ARTICLE BY 

Paul Nyhan (P-I Reporter) 

Dated Tuesday, January 30, 2007


On a recent Thursday morning, Syringa arranged fresh pink flowers in a tiny clear vase at the sink. Siggy painted Chinese characters on an easel. Maddie kept dumping her ball into a bowl of water. And Oliver just watched it all, ignoring a coffee-bean grinder and nearly everything else on his table.

These children were studying, not playing, scattered around tiny desks inside a Seattle classroom, doing what they wanted, when they wanted, as fast as they wanted.

         
        As teacher Jan Kamischke looks on, 5-year-old Ella McFarlane draws a kanji symbol at Pacific Crest School, a 21-year-old Montessori school on the fringe of Fremont. Kanji is a Japanese system of writing based on ideographic characters borrowed from the Chinese around the third century.         
They are the latest Montessori generation -- students of that one-time educational experiment, which turned 100 this month, that is now firmly entrenched within the U.S. school system, with 22,000 schools around the world and 100 in the Seattle.

Its teaching methods once revolutionary are now used in traditional classrooms, with many public schools, including a few in Seattle, making a home for Montessori programs. Still, the trend toward standardized tests -- and the need to prepare students for those exams -- is making Montessori a little less popular in public school districts.

At the same time, the unpopularity of standardized tests is driving some parents to Montessori schools.
You may have heard of Montessori, read about it and even thought about enrolling your children in it, but it's also quite possible you aren't sure exactly what it is.

Essentially, a Montessori education centers on a child, not a teacher or a lesson plan, and offers students freedom to set their own pace and choose their own topics, though they lose some autonomy as they reach upper grades.

"The basic essence of it is following each child in their own development, and in their interests, and developing a love of learning," said Tammy Oesting, vice president of the Pacific North West Montessori Association, which claims 400 members.

That means if Syringa wants to spend two hours cutting flowers, that is what she does, though her teachers at Pacific Crest School quietly help her and other students in the primary class develop critical skills. There are no traditional grades at Montessori, and Syringa's classmates range in age from 3 to 6.


"A lot of it is guided. We kind of watch and see what they need to work on," said Jane Shubin, who teaches at Pacific Crest.

The first clue that things are different at Pacific Crest School is the quiet. There are no screaming children, no bells, no loudspeakers or slamming lockers inside the 21-year-old Montessori school on the fringe of Fremont.

Instead, pairs of students work on math assignments while lying on rugs and sitting at desks inside Shubin's classroom. Later, they will read quietly, then knit.

The middle school lunchroom is almost as quiet.
As they eat, students stress that their teachers are as interested in developing a student's creativity as his or her academic skills.

In fact, middle-schoolers talk about their well-appointed art workshop the same way other students talk about their playground.

"It's a lot more free-form," said Troy Basel as he finished his lunch. "It's a lot easier to get to the teachers."
Montessori does have structure. But classrooms are based on creating natural connections to reading, writing and arithmetic. Children study algebra, U.S. history, Shakespeare, physics, biology and chemistry, yet are also "free to be who you want to be," added 14-year-old Kate Rzegocki.

Pacific Crest also is predominantly white -- 10 percent of its students are members of minorities. Historically, people thought of Montessori schools as dominated by wealthier, and often white, families, even though Maria Montessori created the system to serve poor children, said Laura Holt, who is on the board of the Pacific North West Montessori Association.

The image is changing around the city. Today, the Islamic School of Seattle offers a Montessori program. On Capitol Hill, one quarter of the students at the Learning Tree Montessori preschool are members of minorities, and the same percentage receives tuition subsidies, said Holt, assistant director of the school.

Montessori's growth and staying power are tied largely to its namesake, Maria Montessori, Italy's first female doctor, who created the movement partly by accident.

In 1906, children ran wild inside Rome's new buildings for low-wage workers. Developers recruited Montessori to corral those children, focus their energy and keep the buildings intact.

In response, Montessori developed Children's House and a set of activities to encourage children's natural development and ability to educate themselves, according to the official Montessori biography.

"I did not invent a method of education, I simply gave some little children a chance to live," Montessori wrote eight years later.

However it started, Maria Montessori built an impressive network of schools, teachers and materials based on Children's House over the next several decades.

Although it took 60 years for the Montessori method to take hold in America, today its influence extends well beyond its classrooms to traditional public schools.

When preschoolers and kindergartners play at sand and water tables, they get a taste of Montessori.
That's because Montessori teachers began using those tables years ago to help children understand volume and other concepts, said Charles Peck, director of the University of Washington's Teacher Education Division at the College of Education.

And three Seattle public elementary schools, Daniel Bagley, Graham Hill and T.T. Minor, offer Montessori classes.
Today, however, public schools are edging away from Montessori, as teachers focus on preparing students for standardized tests, Peck added.

The Montessori way isn't for everyone. Children who require a lot of adult guidance, for example, could struggle, Peck said.

And any school can claim to offer Montessori because the name is not copyrighted. Parents can check if a classroom, school or teacher carries accreditation from a national Montessori group.

If not yet mainstream, Montessori is at least well-accepted, with plenty of parents clamoring to enroll in schools.
At any given time, roughly 20 students are on the waiting list at Pacific Crest, which has 250 students.
The demand is fueled, in part, by frustration with test-driven teaching, the Pacific North West Montessori Association's Oesting said.

"I would also say people are pretty disgruntled with public education, and finding alternatives for their child's education (is) something they are really keen to do," Oesting added.

Without standardized tests, Montessori nurtures a sense of internal discipline, students pointed out, and the ability to meet deadlines.

"I think that is really what being an adult and life is really like," said Alison Ewen, an alumnus of Pacific Crest and now a student at The Art Institute of Seattle.

"It was a way to think about life in a more realistic way."


WHAT IS MONTESSORI?


The Montessori style may appear a little fuzzy, but it's a detailed approach based on a mountain of books, lectures, research and bulletins. It relies on a set of core principles, including:

Source: Centenary of the Montessori Movement