Looking at Chicago's Public Montessori Programs

There are five Montessori schools in the Chicago Public School District. Four of the five, all but Stagg, require an application be submitted to a lottery run by the CPS Office of Academic Enhancement. When your child reaches two by September 1st, that fall is the time to apply because he must begin Montessori school at the age of three, and the application process takes the better part of a year. The applications should be available in the office of the school of your choice (and possibly on its website) from about the first of October until December 15th. Applications are also available at http://cpsoae.org. Submit your application in a timely fashion.

NEIGHBORHOOD SCHOOLS

Clissold School
2350 W. 110th Place
Chicago, IL 60643
773-535-2560

In 1979 Clissold School offered to its neighborhood the first ongoing Montessori program in the Chicago Public Schools (CPS). For over two decades it was the only one. Unfortunately for parents in its Beverly-Morgan Park neighborhood looking to place their child in a Montessori school, Clissold has other program tracks as well. So a bit like a magnet school, Clissold's Montessori students are selected by lottery conducted by the CPS Office of Academic Enhancement. The difference between Clissold and the magnet schools is that competition here is confined to the neighborhood. Applications for next year, 2011, will be available at Clissold soon in November 2010, call 773-535-2560, and return them promptly. If your child is two now (by September 1st) she is eligible for possible admission in September 2011 at the age of three. Montessori education begins with three year olds.
http://clissoldschool.org/all-about-clissold-school/

Stagg Elementary School
7424 S. Morgan Av
Chicago, IL 60621
773-535-3565

In 2007 Stagg Elementary School in Englewood became the second CPS school to offer a neighborhood Montessori program. It is offered on a first-come first-served basis, so if you live in Englewood, be sure to apply during the autumn of the September that your child is two. Then he will be eligible to start when he is three. Call 773-535-3565 for application information. The rest of the neighborhood children attend Stagg's traditional kindergarten program. This 2010 September Stagg is expanding its Montessori program to include two Montessori elementary classes. If you would like to see their existing Montessori classroom in action, please go to the Stagg website by way of the url below. Then turn up your volume. This is a video of their primary class, children at work with running commentary by the teacher. Fascinating!
http://stagg.cps.k12.il.us/montessori.html


MAGNET SCHOOLS

The First CPS Montessori Magnet School:
Drummond Montessori School
1845 West Cortland Street
Chicago, IL 60622
773-534-4120

In 2004 primarily thanks to Mark Neidlinger's vision and perseverance Drummond School began its Montessori conversion with three early childhood (or primary) Montessori classes, adding a fourth in 2005, as well as opening its first Montessori elementary classroom for the six year olds. Now in 2010 Drummond has expanded its Montessori offering to four primary classes for children from ages 3 to 6 years, four Elementary I classes for children ages 6 to 9 years, three Elementary II classes for children ages 9 to 12 years, and one Jr. High class for children ages 12 to 14 years. Most of these classes have twenty-seven students.
http://drummondschool.org/


Suder Montessori Magnet School
2022 W. Washington Blvd.
Chicago, IL60612
773-534-7685

In 2005 Suder became a Montessori School. In spite of many trials, it is healthy today with four primary classes for children from ages three to six years and four early elementary classes for children from six to nine years. These classes in general have twenty-seven students.
http://www.sudermontessori.cps.k12.il.us/


Oscar Mayer Magnet Elementary School
2250 N. Clifton
Chicago, IL 60614
773-534-5535

In 2007 Oscar Meyer began its Montessori preschool program. Today it has eight primary classes for children ages three to six as well as six secondary classes for children ages six to nine. These classes generally have twenty-seven students.
http://www.mayer.cps.k12.il.us/

Thurs, 09/02 here in Chicago: TREVOR EISSLER "Montessori Madness"

I am excited to have this opportunity to invite you to an evening with Trevor Eissler, the author of Montessori Madness, a book I was delighted to review in my May 20 blog. If you are interested in hearing him speak of his parental awakening, he will be here in Chicago, speaking at the Asociacion Social del Azuay at 3751 W. Montrose Ave. on Thursday, September 2nd from 7:00 to 8:30 pm. Admission is $10.00

He is being sponsored by Gateway Montessori School who, following his talk, is giving a wine and cheese reception across the street in their beautiful classrooms.

Gateway Montessori is located at 3748 W. Montrose Ave. in Chicago. Questions? Call 773-539-3025 or email: info@GatewayMontessoriSchool.org.

