My lil' angel is starting kindergarten next year, my quest for the appropriate school has begun. So far, I've investigated two public, three porivate catholic and one montessori. I am intrigued by the montessori ideals. It is a far cry from the strict rote learning experience I thought.

I've scoured the net, visited the school and have a good base of the montessori concept, but I need a some personal insight. Opinions? (see, that's a simple one word joke - as if I thought you smart bunch could be opinionless. uh ha. not funny.)

-- Anonymous, February 27, 2001

Answers

I did the Montessori thing for preschool and kindergarten. My parents would have sent me and my siblings through Montessori forever, if they had the program for older kids in my area. I wound up at Catholic school until the sixth grade, then got into public middle and high schools, now at a private college. My boyfriend, who grew up elsewhere, was in Montessori through elementary school. I loved it, and he loved it. His math and science skills are excellent (he's now in a great engineering program), but he thinks that the one thing Montessori didn't help with was language skills. Because it was self-paced, he always worked on math and science activities, and no one pushed him to read and write every day. I was in Catholic school by the time I really started reading and writing (and Catholic schools are known for teaching English very well), so I don't have his problem.

My thoughts on this: if your daughter is motivated, put her in Montessori. My parents swear by it. Catholic schools are good, but don't encourage kids work very far above grade level. Not that that's always important, but it might be a factor. I don't know much about public education in early years, but most of my friends who were in public kindergartens said that the classes lagged and their parents wound up teaching them how to read. (Then again, this was 13 years ago in a developing school system.)

-- Anonymous, February 27, 2001

My best friend growing up hated the montessori school. She cried every day for a year untill her parents put her in a differant (also alternative) school. Her older brother though, went to the same montessori school all through elementary school and loved it. I have herd similer stories from other people. Most kids LOVE the montessori schools, but some are just not suited. I think it depends on the kid weather or not they will like it.

-- Anonymous, February 27, 2001

I went to a Montessori school for two years (the equivalent of kindergarten and first grade, or preschool and kindergarten -- it is somewhat unclear to everyone, actually). Actually it was a modified Montessori school, where they taught age groups, but they included a much wider range of ages than other schools would. I loved it there. It was very, very good at finding niches both for kids who were having trouble with the material, and for kids who were understimulated by the normal curriculum. At various points, I was both, but until we moved and I entered a public school (skipping a grade on entry, incidentally) I had no idea that the times I was placed into a separate group for extra work were anything special.

I credit most of my attachment toward education to those two years. The schools in the area we moved to were laughably awful, the kinds of places where people get shoved in lockers for being too smart, where I saw knife fights in the sixth grade, and where a significant proportion of the girls drop out of middle school and high school because they get knocked up. For over ten years there, I associated going to school with suffering. But I still loved learning. Now I'm finishing up my doctorate. Things got better after high school, unsurprisingly.

I would say, based on my experience, that your kid couldn't go wrong at Northshore Montessori in Bothell, Washington. More generally, however, I think it's good to give kids the idea that learning is fun as soon as possible. That idea can survive a lot of bruising if it's instilled early, so I'd pick the school that seems most likely to get that point across.

-- Anonymous, February 28, 2001

Speaking as a stay at home mother, pre-school through kindergarten are much better generally than public schools, montessori in particular. Bear in mind that not all children are the same and some do not thrive in that open environment, craving more structure. Word of mouth in your area is probably the best criteria if you choose to do otherwise. As for the rest of school, once you have that base, with parental encouragement as well as guidance, public school can be as good if not better than any private school. Some may disagree, but I recently visited our oldest child at college. While shopping one morning, waiting for him to finish classes, I became involved in a discussion with a woman in one of the shops. She asked me where my child was attending college and assured me that he must have gone to private school, otherwise he wouldn't have been able to get into the college. Another woman agreed with her. Imagine their surprise when I assured them he was a product of public schools. Make no mistake, that I have been involved in schools,(as a volunteer),up to the state level, working for change when necesary. I figure we're already paying, so why not take advantage. Good luck and remember that no matter who teaches your child, he/she should know to respect the teacher and pay attention in class.

-- Anonymous, February 28, 2001

We had a horrible experience with Montessori schools. We may have just had bad luck picking bad schools (we only used them for preschool daycare), but all three of the schools we put our son into said he was too wild for them to handle, and suggested we get him into counseling. We had him tested, and the tests all came up the same: he was an active six-year-old kid with absolutely nothing wrong.

We spoke with some of the mothers of other kids at the schools, and they had pretty much the same experience: active kids weren't welcomed because those schools took the Montessori message way too much to heart: they were geared solely towards drawing out shy, quiet, sheltered kids, and when they had some rambunctious preschoolers, they had no clue what to do with them. One of the schools, it turned out, had recommended every single boy enrolled for the previous two YEARS get tested for ADD, because they kept wanting to get up, run around, throw things, and, you know, PLAY, rather than sit on their 2'x3' rug and stack blocks.

-- Anonymous, February 28, 2001

If I hear what you're saying correctly, there is nothing like sitting in to get a first hand experience. I have to agree with that. The montessori concept definitely apeals to me, but everything looks good in theory.

Someone mentioned kids being pulled out for special/remedial help in public schools. It hurts to think about any child in that circumstance in any school -- public schools seem to have a rep for ostricizing kids in that way. I know they don't mean to and they have the best interest of the child at heart, but...

-- Anonymous, February 28, 2001