We have been requested to share the story mentioned in a previous blog post “A Montessori Language Lesson” The introduction to the story, and all of the text in this blog post, is shared in the book Aid to Life, Montessori Beyond the Classroom (link below). This is a story of the young girl recording her thoughts as she experienced (just like Eloise did in Paris) a hotel with her grandparents (Amala and Baba) and aunt (Lala) during a Montessori conference in Portland, Oregon. Continue reading
Susan Mayclin Stephenson first began explaining Montessori in 1971, through a school newsletter that helped families of her students understand the essence of Montessori. She has continued to write and speak, based on personal experience, since that time.
Here is a quote from the upcoming book on observation and record keeping for the primary and elementary class, Please Help Me Do It Myself:
Rather than focusing first of all on the academic work in class, when I had a meeting with parents, I showed the parents the concentration graphs for their child. This kept the focus on the value of their child learning to independently choose work, to experience deeper and longer periods of concentration, and the positive results of this experience.
I found that this was an excellent way for parents not only to begin to understand Montessori, but to look for, and hesitate to interrupt, their child’s concentration at home.
CHIHUAHUA
In the beginning of March, I visited the oldest Montessori school in Mexico, Colegio Montessori de Chihuahua. The school meets the needs of children with infant communities, elementary classes, and the higher grades, including a middle school, or Erdkinder (earth children), where the focus is real work that gives the students a feeling of being valuable, and creative, responsible, original, and respected. Continue reading