well, although we are often amazed at how often families with very modest means who place a high enough priority on their children’s education will scrape together the tuition needed to keep them in Montessori.
So here are a few answers to some of the questions parents often ask about Montessori for the kindergarten age child.
What would be the most important advantages of keeping my five-year-old in Montessori?
Montessori is an approach to working with children that is carefully based on what we’ve learned about children’s cognitive, neurological and emotional development from several decades of research. Although sometimes misunderstood, the Montessori approach has been acclaimed as the most developmentally appropriate model currently available by some of America’s top experts on early childhood and elementary education.
One important difference between what Montessori offers the five-year-old and what is offered by many of today’s kindergarten programs has to do with how it helps the young child to learn how to learn.
Over recent years educational research has increasingly shown that students in many schools don’t really understand most of what they are being taught. Howard Gardner, Harvard Psychologist and author of the best selling book The Unschooled Mind goes so far as to suggest that “Many schools have fallen into a pattern of giving kids exercises and drills that result in their getting answers on tests that look like understanding. Most students, from as young as those in kindergarten to students in some of the finest colleges in America do not understand what they’ve studied, in the most basic sense of the term. They lack the capacity to take knowledge learned in one setting and apply it appropriately in a different setting. Study after study has found that, by and large, even the best students in the best schools can’t do that.” (On Teaching For Understanding: A Conversation with Howard Gardner, by Ron Brandt, Educational Leadership Magazine, ASCD, 1994.)
Montessori is focused on teaching for understanding. In a primary classroom, three and four-
year-olds receive the benefit of two years of sensorial preparation for academic skills by working with the concrete Montessori learning materials. This concrete sensorial experience gradually allows the child to form a mental picture of concepts like how big is a thousand, how many hundreds make up a thousand, and what is really going on when we borrow or carry numbers in mathematical operations.
The value of the sensorial experiences that the younger children have had in Montessori has often been under-estimated by both parents and educators. Research is very clear that young children learn by observing and manipulating their environment, not through textbooks and workbook exercises. The Montessori materials give the child concrete sensorial impression of abstract concepts, such as long division, that become the foundation for a lifetime understanding.
Because Montessori teachers are well trained in child development, they normally know how to present information in developmentally appropriate ways.
In many, many American schools, children do exercises and fill in workbook pages with little understanding. There is a great deal of rote learning. Superficially, it may seem that these children are learning the material. However, all too often a few months down the road little of what they “learned” will be retained and it will be rare for the children to be able to use their knowledge and skills in new situations. Learning to be organized and learning to be focused is as important as any academic work. Doing worksheets quickly can be impressive to parents, but there is rarely any deep learning going on. More and more educational researchers are beginning to focus on whether students, whether young or adult, really understand or have simply memorized correct answers.
In a nut shell, what would be the most important short-term disadvantage of sending my five-year-old to the local schools?
When a child transfers from Montessori to a new kindergarten, she spends the first few months adjusting to a new class, a new teacher, and a whole new system with different expectations. This, along with the fact that most kindergartens have a much lower set of expectations for five-year-olds than most Montessori programs, severely cuts into the learning that could occur during this crucial year of their lives.
In a few cases, kindergarten Montessori children may not look as if they are not as advanced as a child in a very academically accelerated program, but what they do know they usually know very well. Their understanding of the decimal system, place value, mathematical operations, and similar information is usually very sound. With reinforcement as they grow older, it becomes internalized and a permanent part of who they are. When they leave Montessori before they have had the time to internalize these early concrete experiences, their early learning often evaporates because it is neither reinforced nor commonly understood.
In a class with such a wide age range of children, won’t my five-year-old spend the year taking care of younger children instead of doing his or her own work?
The five year olds in Montessori classes often help the younger children with their work, actually teaching lessons or correcting errors.
Anyone who has ever had to teach a skill to someone else may recall that the very process of explaining a new concept or helping someone practice a new skill leads the teacher to learn as
much, if not more, than the pupil. This is supported by research. When one child tutors another, the tutor normally learns more from the experience than the person being tutored. Experiences that facilitate development of independence and autonomy are often very limited in traditional schools.
Isn’t it Better for Kids to Go To School With the Children From Their Neighborhood?