Free Montessori Public Schools in the City of Chicago

Are you considering a free Montessori education for your child? Please keep in mind that children begin their Montessori education at the age of three. And Chicago Public Schools applications should be submitted the previous year when your child will be only two years old.

In 2010 Chicago there are five public schools offering Montessori education for children from the age of three to the age of six, which is the first level of Montessori education. As a parent you need to know this because you will probably have to apply to these schools during the autumn that your child is two; that is, the autumn a year before your child would be starting school. At present these public Montessori schools are of two kinds, two are neighborhood schools, and three are magnet schools.

In order for your child to attend a neighborhood school, by definition, you should live in that neighborhood. The two Chicago Public Schools offering Montessori primary programs are Clissold Elementary School in the Morgan Park/Beverly neighborhood and Stagg Elementary School in the Englewood neighborhood. If you are free to live where you please, you might consider moving to either of these neighborhoods.

The three magnet Montessori schools that CPS also offers are Drummond Montessori School in the Bucktown neighborhood, Oscar Mayer Magnet School in the Lincoln Park neighborhood, and Suder Montessori Magnet School in the West Haven community. These schools enroll children from the entire city of Chicago with an extra percentage of children enrolled from their immediate surrounding neighborhoods. Be forewarned: competition is fierce.

Here is contact information for the five schools above:

Ms. Arsenault, Montessori teacher
Mrs. O'Conner, Montessori teacher
Mrs. Pietrus, Montessori teacher
Ms. Grimm-Grason principal
Clissold Elementary
Clissold Montessori Program
773-535-2560
2350 W. 110th Place
Chicago, IL 60643
773-535-2560
http://clissoldschool.org/all-about-clissold-school/

Mrs. Ruth Miller, Principal
Mrs. Aisha K. McCarthy, Ass't Principal
Stagg Elementary School
7424 S. Morgan Av
Chicago, IL 60621
773-535-3565
http://stagg.cps.k12.il.us/

Mark Neidlinger, Montessori Director
Drummond Elementary School
1845 West Cortland Street
Chicago, IL 60622
773-534-4120
http://drummondschool.org/

Katie B. Konieczny, Principal
Africa D. Thomas, Assistant Principal
Barbara Baldini, Montessori Coordinator
Oscar Mayer Magnet Elementary
2250 N. Clifton
Chicago, IL 60614
773-534-5535
http://www.mayer.cps.k12.il.us/

Stephanie Bloom-Washofsky, Principal
Maria Luisa Gonzalez, Montessori Director
Suder Montessori Elementary Magnet School
2022 W. Washington Blvd.
Chicago, IL60612
773-534-7685
http://www.sudermontessori.cps.k12.il.us/Home_files/Suder%20Montessori%20Brochure.pdf

The Magic of the Montessori Classroom: Normalization

A normalized child is someone that observes, comprehends and acts.

Normalized, meaning restored, derives from the word normal. I am sure parents want their children to be normal. I am equally sure that once their baby has been lucky enough to be born strong and healthy, most parents refocus and start wondering about the attributes their child might have:
“Could her little feet be trying to dance already?”
“Look at those strong arms; he looks like he could heft a football someday.”
“She just stared and stared at my magazine. I think she is trying to understand what reading is.”
“What if he has a talent neither of us notices, or one that neither of us can help him with?”
“How can we know what's best for our child?”

These are the questions. The answer is normalization. This term comes from Dr. Montessori herself. Normalization is as complex as it is simple. So I'm going to take you on a visit to a Montessori classroom in order to explain the unique effect it has on children, unique and profound. I don't mean to say that other schools with open classrooms couldn't achieve this, but I'm simply stating that it has not been done yet.

We pause at the classroom door to shake the hand of the directress, who is shaking the hands of all who enter, saying, “Good morning.” She shows us to chairs that have been placed in a corner for us visitors. The room is quite pleasant, half carpeted, half tiled, with small tables and chairs on the carpet but mostly small stands on the tile. There are a few large plants and many shelves along the walls cordoning off areas. But what catches our eye is on the shelves! A set of blue and red metal inset plates, all different shapes displayed on a rack. On a shelf not far from it, is a wooden tray with beautiful golden glass beads made into cubes and squares and bars. There is also a large wooden floor rack with very large wooden puzzles; the visible top one is a colorful map of the world's continents. Over in the corner is a book rack between two chairs. Not far from this are the most eye catching shelves of all, the ones with the meter-long red rod and its nine smaller rods forming a stair. And next to it the famous pink tower and the brown stair. There are so many things to marvel at! As the children begin to work, two are at stands in the tiled area We can see that Jose is slicing a banana to eat at the snack table. He invites Hannah to join him for snack so she becomes busy washing up at the hand-washing stand.

