Many of you know that one of my main goals during our trip has been to visit and observe at different Montessori schools while we travel. Montessori schools exist throughout the world, and I'm interested in seeing what they look like in other places- the buildings, the materials, the similarities, the differences. I'm even more interested in observing children, who have the same needs and the same human tendencies no matter their location on the globe. I think getting to spend time in Montessori schools in other countries will help shape my understanding of children and of the Montessori pedagogy, will help me to develop connections with my fellow teachers, and will ultimately make me a better guide when I return.
Up until recently, I haven't had any luck in this arena due to 3 main issues: 1) I've been told by schools it's too early in the year and they're not ready for observers yet, 2) I don't speak the language and no one at the school speaks enough English for me to coordinate with them, or 3) I have been unable to reach them via public transportation.
But this past Tuesday, I finally had the pleasure of observing at a Montessori school. The school I visited is called Es En Ciel and can be found online at http://www.ecole-es-en-ciel.fr/. It is about a 15 minute drive outside of Aix-en-Provence, and is run by a lovely woman named Patricia, who is originally from Bolivia, but has lived in France for over 20 years. After finding the school on the internet and contacting her, I asked (in very broken French) if it would possible for me to come and observe for a while. She not only agreed, but she offered to give me a ride! The school, she explained to me in very fast French, is in a somewhat rural area outside of Aix city center, and no buses go there. She then asked where I was staying, and when I told her, said that she lived very nearby and would be happy to take me with her in the morning, have me spend the day there, and then bring me back in the evening. Parfait!
So on Tueday, I awoke in time to walk the entire block and half to Patricia's house (it really couldn't have been closer!) and catch a ride with her (plus her husband, her son Paolo, and one of her other students, Max) to the school. When we arrived, her and both of the boys began opening up the school and preparing things for the day. She gave me a tour and showed me where I could put my things, and I immediately found a corner to sit in where I started eagerly making notes about what I saw. The school was fairly small, with 2 levels, lots of windows, and a big backyard/play area (complete with live bunnies and 4 child-sized houses). It contained 3 classrooms: 1 toddler, 1 primary ("maternelle" en Français) and 1 lower elementary ("Les Grands").
As the children and their parents began to enter, it became apparent to me that everyone felt at home here. The belongings were put in their places, the shoes came off, and the kids settled right in. Patricia is the lead guide in the elementary classroom, and suggested I spend the morning with her, and then observe the primary in the "après-midi".
I recognized a surprising number of materials in the elementary, and was able to observe kids doing all different kinds of work- many of which I was familiar with. The kids in this classroom were characteristically social and did many works collaboratively. I also observed many individual lessons, and many children working quietly on something of their own choosing. At lunch, all of the children ate together (divided only based on their class, which corresponded to the height of the tables and chairs). The tables were set with real porcelain dishes, the food was served from communal dishes which were provided by the school, and at the end, everyone pitched in to clean up (with the elementary children taking on the larger tasks). In the afternoon, half of the primary class enjoyed a weekly music session while the other half stayed in the classroom and worked, then they switched. When they all gathered back together, they celebrated one child's "anniversaire" (birthday) by telling stories from his life and making laps around the 'sun' (represented by a yellow lightbulb on a floor lamp just tall enough for the lightbulb to be out of reach), then singing "Joyeux Anniversaire" followed closely by it's English counterpart, which the children knew well.
There were 2 things I especially enjoyed: watching them work with the math materials (because they're the same in every language) and watching them work with language materials (because they're not). I saw work with bead frames, addition and subtraction strip boards, stamp games, golden beads, and a solid yellow bead frame that looked to me like it was for the multiplication of large numbers. All of these things were familiar and logical and looked exactly as they do in every other Montessori classroom I've been in. I also got to see work with moveable alphabets ("les alphabets mobiles"), phonograms, grammar symbols, and sentence analysis. These things I enjoyed because they were familiar, yet different in all the ways one would expect being in a foreign country. In French, adjectives generally come after their nouns, rather than before, the phonograms are completely different, well because let's face it, the language is completely different! and the moveable alphabets include accents, which the children understandably struggle a bit to remember.
Another difference that I noticed, and enjoyed observing, were the works that had been created to help children to remember and master the differences between masculine and feminine. In French, every word has a gender, (a window, for instance, is feminine: une fenêtre, while a knife is masculine: un couteau). As a French learner myself, this is an aspect of the language which I have struggled with time and again. It seems the children here struggle with it too, because there's not much rhyme or reason to it, you simply have to memorized the 'gender' of each word. There were a good number of children, particularly in the elementary classroom who were working with materials which had obviously been designed to help them with this, and which simply don't exist in a Montessori classroom in the States.
It was at one point during the morning, as I was sitting on the floor near a child who was completely immersed in concentration, that I realized just how much I miss being in the classroom- around those fantastic materials, around peaceful children who are deeply engaged in tasks they have chosen. I feel ever so thankful to Patricia, and to the children and staff at Es En Ciel, for my day there, and for allowing me the chance to observe at their beautiful school- and to "get my fix".
~Jenna
P.S. Sorry about the lack of photos! I didn't take any as I felt it would be a distraction, although I wish I could have!
No comments:
Post a Comment