When applying to nursery school in the city, parents are often surprised at all the labels that exist to describe schools’ various educational approaches. There’s often so much overlap across approaches, it can all seem a bit abstract and hard to pinpoint until seen in action. After being a small but consistent part of the local educational landscape for a long time, schools that use a Montessori approach are on the rise. The newer schools include the precise name “The Montessori Schools” (in the Flatiron District and SoHo) and the two downtown Green Ivy Schools (Battery Park Montessori and Pine Street School, in which a Montessori curriculum in preschool and the early grades leads into the International curriculum in later grades). Plus, a popular group of Montessori schools in California, the Le Port Schools, is planning to open their first NYC location in Brooklyn’s Cobble Hill neighborhood in 2015.
What’s Montessori all about? I like the description provided by Pine Street School on their website, so I’ll let them tell you: “Montessori is based on the belief that children possess an intrinsic desire to explore, discover, and learn about their environment and that each child develops at his/her own pace. Montessori tools and teaching methods support a child’s instinct to learn by providing structured activities that invite the student’s choice and creativity. Montessori is essentially about learning how to learn. Our approaches foster learning and problem-solving skills that children can rely on, in and beyond school, and throughout the course of their lives.”
One interesting trend within the trend is that the Montessori approach has taken off among ultra-religious Jewish communities, as evidenced by four schools in Brooklyn. As the New York Times reported in February: “Though some secular parents criticize the Montessori schools as expensive and elitist, too unstructured or even cultish, the philosophy of allowing children to learn at their own pace and develop personal responsibility through individual learning tasks gels well with the Jewish tenet of educating each child according to his or her own way, its advocates say.”
For more on the programs visit themontessorischools.org, greenivy.com, and leportschools.com/brooklyn. For a full list of all Montessori programs in the city—including veteran schools like Westside Montessori and Morningside Montessori, click here.
