New World School With a Century-Old Method: At Montessori, Students Choose, ?Constructing Their Own Education’

By Jennifer Torres, The Record, Stockton, Calif.

Jan. 15–Children at north Stockton’s New World Montessori School counted with beads and blocks. They read books. They crafted spiders out of plastic-foam cups and bright pipe cleaners. When they lost interest, they moved on to more of what they and their instructors call work, and in doing so, helped carry on a century-old educational movement.

In January 1907, Maria Montessori, trained as a medical doctor, opened the first Montessori school, Casa dei Bambini, to working-class children in Rome. She wanted, according to her own records, to let children explore their own interests in an environment that supported their comfort and learning.

The Montessori method has persisted, its advocates say, because it offers young children a natural and effective way to study their worlds. Classroom lessons are not directed by a lead teacher. Instead, individual children choose learning activities developed to teach them language, math and other skills.

“The child is really constructing their own education,” said Shirley Garey, who opened New World Montessori in 1980. At the school last week, she helped a girl, learning about flags, draw the national banner of Honduras. Another girl asked whether she could make up a story.

“Of course, you can make up a story any time,” Garey told her. “We believe in the child,” she said, “that they can construct themselves.”

Mieke San Julian, who attended New World Montessori as a preschooler, also chose it for her 3-year-old son, Evan. “I love how free my son is to choose what he’s going to study and what he’s going to learn about,” San Julian said.

In his first weeks at school, Evan studied land forms and bodies of water. “He was really interested in that,” his mother said. “He came home talking about an isthmus, and I said, ‘You mean Christmas?’ and he said, ‘No, an isthmus.’ … That kind of set-up is perfect for Evan.”

Still, critics have said the Montessori method does not offer enough structure and is an educational option open only to upper- and middle-class parents.

While most Montessori schools are private, there are public programs — including one at Stockton Unified School District’s Taft Elementary School.

“There’s a strong scientific bent to it,” said Dan Wright, the district’s director of elementary education. “Early on, they get the kids involved in thinking about science and nature.”

Taft’s Montessori students tend to perform better on standardized tests than their peers at traditional schools, Wright said. And all the program’s teachers are trained in the Montessori method — an important distinction, Garey said. Montessori, considered a philosophy, is not trademarked; that a school calls itself Montessori doesn’t mean its teachers are Montessori-trained.

Garey, who has completed Montessori study, said the method has endured for a century because it is built around the way children naturally learn and solve problems.

“The structure lies within the classroom itself,” she said. “Everything’s in perfect order. They’re not free to abuse anything. They’re free to learn what their inner self tells them they need. … You can’t spoon-feed knowledge.”

Contact reporter Jennifer Torres at (209) 546-8252 or jtorres@recordnet.com.

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Copyright (c) 2007, The Record, Stockton, Calif.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.

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