Okemos Public MontessoriCentral

"My son attended Edgewood Montessori for one year. I found both the teacher and the principle to be unprofessional and unwilling to change. Here are two examples. On the first day of 1st grade my son was given 20 words to read--he stumbled after the first three and therefore was placed in the lowest reading group. When I discovered this and had my son read from a 2nd grade chapter book he was able to read the text fluently even though he had never seen the text before. Yet the teacher refused to move him because he had already been placed in a group. At this time I also discovered that his math program consisted only of endless review worksheets. He was given no instruction; only one worksheet after another. My son was doing multiplication and division as a 5-year-old and identified as gifted by his Kindergarten teacher. This was the whole reason we chose a multi-grade, Montessori classroom for him. But, the teacher would not deviate from her plan. He could not move up and do 2nd grade math until he had completed every single 1st grade worksheet. (Even though I had him complete 15 2nd grade math problems in front of her and he did 100% correct!) Finally, in a meeting with the principal and teacher I asked if they could tell me how much of my son's day was spent in review and how much in new instruction. Both of them looked at me and said, with genuinely puzzled looks, "I just don't know what that question means." I probed deeper and found that they truly could not define the terms "review" and "new instruction" and they were totally unable to describe teacher/student interaction in those terms. I am still shocked by that conversation, especially since I am a teacher myself. I have never, ever been confronted by such incompetence. Two years later (and happily moved to a different school district where, yes, my son is in the gifted program) I am still puzzled at how those two ever got any job in education, nor were able to keep it. I have heard there are some good teachers at that school but if you get the poor quality ones don't expect the principal to be able to help you in any way--she's worse than they are."

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"My son attended Edgewood Montessori for one year. I found both the teacher and the principle to be unprofessional and unwilling to change. Here are two examples. On the first day of 1st grade my son was given 20 words to read--he stumbled after the first three and therefore was placed in the lowest reading group. When I discovered this and had my son read from a 2nd grade chapter book he was able to read the text fluently even though he had never seen the text before. Yet the teacher refused to move him because he had already been placed in a group. At this time I also discovered that his math program consisted only of endless review worksheets. He was given no instruction; only one worksheet after another. My son was doing multiplication and division as a 5-year-old and identified as gifted by his Kindergarten teacher. This was the whole reason we chose a multi-grade, Montessori classroom for him. But, the teacher would not deviate from her plan. He could not move up and do 2nd grade math until he had completed every single 1st grade worksheet. (Even though I had him complete 15 2nd grade math problems in front of her and he did 100% correct!) Finally, in a meeting with the principal and teacher I asked if they could tell me how much of my son's day was spent in review and how much in new instruction. Both of them looked at me and said, with genuinely puzzled looks, "I just don't know what that question means." I probed deeper and found that they truly could not define the terms "review" and "new instruction" and they were totally unable to describe teacher/student interaction in those terms. I am still shocked by that conversation, especially since I am a teacher myself. I have never, ever been confronted by such incompetence. Two years later (and happily moved to a different school district where, yes, my son is in the gifted program) I am still puzzled at how those two ever got any job in education, nor were able to keep it. I have heard there are some good teachers at that school but if you get the poor quality ones don't expect the principal to be able to help you in any way--she's worse than they are."

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