Battle of the Schools... Montessori

Science is experimental and full of discovery. Montessori schools put this type of idea at the top of the list. Their belief for all learning is student led. The Montessori educational practice is supposed to help students develop skills such as creativity, problem solving, critical thinking, and how to find their place on Earth. Now, for those of you that were like me coming into this topic, I knew nothing about the Montessori way. From the Montessori website, "The basis of Montessori practice in the classroom is mixed age group (3 ages - 6 ages in one class), individual choice of research and work, and uninterrupted concentration. Group lessons are seldom found in a Montessori classroom, but learning abounds." The thought of not having group lessons is an alien idea to me. I wasn't sure how much learning could be done in a classroom that was run by children from ages 3-6! What terrified me even more was the next paragraph... "[The] children are always free to move around the room instead of staying at desks. There is no limit to how long a child can work on something she has chosen. At any one time in a day all subjects -- practical work, math, language, science, history, geography, art, music, etc. -- will be being studied, at all levels, by children of mixed ages learning from each other, facilitated by careful observation, individual lessons, record keeping, and help of the teacher." This brought about a lot of questions and went against a lot of things I have learned in my education. I know that if a child isn't very good as something, he or she is most likely not going to be doing that thing. Example: Little Johnny doesn't like writing because he isn't good at making his letter or making sense in a paper. Little Johnny is most likely going to spend his day doing the activities he is good at and try to stay away from writing as much as possible. Wont this put him far behind his classmates in writing?? I know that in public and private schools, the teachers make all students focus on writing to gauge where they all are and help from there. It is a strange idea to let students run the class, but it is also very interesting when it comes to science content.
I love the idea of how science is taught in a Montessori setting. There are things that I strongly disagree with when it comes to Montessori schools, but what I found out about science is NOT one of them. 
Maria Montessori started these schools because she felt that “All men should come under the influence of the scientific method; and every child should be able to experiment at first hand, to observe, and put himself in contact with reality.” She promoted discovery learning and the process of science in her schools. Communicating, classifying, dealing with spatial relationships, measuring and using numbers were believed basic to intelligence. It was her view that they could be best developed by allowing the child to manipulate materials. This is the whole idea behind teaching science in classrooms and the way the Montessori schools are set up, it is perfect to really introduce the true Nature of Science to them. I found this material from an AMAZING article on teaching the "Process Versus the Content in Elementary Science" in Drake's journals (see citation at the bottom). The whole article talks about the history of science teaching and how it has progressed into this great Montessori way. "[Maria] Montessori believed that pupils in the “ordinary” elementary school sit passively a great deal of the time. The minds of these pupils dwell upon very little except about what the teacher is talking, and that these pupils do very little imagining. In contrast, children in Montessori schools are kept busy manipulating materials, gather information for themselves and learning cognitive skills basic to scientific inquiry (pg. 12)." I wouldn't say that all students check out of learning in "ordinary" elementary schooling, but in comparison to a Montessori school, yes. 
Science content has an extensive history which ends with the ideas of Jean Piaget, Jerome Bruner, and Maria Montessori for their ideas on discovery and experimentation. "[Montessori] sees pupils as active explorers who are learning how to organize and understand objects and events in their environment (pg.14)." So far as my research has gone, Montessori schools may be the best environment for science education. I may not exactly agree when it comes to other content areas, however I am sure they have their benefits. Regardless, my main focus is on science content. I love the whole process of science in a Montessori setting. I could go into compare and contrast to the different schools I have researched, but I still have two more to go before I can get into that. Next stop are the Private schools.
 

Chiappetta, Eugene L., and Alfred T. Collete. "Process Versus Content in Elementary Science Teaching." ERIC (1973): 24. EBSCO. Web. 17 Nov. 2010.