Marika,
I am quite familiar with Montessori for Children, which operates two locations in Singapore. They are VERY serious about traditional Montessori. The business director is Gamunu Samarakoon, who can be reached at the school's email address <mfcgroup@singnet.com.sg>. When I mentioned your post to him, he sent me this response. If you are truly interested in Montessori, you should check this place out.
I have cut and pasted his description of the school here for your information:
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Montessori consist of 0-3 (Assistants to Infancy), Casa or Primary (3-6), Elementary (6-12) and Erd kinder (adolescent) the latter which is not very well developed world-wide. I will address the Casa period.
Given the diversity of the interpretation of the method, although the method itself is singular, one has to first come to terms with what he/she defines as a 'REAL' Montessori program. In a nut shell, a Montessori programme is one that offers: Exercises of practical Life, Sensorial development, Langauages, mathematics, Sciences, Aesthetic education and social
development in a curriculum for 3 hours a day for children aged 3-6 years.
1. Any person looking for a Montessori school should foremost identify their
expectations for their child and a schools potential to realise them. Therefore, research into Dr. Montessori's philosophy is paramount. Next, what thereafter if a question that has to asked - most countries do not offer Montessori education beyond Kindergarten, at most Elementary (12
years) and options for continuity or transferring to mainstream education
has to be thought of right upto the end of High school.
2. The structure of a school, i.e. registration criteria, qualifications of
it's head, teachers have to assessed and bona fide of the school established. While I do not mean to denigrate other Montessori associations or colleges, in my opinion, if the teachers have been AMI (Association
Montessori Internationale, founded by Dr. Montessori in 1929) then the classroom management of such a school and implementation of the method and inventory of materials in class should conform to the philosophy and teachings of the good doctor although this too can vary from school to school and country to country depending on circumstances. Dr. Montessori presented her method for the universal (cosmic even, if you like it) education of man. Not much, in our opinion, has changed since.
Unfortunately in some cases the method has been adapted and even extracted to a point where it loses its whole being. We stand firm by advocating the method as ideal education for young children.
3. There is some mis-interpretation and even malpractice of the of the method in Singapore as I am informed (and reported by the enquirer). I am sorry to read the word 'often' in the enquirer's message as I thought so-called 'Montessori schools' were few and far between. To begin with, a Montessori class should not contain 'toys'. It should consist of a practical environment more like a house in the case of 3-6 year
old children) that is practical and functional as well as have materials
(books, charts etc, excepted)The person who you quote can easily find what he/she is looking for by visiting quite a few schools in Singapore after considering what I have
stated.
Best bet is to do the tour and find out. In all fairness to other methods and systems (perhaps an adapted version of Froebel's is what you may find commonly outside of Montessori) what the author is seeking could very well exist in such pre-schools too. As for ratios, this is a debatable area as often, Montessori ratios are confused with pre-school standards.
Originally. Dr. Montessori advocated 35 children (mixed ages) to one trained
adult. This worked well as far as I know in Asia (where Dr. Montessori stayed out World War II) and perhaps in Europe too but lately because of various reasons, local authorities in countries have determined ratios more in line with Child Care and traditional education. Thus, it is not uncommon to find classes of 25 children with a teacher and assistant or with 20 children and a teacher and so on. The bottom line is that Montessori environment has to make a child independent. To achieve this, an adult has to be unimposing and inconspicuous, acting as a guide and not an instructor
and the larger the number of children in the class (within manageable proportions) the more conducive it will be for the children to use all 163 pieces of material as teachers and not focus on the adult so much. Each piece of materials to us is a teacher!
I hope this helps in some way. We conduct presentations at school not to advertise ourselves but to educate parents about the method mostly. If this person is interested in attending one, he/she should visit us or another school conducting similar presentations.
Sincerely
Gamunu Samarakoon
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