Jonathan Paul Loomis

October 26, 1998

Field Experience: Education

Dr. Chace

Abingdon Montessori

Montessori felt that children have an inner need to work at tasks that interest them. Given the right materials and tasks, children need not be rewarded and/or punished by the teacher.

  1. Did the teachers at Abingdon seem to follow this aspect of the theory? Explain.

    2. I felt that they generally did follow this principle, inasmuch as the teachers gave very little feedback to the students. They did correct them and direct them into the "correct" way of playing with all of the games, but they did very little in the way of praise or correction.

    Montessori's curriculum required a carefully prepared environment in which children learned practical skills in addition to reading and writing.

  2. Describe the classroom's "prepared environment." What prepared materials are available to the children?

Each of the four walls of both classrooms were covered with shelves as high as the students would be able to reach, and these shelves were filled in an overly orderly manner with things to do. They included, water color paints, an assortment of blocks to put in order, and a variety of different cards to match up. I noted that some children were directed away from items that involved a level of skill, which was beyond their abilities, instead of coming up with a way to play with that item. And likewise, students were directed as to the "correct" way of playing with each of the activities/toys.

3. What types of skills are the children learning at Abingdon?

For the most part they are learning how to put things in order, match items, and put things away where they came from. It struck me as being almost all first order thinking skills on Bloom's taxonomy.

Toddlers are developing in the areas of movement, spoken language, and independence.

  1. What activities and materials did you observe that supported these areas of development?

    2. I did not observe any toddlers at Abingdon.

  2. What unique teaching methods or materials were available in the classrooms you visited?

    3. The teachers mostly sat back. They did not circulate around the room to observe what the students were doing. In many cases they sent one student who know how to do a particular project to help another student who did not. They mostly were on the lookout to make sure that the students were doing the activities correctly, and that they put them back when they were finished.

    Mixed age groups work together, allowing independent development and enabling children to learn from one another.

  3. How did you see this principle operating at Abingdon?

    4. The children were placed into mixed age groups, and as noted above they were directed to help each other. However, I noted that the children rarely interacted with each other on their own. It seemed as if group work was not an option and they knew it. In fact, they were highly protective of their work, and would not let another student even touch it.

  4. How do teachers encourage group work?

    5. I did not observe that they did, other than sending students to help each other. In these cases the students did not so much work together as they were instructed by an older student in the same way they would have been instructed by the teacher.

  5. What was you overall impression of Abingdon Montessori?

I didn't like the place. The activities the students were allowed to "discover" were formulated with precise rules that eliminated all creativity. Most of the activities reinforced only first order thinking on Bloom's taxonomy. I would not send my child to a Montessori school of this kind.

Go back to My Recent Works Page

Go Home