What is this Montessori Thing about “Mixed Age” Groups?
Your great, great grandparents will surely remember the old, one-room schoolhouse where grades 1-8 were all together. It was like having 30 brothers and sisters all learning, sharing work and excitement, under one leaky wooden roof.
Sound like chaos? It wasn’t. Not then. Not now.
During MSA’s second year, our primary class of students became well established in its new, single-room pre-school building on Sam McGee Road. Picture forty children, two Montessori teachers, two and a half assistants (one carried her baby papoose-style on her back), a hamster, a bird, a few snakes, and a fish tank - all filling the air with joyful promise in the area now divided into two of our toddler classrooms. MSA's young families didn't want it to end.
And so, in 1975, our "one-room elementary schoolhouse" was established. Built by parents to accommodate their growing primary students, their older siblings, some brave and curious newcomers, and two new teachers who covered all subjects in grades 1-6, our second building filled up with 30 happy souls excited to learn and develop together in a brand new environment. The education and experiences that took place within those four walls (currently Tish McAlister's Primary One classroom) remain truly inspiring!
Today, even though our upper grades grow gradually more distinct in their age groupings in a way that is commensurate with their development and academic demands, MSA still upholds the Montessori model of mixed age groups across the whole campus and age ranges. From primary through lower and upper elementary classrooms, you'll still find three age/grade levels grouped together. In middle school, it's two grade levels together, and in high school - one to two.
What is the underlying principle of this "all-in-one" classroom approach? Spend just one hour inside one yourself - listening and watching these mini-communities in action - and the answer becomes clear as day. Here you'll likely catch a five-year-old tying the shoe of a three year old, or a third grader reading to a group of first graders. In the Middle School you might find the grade levels reviewing Spanish words together, or even a high schooler presenting a special demonstration of the physics of things “floating or sinking” to a group of risers.
As Maria Montessori recognized, understood, and fully appreciated (discussed in the last Montessori Matters) - children don’t come “standardized.” They each have their own time table to unfold. Within MSA's "all-in-one" three year time span and more individualized programs, every child has a much better chance to achieve to his full and natural potential while, simultaneously, his risk of being isolated by feelings of "being left behind" - OR feeling "ahead" - are minimized.
These three-year spans actually make life easier for the trained Montessori teacher as well. While she has two thirds of her students already acclimated to the workings of a vibrant and smoothly-functioning classroom, the youngest in the group can look up to and emulate their "elders" engaged in good behavior and exciting work. The elders, knowing they are leaders, embrace the role in a most caring way. In turn, they can find even their own motivation and satisfaction increased. In that sense, there are approximately 16 other “mini-teachers” available to help or explain or share a discovery.
Yet even among some of the apparent "blurring" of development through the grade levels, there are also significant and distinct steps. So many rites-of-passage, for example, lay right before the eyes of the 7th grader eagerly anticipating her 8th grade year: taking early high school classes, 8th grade projects, 8th grade retreat, 8th grade speeches, and the Native American naming ceremony at Promotion to name a few.
Through this dynamic process of mixing and matching the ages, there is a deep sense of community for all as illustrated in our flag ceremony every Monday at 12:30. Middle schoolers raise the flags, 4th-6th graders provide a quote for the day, high schoolers lead the ceremony and respond to the quote - and every student greets his teachers with a handshake and mutual word of “blessings.”
All this living and learning together, sometimes for eighteen years, proves quite a joyful and important foundation for the multi-layered worlds of college campuses, corporations, communities, and countries still to come for MSA students.
Montessori School of Anderson is one of only 25 such "complete" Montessori programs in the U.S. (infant - high school programs). And for all of us here - students, parents, teachers - being a part of this community, and this process is a blessing.
We look forward to much more.
Letter Sounds
Montessori School of Anderson
Email: mdabney@msasc.org
Website: msasc.org
Location: 280 Sam McGee Road, Anderson, SC, USA
Phone: 864-226-5344
Facebook: http://facebook.com/MontessoriSchoolofAnderson
