Hello and thank you for visiting our website!
We hope you enjoy the Quest video. We think it really captures our school at its best. If you would like to visit Quest, please call or email to schedule a visit. We would love for you to see our school in action. It’s truly an amazing place!
Click here to view a wonderful, short, video about “Why Montessori” Trevor Eissler \”Montessori Madness!\” – 321 FastDraw
Click the link below to view a slideshow about Montessori Education and Quest
created by Paul Raymond, Head of School
I see that the American Montessori Society has connections to peace movements. I don’t want my kids to be indoctrinated by any side. Is Montessori categorically liberal?
Maria Montessori lived through two world wars and experienced first hand the atrocities that war can bring. Therefore the essence of the Montessori approach is the Education for Peace.
Education for Peace is teaching children to think about other ways of solving problems besides violence. It is our firm belief that children who are taught to respect other people, their cultures and beliefs, only resort to violence as a last resort.
- To achieve this we use:
- a multi-cultural curriculum
- character education,
- lessons on grace and courtesy
- Conflict Resolution and Peace Keeping techniques
We also discourage play that involves war games and gun play, and help children learn to solve their problems with words rather than with their hands.Read More»
I ask myself this question almost every day.
Not a day goes by that I don’t hear a teacher in a traditional school frustrated by a problem that could be eliminated, or at least lessened, if the whole school went Montessori. The three main complaints that I hear from my peers are:
- All the children are working at different levels! I can’t teach them all in a group!
- They need to be touching and doing things! Just sitting here reading from a
text book doesn’t work for most of them.
- They need more than just reading and math. They need science, social
studies art, music, and history.
Then I go to a mandatory in-service where they give us the “newest” information in educational research. What are the things that they talk about?
DIFFERENTIATED INSTRUCTION – adapting the instruction to the level and needs of each individual studentRead More»
Montessori education was developed in Italy, refined in India, and is prolific throughout the world. From Australia to Scandinavia, California to Nepal, it is a method of teaching, that has proven results.
With that said, there is a problem in adapting it for the educational system of a culture that has high stakes testing and therefore a focus on rote memorization. It is not that Montessori children don’t generally do well when tested, but it is the fear that they won’t that worries parents and non-Montessori educated administrators and teachersRead More»
Actually the majority of Montessori schools end at age 4 or 5 since the majority of Montessori schools are pre-schools. But most of the others stop at either 9 or 12.
Montessori philosophy states that as children mature so does their brain. As their brain matures, it acquires and processes information differently. Our classrooms are set up to reflect these different methods of acquiring and processing knowledge.
Pre-school classrooms (3 – 6 year olds) – are set up so that children can
“organize their environment’” (I call this the “what?’” stage, “What is this?”
“What is that?” )
Much more so than people realize. One would be hard pressed to find a pre-school that doesn’t have child sized materials for their students. Montessori was the first to do that, along with teaching young children to do things for themselves.
As far as relevance in elementary education, over the past few years billions of dollars have been spent to assure that teachers know inside and out the most recent scientifically based research on education that there is.
Why? Because it is the firm belief of Margaret Spellings, the US Secretary of Education, that teachers have this knowledge. She rightfully believes that it will improve our classroom management, curriculum development, and implementation of subject material.
What does the latest scientifically based educational research support?
DIFFERENTIATED INSTRUCTION -. (adapting the instruction to the level and needs of each individual student.)
FLEXIBLE GROUPINGS – organizing instructional groups according to the level of instruction that each child needs, but the groups aren’t static. As information is mastered, the children are moved to another more appropriate group.
MULTI-MODALITY INSTRUCTION – teaching the concept in many different ways
INTEGRATED INSTRUCTION – integrating science, history, social studies, and geography into the core curriculum.
ASESSMENTS – constantly assessing the mastery and academic needs of the students
DIRECT INSTRUCTION – isolating a concept and directly teaching it
REALIA – bringing the actual thing or a close facsimile of what you are teaching about into the classroom
All different terms for the precepts of the Montessori Philosophy.
I understand that Montessori does not typically give homework. Does a child who attends a Montessori elementary school have problems in High School with homework?
To be honest, I use to not give homework. It was in accordance with the Montessori philosophy of work being on each child’s specific level. I refused to give out busy work and just couldn’t figure out how to differentiate homework assignments for 20 children without spending hours upon hours each evening after school setting them up. I also felt that since my students were working so hard during the school day, and many had a series of after school activities, they didn’t need extra work to worry about.
But than I heard from many of my former students and their parents that the hardest transition they had to make when entering a traditional classroom was homework. I felt badly.Read More»