So the morning has begun. The children have arrived, and as they enter many have immediately found their own work to do. For about ten minutes the remaining third of the class has walked about, greeting friends, looking at shelves and deciding what they will do. The directress gives these children a few more minutes, then speaks to them individually often suggesting work, something they may need to complete or might like to attempt again. Then she gathers the remaining children for her presentation. We see four children still walking around the room, undecided. One of them, Jeremy, asks Aisha seated at a single table if he may watch as she solves addition problems with the bead frame. She nods, so he stands respectfully behind her watching her every move.

With her gathering of five the directress sits by a rug on the floor presenting a set of cards, the parts of a bird, each card having its particular bird part (beak, wing etc.) highlighted in red. It is a three-part matching set with the directress holding the bird control card with its denoted colored part, and the five children each taking turns finding, matching and naming the parts. While she does this, some of the earliest children to arrive that morning have finished and are taking out other work. Jerry and Saul have decided to do the banker's game together and are placing golden bead bars on their work rugs next to wooden numerals. Aisha and Jeremy have finished snack and decided to wash their dishes so both are wearing aprons at the dish washing stand. Zander and Elias have brought some geometric solids (the sphere, the cylinder, the cone, the rectangular prism, and the cube) each one at a time to a rug, matching each to its name card. And now they are experimenting, trying to match each solid shape to a two-dimensional one from the geometric cabinet. Aisha has finished her bead frame problem and written her problem and its solution on special math paper with colored pencils, green for units, blue for tens, red for hundreds and green again for thousands. Jeremy has gone to the book corner and is lost in One-Eye Two-Eye Pink-Eye Blue-Eye. Nearby Mercedes and Callie are sitting at a table writing their own stories using movable alphabet letters.

A child can walk around the classroom and see other children working on so many different things, from the thousand bead chain to the puzzle map of Africa to the parts-of-a-tree cards to flower arranging. Some children will be writing letters or stories, some may be mixing dough for biscuits, many will be working with Montessori's sensorial materials. Every day is different. Some materials are always available, others are there for a time and as time passes are replaced by something different or more advanced.

Here is the opportunity for a child to see, work with, and challenge herself using the myriad of manipulative exercises within the classroom. Here a child becomes a scientist discovering himself. Normalization: what an innocuous word to be the door to a baby's future. It is perhaps the most important difference of all the differences. It is why in a Montessori classroom you will find some children working at tables, some children working on rugs on the floor, and an occasional child will be standing, watching someone else work. Some children seem to be collaborating on the work they are doing. A few children may be looking at the materials on the shelves, trying to find a particular exercise, or just browsing to see what might pique their interest. No one is fighting. No one is yelling. All this concentrated work is due to normalization. All this peace is due to normalization.

Why is the directress not a teacher? She certainly does teach. But she is not in constant charge of all the minds. She is not supposed to be. Montessori saw that children needed to move more than they needed to sit. So she devised educational activities that allowed them to move. They needed to walk and carry things, things that meant something to them. They needed to learn how to do the caretaking work like that usually done for them, work like preparing fruit or vegetables they could share with others, or scrubbing a table when a mess has occurred, maybe even scrubbing a table for the fun of scrubbing it. These are all things that empower children. And normalize them. In a Montessori class children become in tune with their own learning processes. They learn to trust their own instincts and in doing so become sensitive to their own development, both the physical and the mental. They learn to learn from each other as well as the directress. This doesn't happen sitting at a desk while listening to a teacher talk all day. That is stultifying---no matter how good or kind the teacher.

Children who grow up in Montessori classrooms have a whole different grip on life. Life serves them because they have met it all along the way and made it theirs. I wouldn't know this necessarily because I have taught in a Montessori classroom because all the children in my classes were small. But I have two adult children who spent most of their childhood in Montessori classrooms and they are amazing. Yes, they are successful, both in their own ways, but that is not the amazing part. The amazing part is how they dance with life, the give and the take, the buck and the jive. They seem to grow from every experience, good and bad. And this is all brought to life through the sanity of normalization. Love helps too.