Once upon a time people bought a home and raised their family in the same neighborhood. There was a real sense of community. Today, the average family will move two or three times before their children go off to college. Many public schools expect a turnover of more than 20% of their population a year as families move in and out of the area. The relationships that once bound families living in the same neighborhood together into a community have grown weak in many parts of the country. In many Montessori schools, families who live in different neighborhoods but who share similar values have come together to create and enjoy the extended community of their school. Children growing up in Montessori schools over the last fifty years often speak of how closely knit their friendships were with their school mates and their families.
Since most children will eventually have to go to the neighborhood schools, wouldn’t it be better for them to make the transition in kindergarten rather than in first grade?
The American Montessori Society tells of one father who wrote, “We considered the school years ahead. We realized a child usually does his best if he has good learning habits, a sound basis in numbers and math, and the ability to read. We realized that he has had an excellent two-year start in his Montessori school. If he were to transfer now to kindergarten, he would probably go no farther than he is now, whereas if he stays in Montessori, he will reap the benefits of his past work under the enthusiastic guidance of teachers who will share his joy in learning.”
Many families are aware that by the end of the kindergarten year, Montessori students will often have developed academic skills that may be beyond those of children enrolled in most American kindergarten programs. However, parents should remember that academic progress is not our ultimate goal. Our real hope is that the children will have an incredible sense of self-confidence, enthusiasm for learning, and will feel closely bonded to their teachers and classmates. We want much more than competency in the basic skills; we want to them to honestly enjoy school and feel good about themselves as students.
Once children have developed a high degree of self-confidence, independence, and enthusiasm for the learning process, they normally can adapt to all sorts of new situations. While there is wonderful and exciting reasoning to carefully consider keeping a child in Montessori through elementary school and beyond, by the time they are first grade they will typically be able to go off to their new school with not only a vibrant curiosity and excitement about making new friends and learning new things.
If I keep my child in Montessori for kindergarten, won’t he/she be bored in a traditional first grade program?
Montessori children by the end of age five are normally curious, self-confident learners who look forward to going to school. They are normally engaged, enthusiastic learners who honestly want to learn and ask excellent questions.
What teacher wouldn’t give her left arm for a room filled with children like that? Well, truthfully over the years we’ve found some who consider these children “disruptive.”
Disruptive, you ask. A polite, independent Montessori child, disruptive?
Well, first off, let’s remember that Montessori children are real human beings, and not all children who attended Montessori fit the idealized description. However, enough do that the generalization is often fairly accurate.
Montessori children by age six have spent three or four years in a school where they were treated with honesty and respect. While there were clear expectations and ground rules, within that framework their opinions and questions were taken quite seriously. Unfortunately, there are still some teachers and schools where children who ask questions are seen as challenging authority. You can imagine an independent Montessori child asking his new teacher, But why do I have to ask each time I need to use the bathroom? or Why do I have to stop my work right now?
So the honest answer is that it depends on the teacher and school.
From an academic viewpoint, Montessori children will generally be doing very well by the end of kindergarten, although, once again, that is not our ultimate objective. The program offers them enriched lessons in math, reading, language, and a wide range of lessons in science, geography and other cultural areas. If they are ready, they will normally develop excellent skills and become quite “culturally literate.”
When one of these children enters a traditional first grade, they may have already mastered the skills that their new school considered first grade curriculum. Some Montessori children are still more advanced. Once upon a time in America, elementary schools had only one course of study for every child at each grade level, and the only option for children who were academically gifted was to skip them ahead one or two grade levels. This created all sorts of resentments, jealousies among students, and social stresses on children who socially and physically still belonged with their own age group. However, as Dr. Montessori’s educational strategies have been incorporated to a greater or lesser extent by more and more school systems, it is becoming more common to find elementary schools that are willing and able to adapt their curriculum to meet the needs of individual students who are ready for accelerated work.
The key concept in Montessori is the child’s interest and readiness for advanced work. If a child is not developmentally ready to go on, she is not left behind or made to feel like a failure. Our goal is not to ensure that our children develop at a predetermined rate, but to ensure that whatever they do, they do well. Most Montessori children master a tremendous amount of information and skills. Even in the rare case where one of our children may not have made as much progress as we would have wished, he will usually be moving along steadily at his own pace and will feel good about himself as a learner.
Dr. Elizabeth Coe is the Past President of the American Montessori Society and Director of the Houston Montessori Teacher Education Center in Houston, Texas.
Tim Seldin is the President of the Montessori Foundation and Chair of the International Montessori Council.
Toddler Friends…
French at Westside - Quel Avantage!
