What’s the difference??

When you walk into a Montessori classroom, you’ll immediately notice that things are very different than what most of us are used to in a traditional elementary setting.

I was taught in a traditional classroom setting my whole schooling career and had no clue what Montessori was when I first heard about it in grad school. 

Parents often want to know: What is the difference between the two? So here are some of the most significant differences between Montessori elementary and traditional elementary. 

1. Seating

You will not see rows or clumps of assigned desks in a Montessori Elementary classroom. Instead, you will see simple tables spread across the room, open for the child to choose where they sit. Children may get up and move about the room as they need to during the day. They can choose to start in one seat, finish their work, and then, after cleaning up, they can choose to sit elsewhere. 

You will also see children seated on the floor, creating their workspace on a rug with materials and supplies, sitting at low floor tables, looking for supplies they need, or helping in another classroom.

2. Materials

There will be shelves full of beautiful materials used in lessons and available for children to use as they wish. These materials were predominantly created by Dr. Montessori and her son, Mario Montessori. They have been in use in Montessori classrooms for over 100 years. They are brilliant, and I canNOT wait to highlight some of my favorites. Be on the lookout for future crash courses in different subject areas. 

3. Multi-Aged Classes

There are three main class compositions in an authentic Montessori elementary program. 

• Lower Elementary- Ages 6-9 (grades 1-3)
• Upper Elementary- Ages 9-12 (grades 4-6)
• A 6-12 Class- Ages 6-12 (grades 1-6)

4. Work Flow

The elementary classroom always has a hum of activity as children learn. But rather than the teacher standing in front of the class and giving everyone the same lesson at the same time, or students moving through teacher-planned and set-up stations,  the teacher calls small group lessons throughout the morning, while children not in the lesson choose what work they’d like to practice and complete.

There are no predetermined times for specific subjects. You won’t see all the children working on math simultaneously, then transitioning to language. You will see multiple subjects happening in tandem. There will be swells of volume when children become excited, or something hilarious happens. My trainer always told us: something isn’t right if the classroom is too quiet. 

5. Work Format

There is a distinct lack of worksheets, textbooks, and assigned workstations in a Montessori Elementary classroom. Instead, children choose the work they would like or need to do each day. The teacher meets with each child weekly to go over what they have been working on, what lessons they would like to receive, what lessons the child got that week, and what they still need to practice.

This does not mean each child gets an assigned work plan or list of lessons they have to get done. It does happen on occasion when a child is not yet ready to choose their own work. But the end goal of every Montessori teacher is to help the child reach a place of independence and have a content relationship with working on the lessons they need to master.

6. Decor

A Montessori classroom is set up and decorated in a simple yet beautiful style. There are no super bright posters with exciting fonts. There are no word walls or decorated bulletin boards. Instead, you will find carefully chosen artworks, artifacts, and plants around the room to create a calm and peaceful work environment. The goal is to create a place where children can focus and be creative. All the bright, didactic posters distract a child from and take their work. What I mean is, why would a child want to make a chart showing all the different types of triangles as a follow-up work from a lesson if the work is already done for them in the form of a wall poster?

7. Child-Centered

Montessori always puts the focus on the child. What happens that day is often not dictated by the teacher. Sure, we have lessons we want and need to get done. Still, a well-trained Montessori elementary teacher can be flexible with their day and pivot towards the children’s natural interests and curiosities. Some of my best days in the classroom are when I sit down with no solid plan and let the children guide the learning of the day.

Decisions about the classroom are also made with the children’s input. Of course, things to do with safety and regulation are set in stone. However, if something isn’t going well in the class, the teacher or one of the children will call a class meeting to discuss the concern and brainstorm solutions. 

I remember one year, lunch clean-up was not going well- at all. I was stressed throughout lunch and found myself wound extremely tight during clean-up. So when we had our next monthly class meeting, I signed up on the agenda to discuss this challenge I was having.

Through the discussion, one child offered the solution of having a new job called “job checker.” This child would be in charge of checking to make sure each person did their job appropriately and would dismiss students to get in line. 

