Our Elementary Montessori Guide, Mr. Tom, wrote a letter to parents at the conclusion of this school year.
Our Primary has been such a success with Miss Noëlle at the helm since 2018, and Miss Lucy such an incredible assistant these past three years. The challenge has been that many seem not to understand what Montessori looks like at the Elementary level, or how it works.
Mr. Tom wrote this to help open up conversation.
Dear Families,
As this year ends I’d like to share a few words with you all about Montessori Elementary, and what it’s all about here at Hilltop. Now that I have completed the training and have most of a full year under my belt after earning my AMI diploma, I am excited for the future, and what we are able to offer as an Elementary education here in Steubenville.
If anyone has questions or would like to chat, I am happy to set something up over the next few weeks.
A New Program For The New Child
First and foremost, Elementary Montessori is not just Primary for older students. Elementary is a very different environment, with a whole new collection of materials and lessons that responds to the new child who enters Elementary. He is no longer a Primary student. An Elementary student could not function in a Primary environment, nor could a Primary student function in an Elementary environment.
The training for the guide is also significantly different. The Elementary guide is trained to interact with the Elementary child, and, of course, to present the Elementary lessons.
Just as Primary gives those first plane children the best environment to achieve, Elementary gives the same to second plane children. And they do achieve. Montessori Elementary students meet and exceed typical academic benchmarks, plus they imbibe all of the intangibles that are not possible in a conventional school environment — all of the the integrated learning and executive functioning benefits of a Montessori education. If you have questions about Elementary Montessori, how it works, and why it works, please come talk to me.
A Bit About How We Started Elementary
I did not grow up in Montessori.
I did not know much about Montessori seven years ago when Noëlle and I started Hilltop. This school was only originally meant to be a Primary with a Catechesis of the Good Shepherd program.
Noëlle was in charge of the program, while I would take the lead on marketing, fundraising, facilities management, and whatever else was needed.
I never imagined I’d be teaching six to twelve year-olds, nor that I’d love it.
I certainly never expected that I’d be waxing enthusiastic about the Pythagorean Theorem, the future present progressive tense in the active voice indicative mood, the inner workings of flowers, how the sun is responsible for all of our weather in conjunction with the tilt of the earth as it rotates and revolves, how students can approach the big questions of justice and fairness, the history of geometry, the etymology of “symbiosis,” the kingdom of trilobites and the forest of sea lilies, and so, so many other topics.
But here I am, and I absolutely love it.
When we started this Elementary Program three years ago I volunteered to be the guide “until we found someone more qualified.” We had a building, students, an eminently qualified assistant, and a number of the materials, but no guide. So I’d do it until we found someone more qualified.
Well…famous last words.
I had been Noëlle’s assistant in Primary for the previous year — 2021-2022 — and so I had seen first-hand how powerful the Montessori method is at bringing children along in their education and development.
I learned two main things that year: first, that Montessori aids children in growth and learning in ways no other educational method does; and second, that Primary was not for me. My tendency is to try to reason with kids too much, and that simply doesn’t work with “first plane” children.
I felt confident, however, that I could work with the “second plane” children who are in Elementary well enough to educate them — again, until we had someone more qualified.
To be sure, Elementary would not have happened without Rebekah Feeley signing on to be the Elementary assistant. She grew up in Montessori and her mother is a fully trained Elementary guide. Between her experience in the classroom, her training in the Toddler and Adolescent levels, and her mother’s guidance, I was well-supported to lead the Elementary classroom.
In the fall of 2022 we came together for the first time. We began to establish a classroom culture. We worked on classroom processes, a general schedule for the day, and how to work together as a little society.
Only about half of the children that first year had prior meaningful Montessori experience.
On academics, we assessed where children were and built a program based on their needs, what materials were available, and what I was prepared to teach. The children had a wide range of proficiencies, with some being well-behind in things like language and mathematics, and some a bit ahead.
This meant a wide range of lessons and much “catch up” was needed. We did what we needed to do and were able to do, and made significant progress in that first year. It was a powerful experience.
The question of finding a qualified guide also resolved itself during that first year. By November of 2022 I had decided that I would become that qualified person. During the year I found that I had a capacity for working with the children and helping them to pursue the necessary investigations. What I lacked was the full training on how to use the many materials that Montessori presents, and the deeper interaction with the philosophy that animates Montessori Elementary instruction.
To get these I signed up for the Elementary training program which would begin in July of 2023 and go through May of 2024.
We knew that this training program would pull me out of the classroom a number of times during the second year of our Elementary Program. We knew that it would mean a lot of early mornings and late nights for me, plus additional strain on both Noëlle and on Rebekah — since Rebekah would have to manage the classroom in my absence.
We kept parents in the loop and alerted them to what the impact on the classroom would be while I was in the midst of the training.
But it was immediately worth it. Even while doing the training I was able to bring into the classroom things that I was learning — how to use materials, how to approach certain situations, how to move from one subject of study to another within the same presentation.
This immediate integration only increased as the year went on.
Then I completed the training and passed my exams in May of 2024. To receive my diploma I had only to complete the student teaching portion, which, unfortunately, was not possible during that previous school year.
I completed that in October of this year, which meant being gone for most of that month, but since then I have been in the classroom, fully implementing what I have learned.
And what a difference the training has made. My one regret is that the school year ended!
What’s Coming Next Year
An Elementary classroom takes a long time to build-out. Since the Elementary child is interested in everything, and is capable of learning anything, we must be prepared to present to them the keys to explore and pursue whatever they take up. Thus Elementary has an enormous body of materials.
A great many of the materials are available from specialty vendors, and through the generosity of many donors we have managed to acquire nearly every one of those specialty materials.
There are, however, many, many other materials that are not specialty materials. These need to be sourced or produced by the guide. This includes a copious amount of nomenclature materials, many materials for natural sciences, biology, physics, and chemistry. It also includes a large number of explanatory materials and examples for particular lessons in language, music, art, mathematics, and history.
We have put together a number of these materials, but the majority of them are still to be acquired and put together.
Then, as we put together all of these materials I will have to rearrange things in the classroom to make everything fit!
But while this is time consuming, it is the least strenuous part of the whole process. With some help we should be able to put most of it together over the course of this summer. This means that many of the lessons I was unable to give this year will be fully available come the fall.
I am very excited for the opportunity this summer to make our Elementary program even better, and what it means for next year and beyond.
If anyone has any questions about Montessori Elementary I would love to chat.
