On Wednesday April 8th 2009 I visited for the first time a Montessori School here in Corpus Christi and it changed my life. I have always been interested in Montessori and their way of teaching but I never knew what it was really like. Now I believe I have a new goal in life: being a Montessori teacher.
As I walked up to the Montessori School I did not know what to expect. I began to feel very excited about this experience when I saw the cute courtyard with tables, benches, and chairs. The door was locked and we had to ring the doorbell and wait for a nice lady to open the door. We walked in the office and there were interesting looking books everywhere. When 9 o clock came around the coo coo clock went off and we began our toor.
Fisrt we sat at a table with the director of the school, a very intelligent lady, who explained what Montessori is about and how the students work throughout the day. The students are seperated into two classrooms. One is 1st through 3rd grade which is called the lower level class and the second one is 4th through 6th which is called upper level. There are also special needs and advanced teachers. This school is a public charter school which only recieves state funds and they still follow the state guidelines. This is a hands on classroom environment with all the work neatly organized on the shelf. The students work in class at their own pace with a workplans that are assigned for them. All the students are working at different levels. The students know what they have to do to complete their work and they have the freedom to choose what they want to work on first. They can work on tables or on little mats on the floor. The first three hours of their school day is an uninterrupted work cycle where they comeplete their work. During this time the teacher may be giving small group lessons. There is no disturbing people while they are working during this time although they can talk quietly with eachother if they are working together. After this work cycle the students go to lunch, then P.E., then art, and lastly large group lessons.
The director explained to us that the school encourages independence by giving them choices. They do have three important rules that they would like everyone to follow:
1. Respect yourself- well groomed, excersie, well fed
2. Respect others- listen to teachers, work out problems at peace table,
3. Respect the environment- watering the garden
When it is time for the students to eat lunch they have the choice of eating in the courtyard or in class. They wait for everyone to have their lunch layed out before they begin eating, then they eat queitly while playing classical music.
There is a large (probably 50 or 75 gallon) saltwater fish tank right next to the front door. The students learn to check the water temperatures and levels of the fish tank and take turns doing so. Right next to the fish tank there is a cage with two doves in it. The doves are the schools mascot because they are a symbol for peace. The school has both a basketball and volleyball team and support their team by showing off the pictures and trophies from the students. After school they offer chess, violin, newspaper, and yearbook clubs.
After looking around in the hallways it was time for us to walk into the first classroom which was the 1st through 3rd classroom. The director showed us a sample of their work plan for the week where the teacher checks the work so the student can move on. As I walked in the first thing I noticed was that all the students were working on something different. the environment was queit and the teacher was sitting on the floor talking to a few students quietly. There were two students researching with another teacher. I also noticed all the different activities and the students knew excatly where to go when they were finished with one and ready for another. They were very well behaved and seemed to not notice me very much, which if this was a regular classroom the students probably would have been trying to talk to me and interupt the class.
