Veer, who is 4.5 years old, attends a local Montessori preschool everyday for half a day. I strongly believe that it is in a child's best interest to have a non-parent have a prominent caregiver role in a child's life. Children respond differently to non-parental adults, and they benefit from a broader base of experiences that other adults can provide. They benefit from having other adults around that have different expectations and rules. So, while I am trained in birth through Kindergarten, I do not believe it is in my child's best interest for me to be his primary teacher if there is another viable alternative. I also am a firm believer that Montessori only "works" in a fully implemented Montessori classroom. He must be in a mixed age classroom, it is vital to the philosophy.
We are privileged that we have an extra room in the house that we can use as a home classroom. His home classroom has specific rules for me:
1) I do not replicate work that he does at school. There are no Montessori materials in his home classroom. Yes, I am trained in them. Yes, I even own them (as I used to own a preschool). However, I do not want them to be presented differently than they are presented at school (different training programs use slightly different methods for presentation). I do not want Veer to not choose to work with materials because he is confused about how he should use them. I also do not want him to use the works at home and not use them at school when he has older peers to model work for him, and younger peers that he could be a model for. Time and time again I notice that when children are provided Montessori materials at home, they do not use them in the classroom. In their minds, the "academic" needs are met at home, so they use school to meet social and play needs only.
2) Classroom time is freely chosen. I do not require, or even ask him to go in there. I do not ask him to be in there a certain length of time. When he wants to, he goes in there to work.
3) The works I create in the classroom serve both him and I. I create works that I know are of specific interest to just him. This might not necessarily be useful for his teachers to do because they do not have other children with the same interests. This also gives me practice to create works that I can use when I go back into the classroom (which I fully intend to do once Veer is in school full-time). Yes, I am using my child as a guinea pig. Also, I super love creating works.
4) His classroom also gives me a chance to practice my observational skills. It is truly a skill that needs honed and improved. It is the key to teaching in a Montessori classroom. We just had a parent-teacher conference, and we are seeing the same things that he is ready for both at home and at school. This tells me that both of our observations are fairly accurate.
Veer loves his time in his classroom and loves to give his Dad presentations on his works in his classroom. Stay tuned for a post about Veer's coffee parties!
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