essence of Montessori: Those adolescent years, The

Montessori Life, Summer 2003 by Loeffler, Margaret Howard

In addition to the land work, many mini-apprentice programs have been devised, in which students spend short periods of time working with adult mentors in various vocations.

In Ohio, an actual farm school offering both boarding and day school recently has been developed under the supervision of David Kahn, and its progress is being carefully followed by Montessori educators across the country.

Sports, the arts, and modern technology are important components in current middle/high school curricula.

The Claremont Montessori School in Boca Raton, Florida, has two interesting aspects to its program. Students are given a budget at the beginning of the year from which they can make choices as to the sports that are offered and where they can go on trips taken as a community group. If they choose tennis as a sport, they need to determine whether one of the school faculty can be asked to teach it or they will have to hire an outside coach. The same applies to planning their trips. Such things as the cost of transportation, lodging, meals, etc. must be computed by the students to see how much of their annual budget they are willing to invest in order to go to a certain destination.

This school also offers a voluntary music program in which students learn to play handbells and hand chimes under the tutelage of a music professor from a nearby university. All the characteristics Montessori described--concentration, enjoyment of meaningful work, self-discipline, and sociability-are demonstrated in the twice-- a-week practice and the musical performances given by these students.

Other interesting activities included in programs for the third plane of development with which I am familiar include the use of graphic calculators in a school in Michigan. These instruments are not used primarily as tools for calculation, although they accomplish that task, but rather to challenge the adolescent in calling upon higher order thinking skills in solving mathematical problems.

A second activity which seems especially appropriate for adolescents is the introduction of Socratic practice, a way of helping children take possession of their own thinking, which has been introduced in School of the Woods in Houston. All of the programs described here are helpful in addressing the needs of the adolescent.

Development-Based Planning

In planning a program for the middle and high school years, it is important to become very familiar with the normal development that is occurring. When adults anticipate and understand the changes that appear, they can assist the child in moving through this somewhat turbulent period with less dissension and fewer later regrets for all concerned.

If the changes in behavior can be seen not as signs of problems but as evidence of normal development toward maturity, then the responses adults make can aid and not hinder this growth. Recognizing the inner unrest that the child is feeling and finding ways to address these problems and concerns must be the primary goal of the school for this age level. Academic growth will occur when tied to meeting the social and emotional needs that are all consuming in these important years.