Immediately in my brain, I was like, “Oh heck no. That is a terrible idea, and I do NOT want to manage it.” So when the vote came, I voted against it, but the measure still passed. So I went into the next lunch, thinking things would crash and burn.

And guess what? They didn’t. Far from it. It was amazing. I had the least stressful lunch clean-up I had ever had. The lunch room was ten times cleaner than when I had been in charge of clean-up, and the children took great pride in the work. This happened seven years ago, and to this day, we have job checkers rockin’ out every clean-up time.
 

8. No Homework

Your kiddo will not come home with homework every night. The only things I ask parents to work on at home are having their kiddo read every day for 20 minutes and work on memorizing math facts. That’s it. They get plenty of work done at school, and we find that children who do tons of additional work outside of school often have difficulty mustering up the willpower to do work at school. We, as trained Montessorians, set up the classroom with the human developmental needs and tendencies at the forefront. Simply put, it’s the best place for them to joyfully work their tails off. 

9. Assessment

One of the most significant differences in Montessori elementary is that we do not provide grades. We do not check every single thing the children do, and often we do not mark items wrong. I never write on a child’s paper, and I definitely don’t ever use the red pen of anxiety. 

So. How do we assess the children to ensure they are on track and successfully progressing? As trained Montessori teachers, we assess all day, every day. We are constantly observing what lessons the children are doing. How is that work going? What are the child’s interests? How are they interacting with the material? What are they avoiding, and what do they do over and over? 

We know our kids forwards and backward due to having them for 3-6 years. We understand how they learn, what they are interested in, and what they are drawn to. I plan on doing more posts about assessment in the Montessori elementary classroom in the near future.

10. Follow The Child

One thing we have in Montessori education is the luxury of flexibility. 

Often in traditional school, they have certain places in the curriculum that they have to hit by certain times to be sure they get everything in. If someone doesn’t understand something in one unit, it can be difficult to keep up in the next unit, often resulting in an incomplete understanding of content, creating a bigger and bigger gap in mastery as time goes on. 

In Montessori, we do not have to meet those hard-set benchmarks. We are able to allow children the time they need to come to a complete understanding. If they need just a bit longer to grasp a topic fully, they have that time to reach mastery in their own time, with the support of their peers and teacher. 

In the reverse, if a child is very strong in one subject, they can go as far as they would like. There is never a time we will say to a child, “You can’t work on that, we aren’t there yet, and working ahead is not allowed.” They can work at whatever level they are at at any time. The same thing goes for following a strong interest of a child. You are into tigers? Awesome. You can learn as much as you want about tigers, and I’ll even connect it to different subject areas, like a boss. 

Luckily, there are public Montessori schools throughout the country, allowing Montessori to reach more children cost-free. It is, however, often a different story when it comes to their ability to be as flexible. They have tons to balance to enable a strict timeline, while also following the individual child. I have incredible respect for public Montessori teachers; they are masters of their work.

I could go on and on and ON about public Montessori and how important it is that we work to open more Montessori neighborhood schools. This is what will enable us to provide Montessori for any family that seeks it for their children. Education could be SO much more than it is. And our children deserve the respect, gratitude, and authenticity that Montessori provides. 

A brief disclaimer:

I feel like I need a disclaimer here. 

Yes, if I am being completely honest, I feel Montessori education is superior to traditional education. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel that way.

HOWEVER.

I want to clarify that I do not think traditional school is BAD or that traditional teachers are not good teachers. On the contrary. Traditional teachers are outstanding educators who deserve all the respect and gratitude in the world. The red tape they have to navigate is thick, and they continue to teach, support, and love children through it all. 

So thank you, if you are a traditional teacher reading this, for being a cold stone bad ass teacher. 

Montessori elementary classrooms are worth checking out. 

The Montessori elementary classroom is a dynamic and complex environment. If you haven’t ever gotten to see one in action, I highly recommend scheduling an observation with your local Montessori elementary school. Seeing is a step toward understanding.