Montessori Classrooms

I would most like to teach in a Montessori classroom if I had the option. There are many reasons for this. The first of which is that I love the way that the Montessori schools are so focused on dealing with objects to teach rather than sitting at a desk and giving formal instruction. I think that for early childhood, this is one of the best approaches there is.

I also love that the children are free to move about the classroom to participate in many different types of activities. The activities are so varied, also, so it would be great for children with attention difficulties. I also love the fact that teachers individualize the activities for the students, through working with them and observing them as they participate in activities.

The Montessori method also teaches basic skills, like we saw in the video the way the students learned to button and clean up after themselves. In typical schools, I think we often assume that students will learn this at home, but I think it is great that Montessori suggested integrating it into the classroom. It makes children independent and responsible for their own personal care, to some extent, which frees up the teacher to focus on more "educational" activities than tying shoes and zipping clothes.

I think it would be fun to be called a "directress" too!

Journal 5.2

I think that the Montessori method would be a great thing for children living in poverty. Montessori’s method makes children responsible for their own learning, and encourages independence at an early age. Many times, children living in poverty must be independent and responsible at an earlier age than other children because of their parents’ work schedules. Having their learning train them to do things for themselves would be good for them. Also, Montessori encourages a lot of hands on activities, and children in poverty might not have access to the kind of resources at home that they would in a Montessori classroom, so it would give them exposure to things that they otherwise would have no access to.

Journal 10.1

The “future” kindergarten teacher is flexible, enjoys children, can work well with many different types of people, and they take an active role in promoting developmentally appropriate learning. I very much enjoy working with children, and I love to engage them and to see them learn, so I feel that I will be able to promote developmentally appropriate learning with some training, since right now it is sort of difficult to know what sort of level students should be on in a particular grade. I also appreciate collaborative work, and I feel that to create the best possible educational system for our children, we have to get perspectives of many different people, like parents, specialists, and other teachers in the school. I am sure that I will be able to work well and collaborate with all these people once I am primarily responsible for a classroom.