“Can I have some more fromage s’il vous plait?”
“Hey! That’s my travail.”
“How do you say antelope in Francais?”
“Do you want to do “Qu’est-ce que Lindsay porte” with me?”
Yes, bilingualism is alive and well here at Westside. This is the kind of “frenglish” that has become the norm for our Casa community. The children may think nothing of it, in fact that’s the idea, but we still cheer a little inside with every new word, and every appropriate response. We know what we are doing here is working.
At Westside we have set ourselves apart from other schools. French is not an “elective” or a “specialty class” or just a person in the class who says everything in French. It is part of our school’s culture. It is not uncommon to here two Anglophone staff speaking in French to each other, or a non French Speaking staff member tuning in and making sense of a French conversation with a child so that communication between all staff and children is seamless and consistent. Despite the fact that we have 1 official Francophone in the school, our daily operations depend almost equally as much on French as on English.
We also create our own materials. In true Montessori style we feed off the children and adapt the materials to their interests and needs. After the children have been shown the work they have access to it as they do any piece of work, which means they can take the responsibility for their own language learning. What better way to master a language than to teach and practice with their friends, all while having fun.
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For the children the benefits are exponential. As Erica Westly writes in an article for Scientific American Mind “In recent years, scientists have found that being raised bilingual facilitates in children certain aptitudes such as mental flexibility, abstract thinking and working memory which is associated with both reading and math skills…they found that the region of the inferior frontal cortex, which involves both language and abstract thinking, showed more activity in bilingual children.” How should bilingualism be integrated? Well according to her article “Researchers have found that the best way to become bilingual is to start young and practice everyday. ‘Being exposed to a multilingual environment is ideal.’ ” That’s good news for us!
What is great about our approach to second language learning is that it is not about reaching benchmarks in proficiency, it is about igniting a curiosity and promoting learning of all kinds. Every child has different aptitudes and develops different interests so whether or not they develop the interest to continue mastering French, they will have undoubtedly reaped the cognitive advantages, ability to adapt and an openness to other cultures. Quel avantage!
To read the full article “The Bilingual Advantage” go to:
http://tamia.ca/Blog/Entries/2011/8/11_The_Bilingual_Advantage.html
and click on the link to the original article.
-Nadia and Natasha
The Second Year of a New Classroom - Casa North
There were days last year when Casa North first opened where I felt like I was in Munchkin land. This feeling would only grow when I was told, “Melanie, you’re bigger than a cow AND an elephant.” Picture it, one adult, with 8 children all 3 years and under. I won’t deny that there were some challenges. There were also many amazing moments. Those children who had begun their time at Westside in Yonina’s class astounded me with their abilities to dress themselves, select their own work and return it when finished (although in the fall months I had to play the game of hunt the activities on a daily basis, since they were not necessarily returned to the correct spot). Those children who were new to Montessori seemed to catch onto the daily routine and classroom expectations quickly. We became a little like a family, especially over lunches (which in the beginning were usually silent, as the children couldn’t do two things at a time, such as eat and carry on a conversation).
Over the year as more children joined the class and the social and communication skills that we worked on daily began to take root, lunches became more dynamic, we shared stories about our daily lives and got to know one another better. During our Montessori work cycle there were even the occasional moments of silence, a sure sign to a Montessori teacher that good work and complete focus is going on.
Still, by the end of the year I wondered how solid was the foundation I had been laying all year long?
I got my answer this September, as the Casa North crew filtered in on the first day of school. Like old friends they chatted with one another, catching up on what each one had been doing for the summer, and then, what to my wondering eyes did they do? They each strolled over to the shelves and without hesitation they each selected an activity.
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It was almost as though they couldn’t wait to get back to work! That was the moment I knew I had laid a good, solid foundation. It has been so incredible to see the older children assisting the younger ones with zippers and snaps, observing the growing peer interdependence, as they come to recognize each other’s strengths and skills.
Another amazing milestone has been seeing Casa North students lead Westside to our Friday’s at the park, something which would have been impossible a year ago (I have even noticed a few of the older Casa South students react in surprise when they notice who is in the lead). Our little family has grown to include 14 children along with Natasha who brings sunny smiles as well as French into our little family environment. I no longer feel like a visitor in Munckinland, in fact there are many moments when my presence does not seem to be felt by the class at all. I am truly a Guide to these children on their journey through life, accessible when needed. Exactly where I want to be!
- Melanie