Montessori Is Developmental
Peter Davidson
“Your children go to Montessori school? I heard that’s fine for preschoolers, but when they are older, won’t they need something different?”
I would guess that many of you have been asked questions similar to this on more than one occasion. It is an indication of the positive reputation Montessori enjoys as a preschool program, but also the relative lack of understanding of its relevance for older ages. It also asserts that older children need a different environment from the little ones. And indeed they do, which is why the Montessori elementary environment is designed so differently from that for the younger ages. What most of these people mean by “something different,” however, is the teacher-centered, one-size-fits-all conventional model of education in which they themselves grew up.
Two children in the Wasatch Lower Elementary Classroom using the microscope.
Lower Elementary students build a collage of materials seen through the microscope.
Lower Elementary students working on the Dynamic Addition Stamp Game.