When I picked M up at school yesterday, her teacher Mrs. Kim waved me over. She then spent the next five minutes totally chewing me out.
First she unfolded a crumpled piece of paper.
Mrs. Kim: Is this M’s work?
When I looked at the paper, I saw that it was some simple math problems that M and I had done the night before. We had been stringing bead necklaces and she was asking how much X + Y equaled with the beads. I had written down about eight simple problems.
Me: Uh….yes. I think that is from our house.
Mrs. Kim: Is this M’s writing? You know, in Montessori Method we do NOT do addition until the child can write her own numbers. And were you using something to add? In Montessori Method children learn to add using beads. They don’t use number written on paper. They must first understand that the numbers have value…
Me: …we were playing with beads! She asked how much they were if you put them together, so I just wrote down the equations.
Mrs. Kim: And I see that there is SUBTRACTION on this page! In Montessori Method students learn addition FIRST! They do not do subtraction until they have a solid grasp of addition. It is important that students follow the proper order because…
Me: But she ASKED how many I would have if she took some beads away. She was curious, so I figured it couldn’t hurt.
Mrs. Kim: Is this M’s writing? Can she write her numbers yet?
Me: No, that is my writing. M is still working on learning her numbers.
Mrs. Kim: The way you wrote you number four is incorrect. The horizontal line should cross the vertical line.
I am not quite sure, but I think by the end of the conversation, I had failed kindergarten and was sent to remedial reading lessons.
Oh my! We’ve done math with Soleil too. If they are asking, they are ready. This is the “keep them interested” method of teaching!
Grrrr.
I would have asked that woman if she could recognize the number 4. If she said “yes” then the response would have been, “Then I wrote it correctly because you understood what I wrote”
Grrrrr
You pay them to treat you like that? Dang, be-yotch, chill.
It’s amazing any of us who didn’t learn using the Montessori Method even learned to count on our fingers, let alone do higher math.
Goodness. You shameful, shameful hussy–FORCING subtraction on M! I like Spacemom’s answer about the “4″…
Wow. That’s scary. Does she make M feel like a worm, too? Not all Montessori teachers are like that. How disturbing!
What Moxie said.
You’re just lucky you didn’t enroll her in the anti-black crayon school and tried teaching her to read a few words while still in kindergarten!
There can be value and good results from many different educational methods. Sometimes teachers of specific methods can become too militant about it. It shows a lack of understanding on the teacher’s part.
A good teacher will learn to mold a method to the child, instead of the other way around.
And of course, there is just the matter of manners. If she is interested in teaching parents how to better support the Montessori curriculum, she would do better to approach them with kindness.
What an appalling display of a lack of respect both for your involvement in your child’s life and for your child’s desire to learn things on her own terms, rather than on the terms someone has defined for the theoretical average child.
I like what I’ve seen of the Montessori philosophy, but perhaps that’s because I was looking at a school that followed a modified Montessori curriculum. I’d say more, but Scott already said it better.
dude. she’s scary tough.
Oh my GOD.
That is totally inexcusable and ridiculously dogmatic behavior on the teacher’s part, I say.
I remember in kindergarten that I wrote my number four “wrong” according to Mrs. Glidden my teacher. I wrote it WITHOUT crossing the lines as well. She finally gave up on me because she blamed my father who was a “foreigner” for teaching me my numbers wrong. Eesh! A four is a four is a four! I don’t understand montessori obviously…
I’d recommend a secret file where you put M’s work when you are finished so it can NEVER reach the crazy women at M’s school!- man, she is hard core……
Today is Tootie’s day to bring snack there. I offer it up like a sacrifice.
I got an explanation the other day about the difference between an oval and an elipse. She asked me if I knew the difference and I shrugged. She replied to my shrugg “yes, most Americans don’t know the difference.” I replied, “oh, that’s nice.”
Oh wow. She really said that? I would be so looking for a new school …… Son is 4 can’t write a number but knows them since he was 3. Should I have forbidden it? Ridiculous..
Holy crap. Montessori is hard core.
I’d do a few more sheets with TONS of “incorrectly” crossed fours (and lots of subtraction problems) and stuff them all over her backback. Ok, that was passive-aggresive of me, but I wonder what she would think of my 7s (I cross them!)LOL
My daughter can do basic addition and subtraction in her head, but she’s still working on her numbers. I wonder if that is wrong per Montessori? (Stop thinking until you can write it!)
Ha! My kids go to a Montessori school as well, and that sounds familiar. I was told my son needs to work on tearing. He must be able to tear things with his fingers before he can use a pencil or a scissors.
They are very “what interests the child, at his own pace, la, la, la… but IN THE CORRECT SEQUENCE, for HEAVENS SAKE, are you trying to RUIN EVERYTHING?!?!”
Come to the dark side AmFam, you can make your 4′s any way you like (and teach calculus to your 6 yr old, if that’s your passion)!
Wow! That would knock me for a loop. I’d be pissed! I always thought Montessori schools were supposed to be so phenomenal….they sound more dogmatic than the Catholic school I went to as a kid.
niiiiicccceeee, I like the no pressure method! Seriously, my husband would not be able to make the right 4, no way, no how!
Hippie dippie school does critical thinking and number sense in math too. You don’t know how often a parent has whispered to another “I help Johnny with his homework last night, and I used an algorhythym. I had him carry and borrow too. How bad do you think I will get in trouble?” And then we all cringe and scurry away from that parent so we won’t get in trouble too.
Yee gads.
Of course, my husband draws his 5s COMPLETELY wrong (all in one stroke, starting from the top, instead of doing the short line and curve, then the top line), which drives me NUTS. Whenever I see it I demand to know who taught him how to write numbers.
But then he can’t tell my 4s from my 9s, so we’re even.
Really though, that teacher is a little…intense. As far as I’m concerned, whatever works, works. Considering the fact that I was in remedial math from DAY ONE of 2+2=4, I’m happy with however a child understands things.
And I’m sure A is pleased that M is already interested in math ; ).
That’s crazy stuff. My daughter is in Montessori and she adds in her head and even subtracts. And she writes her numbers too. She is 5, I suppose, but I don’t remember being told there were rules in the 3yo year. But our school does veer back and forth between assuming you know nothing (and need to know nothing) and assuming you know everything about the method.
Are they teaching her to write in cursive? Maybe next year… That part still freaks me out.
Between this and L.’s stories about preschool, I’m a little terrified to even think about sending MM there!!! I could probably channel it into impetus to get my dissertation done (so I could theoretically lord a PhD over the preschool teacher’s head), although I have the feeling it wouldn’t make any difference/would be held against me.
Hang in there!!
Please!! I would have asked why she is trying to discourage a childs interest in learning.
I then would have politely told her to go to hell.
Your story reminds me of Scout’s first day of school in “To Kill A Mockingbird.” Hard to believe we haven’t progressed further than that in all this time…
Definitely does *NOT* work that way in our amazing Montessori school! Note that anyone can use the name Montessori, make sure the school is accredited by AMS or AMI (AMI being more rigid/dogmatic). I hate hearing stories about bad “Montessori” experiences and then finding out the school is not AMS-accredited (which may or may not be the case with Miss M’s school)
L. at The Homesick Home linked to this post. My kids are in public school but it still sounds all too familiar. My oldest was chastised for writing her 7′s with the European line through them. She had learned it somewhere and realized it made the 7 easier to read.
Not to that teacher, it didn’t.
I’m glad I won’t have to deal with this for 3 more years… but then I will have to deal with it for like 20??? teachers man.