Observations from our visit to a Montessori School in Valencia

We visited a Montessori School on the outskirts of Valencia today. It was a limited visit but the first time we have been into a Montessori school, and we don't know very much yet about Montessori, so we had a lot of questions we will seek to answer in the coming months. How much of what we observed is unique to this school - how much is universal to Montessori?

Divided learning

Materials are divide into Maths, English and Geography; they also have an art teacher. Are the days structured or do children follow their interests at their own pace? How are interests outside of these explored?

Self-correcting materials

They use self-correcting materials for the 3-6 year olds. The guide observes but will intervene if they notice the materials are being used incorrectly - what does that type of interaction look like?

The school owner believes the Montessori programme doesn't enable enough creative expression. We agree. She sought to resolve this by employing a Reggio-experienced Art teacher. But rather than acting like an atelierista, weaving the creative languages into all other explorations it seemed that art was still being thought of as a separate subject. Unfortunately, their Reggio-experienced Art teacher decided she wanted to become a Montessori guide instead! We found this really interesting.

Boarding

Maria Montessori believed in the importance of boarding from age 12 to develop independence. Daisy went to Boarding School. I didn't. What would we want for Indigo?

Naturally we had a lot of questions after leaving the school. In searching for answers we found this excellent article titled Montessori Myths: Misconceptions about Montessori Education from the Bala House Montessori School which is worth sharing.

A main overall concern with the Montessori approach is that whilst it encourages children to select which activity they want to pursue ('in a purposeful manner'), it still dictates the activities, and in so doing, decides what is worthy of pursuit and what isn't. Are all Montessori materials self-correcting and therefore closed-ended?

Reggio on the other hand insists on open-ended environments and providing 100+ opportunities for children to explore their 100+ languages, (partly achieved by making environments open-ended).