Creating The Future Your Child Deserves
Email: annemacmillan2@gmail.com
Text or Call: (617) 996-7239 - United States
First, let's be clear: Montessori is not an individual practice. Montessori classrooms are complex social environments where children learn intrinsic motivation through freedom to choose their own pursuits within the structures set by the curriculum and their teachers. They learn from and teach their peers.
This critical dynamic is impossible to replace in one-on-one tutoring. Intrinsic motivation, the capacity to create meaning, mindfulness and the achievement of the optimal psychological state of flow will not be adequately developed in individual tutoring.
That said, one-on-one tutoring can provide your Montessori student with advantages they can take into their Montessori classrooms.
Unfortunately, Montessori, as it is practiced today, has a few major downsides:
The complex social environment makes it nearly impossible for Montessori teachers to adequately keep track of each child's progression. Managing individual child needs has always been a Montessori teacher's challenge, but that challenge has only become greater in the post-covid world where children's individual emotional and psychological needs have increased while teacher resources have not.
The result is that even the best Montessori guides can't fully meet your individual child's needs. Not because they aren't completely capable and qualified, but because of the enormity and impossibility of the task that is placed on their shoulders.
I support my one-on-one tutoring students by ensuring they get the Montessori lessons they really need when they really need them, individually. In most Montessori classrooms, a teacher won't allow students to access certain Montessori materials until the teacher offers them a lesson on those materials.
The complication comes when teachers are too busy and distracted supporting all the children with their social and emotional growth to get to the right lessons at the right time. This leaves children who are ready for more in a state of waiting until their teacher finds the time and bandwidth to offer them the lessons they really need.
Unfortunately, it can become a situation in which your child's academic growth might suffer as a result of the social and emotional needs of other children in your child's classroom.
My services work the best when your child's classroom Montessori teacher is on board and we are in communication. I can let your child's teacher know what your child is working on and what lessons they've had, and your child can then access the appropriate materials during the Montessori work cycle. Both of us can work to support your child in their individual academic growth.
In this way, Montessori children won't lose out on the academic progression they deserve in order to get the benefits of intrinsic motivation, the ability to make one's own meaning, and working towards mindfulness and flow -- the skills they really need in the future.
The Montessori curriculum itself isn't what offers Montessori students the benefits that will prepare them for a future world. What your students really need is a functioning Montessori work cycle guided by a teacher who comprehends the value of the work cycle and allows your child to direct their own work during that work cycle.
Many Montessori debates center around the value of different curricula, whether they are Montessori curricula or not, and whether Montessori curricula need to be updated. I personally stand aligned with innovation and change, but not when that change disrupts the Montessori work cycle because it is that work cycle, not the curricula, that will elicit the development of intrinsic motivation, meaning making, mindfulness and flow.
If your school is trying to solve performance and test score problems through attempting to integrate new curricula into your child's Montessori classroom without talking about how that curricula will affect the work cycle, your school is likely lacking in comprehension about how the Montessori method actually works and your children are not going to get the best Montessori education possible.
My efforts while working with your child will be centered around giving your child the lessons they need to take into a functioning Montessori work cycle and find mindfulness and flow. We will prioritize to the integrity of the Montessori work cycle, not the integrity of the Montessori curricula, because it is your child's experiences during the work cycle that will bring them the actual benefits -- the benefits they can take into a future where memorized skills won't be as beneficial as they are today.
Tomorrow's world is going to be different than today's. Tomorrow's success won't require the memorization of facts or diplomas from fancy schools. When artificial intelligence is more fully with us, we will realize that everything we once thought we knew about education has long been obsolete. Today's parents have little reason to prepare their children for a future based on the wisdom of the past... because that future won't exist.Instead, prepare your children for the future that really is coming.
Montessori builds innovative entrepreneurs who know how to lead, not the corporate cogs and factory workers who come out of conventional classrooms. Montessori teaches children how to think rather than what to think, and how to act rather than how to follow. Montessori helps children learn how to make their own meaning -- a skill that will be worth far more than accolades in a future world that will be even more complex than today's.
The wisdom your parents used to raise you isn't enough for your children because the world has changed... and because it will continue to change at faster and faster rates. What mattered when you were a child doesn't matter as much now and will likely not matter at all by the time your children reach adulthood.
Shift your thinking for your child.
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anne@neurodiversemarriage.com
Text or Call: (617) 996-7239 (United States)