Not surprisingly I have been having a lot of trouble with this Montessori Curriculum I chose-- I picked it because I had heard raves about how great Montessori was and I'd read just enough to think it would be fantastic for Theo and not nearly enough to realise how much work it would be for me or how unlikely Theo's success with it would be.
Montessori is a philosophy which aims to educate the "whole child" through use of as much sensorial experience as possible. Three main ideas appealed to me about the Montessori philosophy. The first idea is that children learn through use of their 5 senses and that using as many senses as possible to learn will ultimately produce a better learning experience. This made very practical sense to me. The second idea is that children learn better when they are given choices about how to engage themselves in their learning time rather than forced to learn through disciplined means. A hands-off approach struck me as a better route for both me and my very independent son. And the third is that children should be allowed to work at their own pace and will learn better through interaction with children of varying ages. Theo has always been happier with children who were either much older or much younger than himself and the uniformity of ages in public school, which many people think of as necessary for "normal socialization," has always struck me as completely contrived.
However I quickly found that there were a number of problems with the curriculum I had chosen. The first was that a hands-off approach is really nearly impossible without an isolated, purpose-built school room, and an abundance of material which I could not afford and had no time to prepare. Theo only worked with school things about 30% of the time if I did not force him to make a choice and stick with it. Left to make his own choices about the material, he would dither, wander, and eventually end up playing with Georgie, leaving all the Montessori material either untouched or abandoned on the wrong shelf. He needed some kind of discipline if he was going to get anything done and he was much happier with this arrangement once he'd gotten used to it.
Take his reaction to the Montessori Language Arts Material. Instead of mere books and printing practice, Montessori has a number of manipulative materials designed to teach the basics of reading and writing: movable alphabets, word matching card games, sandpaper letters, mystery word jars, sound containers. I have tried them all and Theo's favourite activity by far is sitting at the table and working through his workbooks.
I have found the same applies to the Math materials. He is bored out of his mind playing with the Golden Bead Material, the number cards, and the various manipulative games designed to teach basic Math concepts, but I have had to wrestle his Math workbook forcibly from his grasp, resulting in a complete meltdown. In fact I had to hide the Math workbook so that we could do other activities and so that I would not have a battle on my hands when it was time to put it away and go out for the day. Math work became a problem even on weekends. It was like a drug. Out of 56 pages, he has completed all but 12 in less than a week.
There is only one activity which my Montessori handbook anticipates your child enjoying and advises that you purposely limit: workbook activities. The obvious reason is that Montessori was designed as a reaction against such traditional learning as disciplined book work, drilling practice, and memorization. The theory behind this is that traditional learning does not educate in the most thorough way. Unfortunately it is Theo's preferred mode of learning and I see no reason to force other modes of learning on him when he has been so successful simply for the sake of following a particular educational philosophy. Like me, he learns by reading, and more importantly writing about what he has read and then rereading what he has written. I discovered this when I gave him a lesson in colouring mixing the other week. I must have explained to him 5 or 6 times which colours were the primary ones and which colours mixed to make others. He was completely distracted while I was explaining, totally disinterested in experimenting himself, and nothing went in until I painted a colour wheel and labelled it for him--then he got it instantly. The same goes for his workbooks. I can explain a concept to him, but if I get him to read it out of the workbook first, then do the written exercises he will absorb the concept pretty quickly. He will then reread his work out loud, apparently for the fun of it, whilst reinforcing for himself what he has already taken in through the action of pencil on paper. A concept he only partly understood while I might have been helping him with the exercises related to it will suddenly click while he is rereading his work later and the next time he does it he has it perfect.
Some of the Montessori Material has been of limited use--though not so much for the activities they were designed for. One is the movable alphabets. They have been fairly helpful in teaching him to spell words by sounding them out phonetically. One activity in the 3rd level of Montessori Reading requires that you use the letters to teach basic vowel concepts like long "a," silent "e." You place the vowels on the table and switch out the consonants to make different words. This took Theo about 2 seconds to figure out. He then proceeded to use the "new" words he'd learned to form his own sentence instead--much more gratifying. The coloured beads have also had some limited use in helping to do basic addition and subtraction in his workbooks. He cannot seem to grasp the point of using them on their own however.
Of course part of the trouble is that he is much too advanced for most of the material anyway-- not something I had entirely anticipated. And I am sure that pure Montessori works much better in a proper Montessori school than it does in the home. However, one thing seems perfectly clear to me about my Montessori curriculum: it's not for everyone and it's certainly not for Theo. Even our Strong Start teacher, who used to teach as a trained Montessori educator, told me as much. It is obvious that Theo, while rather reliant on his dominant senses for absorbing information and much inclined to the traditional learning style, is having no trouble absorbing more than is usual for his age in all subjects. Even the principal of the local Montessori public school admitted to enquiring parents that their students don't do any better than regular public school kids. Clearly educational philosophy is not the key to success. Rather, success is dependent upon the ability of the teacher to make conscientious choices about the student's activities and curriculum based on a thorough knowledge of how the child learns best.
This is where I think homeschoolers have an advantage over public school kids, (though public school does offer many opportunities and experiences that are valuable in themselves). In public school various educational philosophies have been tried and experimented with, but no educational philosophy works perfectly for every kid. Some kids do well with the philosophy and chosen curricula of their teachers, others not so well, even poorly. At home the curriculum can be tried, adjusted, even thrown out entirely if the child isn't progressing at the rate which he is capable of. He has the benefit of a teacher who knows him very well, has the time to carefully observe his progress, and the means by which to alter his materials to suit his learning style.
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