Happy Spring! It seems the weather has finally turned and the warmer temperatures are upon us. With the warm weather, comes parent/teacher conferences, end of the school year to-do lists, and summer vacation planning. May you find time for quiet reflection and thoughtful planning.

I know the CMS Board of Directors is reflecting on our 2014 Spring Conference and we are busy planning the remainder of our year together and looking forward to what next year may bring!

We were happily overwhelmed with the attendance for this year's Spring Conference! It was a successful day with many of you offering valuable feedback on the evaluations. Many of you stated that you:

• "gained an overall better sense of learning disabilities."
• "felt a renewed passion for Montessori."
• "rediscovered the importance of observation and appreciate the uniqueness of their students."

You can view pictures from the day here. Thank you for sharing the day with us, thank you for opening your minds and opening your hearts and thank you for continuing to spread the Montessori philosophy.

Peace,

I often think of the old proverb that says, "The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago.  The second-best time is now."  The same holds true for so many things in my life, and especially for advocacy of Montessori.  I just returned from the AMS National Conference in Dallas, Texas, and I have been spurred into action.

It became overwhelmingly obvious to me that our children need more Montessori programs.  But at the same time, Montessori programs are struggling when it comes to legislative and regulatory challenges at the federal, state and local levels.  Many of these policies are weighted against and adversely affect Montessori classrooms and practices.  For instance, in many Quality Rating and Improvement Systems, quality Montessori programs are given low scores due to the lack of building blocks, stuffed animals and toys in the classroom.

It is up to us to educate legislators to what is a quality Montessori program.  The best time to begin grassroots advocacy was 20 years ago.  The second best time is NOW!

Continue reading article here >>>

Will a Montessori Education Prepare My Child for the "Real World"?

by Jeff Groh,
Assistant Director and 9-12 teacher at
The New School Montessori

This is a common question I hear as I meet with prospective parents and take them on a tour through our community at The New School Montessori.

This is a difficult question to answer considering the "real world" is a relative term.  Do they mean the "real world" of professional pressures, deadlines, and aggressive competition? Or do they mean the "real world" of emotional intelligence, engaged citizenry, compassion, joy, and relationship to one's environment?  If I were to be honest with myself, I'm pretty sure they're asking about the former - the "real world" of work.  Fortunately, no matter which version of the "real world" they are referring to, my answer is the same, a resounding "Yes!"

Multi-age classrooms and emphasis on time management prepare in "real world" ways.

For those of you who are not familiar with Montessori education let me briefly explain that it is a philosophy and pedagogy based on the scientific research of Dr. Maria Montessori. Children are grouped in multi- aged class-rooms, where students are engaged in hands-on, self-paced, collaborative work. Multi-aged classrooms allow older students to be leaders and mentors while providing opportunities for younger students to work with older classmates on group projects.  In addition, Montessori teachers do not stand in front of a class giving lectures while asking students to work on the same thing, at the same time, in the same way.  Rather, they walk throughout the classroom working one-on-one with students or in small groups.At the core of the Montessori philosophy is the belief that all students have a natural desire to learn, explore, and joyfully work toward independence through knowledge and discipline.

Now, keeping all of that in mind, I want you to ask yourself:

• In any "real world" job, is everyone the same age?
• Are workers all sitting at their desks working on the same thing at the same time?
• Do workers often need to access memorized facts in a timed setting?  Of course not.

In a "real world" job, one is expected to be able to work with people at different levels of experience, work well independently and in a group, set up work, concentrate on it, keep it organized, complete it, and put it away.  Workers need to try things to see if they work and then learn from their mistakes. They need to be able to problem solve and to communicate effectively.

The top five types of knowledge and skills employers are looking for in the 21st Century were listed by a Gallup poll in this order and are all skills deeply embedded in the Montessori method:

• Critical thinking and problem solving
• Information technology application
• Teamwork and collaboration
• Creativity and innovation
• Diversity training

Montessori education has been proven to prepare children for the "real world".

An article titled "Montessori Mafia" in the Wall Street Journal by Peter Sims, author of Little Bets: How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge from Small Discoveries, states,

"The Montessori educational approach might be the surest route to joining the creative elite, which are so overrepresented by [Montessori] alumni that one might suspect a Montessori Mafia: Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Amazon's Jeff Bezos, videogame pioneer Will Wright, and Wikipedia
founder Jimmy Wales."

Sims didn't mention other famous Montessori innovators like Julia Child, Katherine Graham (Pulitzer Prize winning author), Gabriel Garcia Marquez (winner of the Nobel Prize for literature), Yo-Yo Ma (cellist and winner of 15 Grammy Awards), George Clooney (Academy Award winning actor), Helen Keller (who is considered one of the most widely admired people of the 20th Century), and the list goes on.

Continue reading article here >>>

For more information, click here.

The Value of 'A Promise':
An Acronym for our Times

Executive Board Members

Montessori Community Calendar

Alex Traxler is a graduate of two local Montessori schools and is currently attending college. She has recently begun to understand the importance her Montessori education has had on her life and her love of learning. Here, she shares what being part of a Montessori environment has meant to her through the years, and continues to mean in her life now.   Stacking the pink tower by size became outlining research papers from big ideas to small. Counting the shiny beads on wires one by one to learn simple math became analyzing data collected in labs to support hypotheses. Learning to work with other children in the multiage classroom became interacting positively with professors, guiding new students, and having an open mind to acquire wisdom from every person I meet.
 
Today I am a sophomore at Middlebury College in Vermont. I have decided to major in neuroscience and study abroad next spring in Chile. I love reading, enjoying the mountains, and learning about people. I have been lucky enough to be a first year counselor for twenty-eight individuals this year. I play on the ultimate frisbee team, run around with the mountain club, and consume far too much coffee. But I have not made it here on my own.

I arrived at college with a purely Montessori schooling background. Never before had I sat through traditional lectures or addressed a teacher as "Professor" anything. Montessori gave me what I really needed, however. Attending Central Montessori Academy as a little one set the foundation
for confidence and flexibility in the classroom. For me, no knowledge has ever been absolute. Montessori showed me how much there is yet to discover and how many ways there are to look at a single idea, object, or fact. Clark Montessori guided me through years of consolidating my ideas and beliefs and led me to the conclusion that school is meant to inspire. I have carried this inspiration with me to college and hope to make fascinating new findings as a result.

Without Montessori, I am not sure that I would feel this freedom of thought. Because I was taught at such a young age that learning is something to be interacted with, something malleable and amorphous, I feel I have gained much more from every aspect of life. My preschool through high school experience gave me much more than a way to "survive" college, it showed me how to appreciate and fully live my life every day.

Teacher Salary
Survey Results  

Thank you very much to the  twelve CMS Member Schools who took the time to share their teachers' salary and benefits information. Ten non-profit and two for-profit private schools completed the 2013-14 Salary Survey.
 
Please click here to see the results.
 
We hope you are able to use this valuable information. We appreciate your feedback and plan to conduct this survey again in the future.

How can this survey better support you? Please send us your comments and suggestions.

Job Board

Have Something
to Share?

Are you a CMS member school? Does your school have an event coming up or other news to share? Tell us the exciting things happening at your school - we'd love to include it here!

Space is limited so contact us soon if you are interested.

Each year, as we vote in new board members, we examine how we are serving our customers and what else we can do to support and promote Montessori Education in Cincinnati. Your feedback is very  important to us - comments, compliments and critiques!

Please send us your thoughts. 

Newsletter Staff