98. Understanding the Benefits of Montessori Elementary Education

Have you ever considered how different educational environments shape our children’s futures? In this episode, we chat with Kristina McKinney, a dedicated Montessori educator at Bozeman Montessori, who unveils the transformative power of the Montessori approach to learning. With a focus on nurturing independence, curiosity, and social skills, Montessori education stands out as a tailored alternative to traditional schooling. 

We explore the depths of Montessori philosophy, where each child's unique learning style is celebrated and catered to. Kristina shares how this method provides a responsive atmosphere that fosters engagement, creativity, and critical thinking in children. You'll gain insights into who benefits most from Montessori programs, especially those with neurodivergent needs, and how the method shapes well-rounded individuals prepared to thrive in various settings.

Lastly, Kristina paints a picture of daily life in a Montessori classroom, illustrating how projects and interests guide learning. This organic discovery process invites us to rethink conventional methods and embrace education that aligns with children's natural curiosities. If you're contemplating educational choices for your child or simply interested in learning more about innovative teaching methods, this episode provides food for thought.

Join us for a fresh perspective on education that encourages every child's unique voice and potential! 

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Episode Transcript

Flora McCormick, LCPC (00:00):
You're listening to the Sustainable
Parenting Podcast and today Ihave a special guest, christina
McKinney, and we are talkingwith her.
As an elementary Montessorieducator, and this is a topic
that I've had lots of clientsasking me for school
alternatives.
Whether a child isneurodivergent or just has

(00:22):
different learning styles,highly intelligent or twice
exceptional, there can bevarious reasons that considering
options besides publicschooling can be valuable to
consider, so thanks for beingwith us today.

Kristina McKinney (00:38):
Thanks, thanks for having me?

Flora McCormick, LCPC (00:40):
Yeah, I'd love to dive in more and
understand what do you you know?
Who would you say are goodcandidates for the Montessori
environment?
Who are not good candidates, ifany, and what are your reasons
about why this is especiallyimportant with where we're at in
history, technology orotherwise?

Kristina McKinney (01:09):
technology or or otherwise.
Yeah, I mean it's we.
What we like to do inMontessori education is sort of
be able to customize an academicpath for any child that is at
any place in their development,in their education, and be able
to just meet them where they areand take them where they need
to go or where they want to go.
So it's kind of like it's adifferent, a different approach,
because you can go to normal,like traditional public school.

(01:29):
You see a lot of kind ofeverybody doing the same thing
at the same time and that'speople are finding that that's
not how it works for everybody.
Some children do just fine inthat setting and some children
really need something elsesetting and some children really
need something else.

Flora McCormick, LCPC (01:48):
Yeah, the uniform, you know.
Requirement of teachers to tryto serve 30 students or more in
a classroom at one time, withmaybe one assistant, maybe not,
I think you know, to theircredit makes it challenging to
even for the best public schoolteachers that want to address
the individualized needs ofevery student.

(02:09):
It can be really hardlogistically.
So I know I'll just like playdevil's advocate, because I
myself don't really understandelementary Montessori education,
understand elementaryMontessori education.

(02:29):
Sometimes the thought would beare they going to be able,
though, to succeed in the futurein a school environment, like
when they get to junior, highand high school or beyond in
college, if they're being askedto sit in a lecture room?
What are your thoughts aboutthat, and how do you make sure
to still meet, all of the same,I guess, kind of educational
goals that are laid out?

(02:51):
Um, or do you?
Maybe you have a differentfocus?

Kristina McKinney (02:55):
um, what, what?
The research has shown, whatthe you know, what your your
typical path going forward.
If you go from a Montessorisetting into a public school
setting, most of the time youfind that children that have
started in a Montessorifoundation do really really well
transitioning into publicschool because they've already

(03:16):
had, they've done a lot of thethings that were thought to be
too advanced for them at anearlier age.
So they have a bunch of thereally like the groundwork of
what they need many years lateris already there and so they
find usually find public schoolreally really easy, sometimes
too easy and not challengingenough.

(03:36):
They typically have much moredeveloped social skills because
we do so much in story educationto support how children
communicate with each other, howthey interact, what's you know,
what's appropriate, what's notappropriate, you know
conversation wise or what's agood way to resolve conflict,

(03:59):
that type of thing.
You see a lot less of that likesocial.
And now there's the buzzwordbullying.
A lot of people overuse thatword but for lack of a better
term, you see a lot less of that.
They have a much more likeconscientious, compassionate
approach to other children.
So both socially, academically,they're set up for success and

(04:19):
they typically just hit theground running.
My own children are in publicschool now they've gone.
They went to Montessori schoolup to about first grade and now
they're in public school andthey just they thrive.
They do really, really well.

Flora McCormick, LCPC (04:50):
That's awesome kind of look at what's
going on.
But you know, handling thismoment of an adult being
involved in something else verymaturely and I would say more so
than I would, I see with a lotof other families with kids that
age.

Kristina McKinney (05:08):
They have a lot of independence, you know,
like their curiosity isheightened, so they will come
and check something out.
But then they also are kind oflike oh, I was doing something
else over there and they'll goback to what they were doing.

Flora McCormick, LCPC (05:19):
Yeah, that's been patterned into their
rhythm that it's not an unusualthing for an adult to be doing
something else and then beingexpected to manage their own
needs, whether that's snack orbathroom or learning it's.
The system is set up for themto do a lot more independently.

Kristina McKinney (05:37):
Yeah, though we don't.
We don't typically havetechnology, you know just kind
of like front and center in theclassroom.
That is that's probably whythey were like, whoa, what is
she doing?
Cause they almost never see mewith a screen anywhere near me.
So they're like, oh, what isChristina doing?
That's worth knowing.
They went back to what theywere doing.

Flora McCormick, LCPC (05:57):
So I'm curious about that.
Yeah, because I know my husbandand I have been frustrated to
see how much technology isconstantly being used in the
public school of kindergartenand starting as early as
kindergarten, with them havingtablets, them having tablets.

(06:17):
And again, I know that this ispartly in response to trying to
meet the needs of so many kidsin one classroom and, just like
families thinking sometimes athome, they need to use
technology in order for theadult to give attention
specifically to one child, Ithink classrooms are leaning
into that too.
So zero, um, so zero technology, or very limited what.
What's your, what are thevalues around that?

Kristina McKinney (06:40):
Well, I mean, I didn't grow up with screens
everywhere.
You know, like a lot of usdidn't grow up with screens
everywhere.
I don't think I even had a cellphone until I was 27, 28, let
alone a smartphone, um, but welive in a world that is just
completely filled with screensand technology and just
stimulation.

(07:01):
You know when, when MariaMontessori was developing her
educational system 100 years ago, children were understimulated.
They didn't have enough to do.
And we live in a world wherechildren are ridiculously
overstimulated.
They're just being bombardedwith information of all kinds of

(07:22):
, you know, sensory andotherwise, just constantly just
coming at them like a freighttrain, and they can't make sense
of it all.
There's no way that thedeveloping brain can sort that
all out.
So that's why we have like apretty, pretty strict, like no
screens type policy.
Outside of what we use to checkchildren in and out, you know,

(07:43):
with their parents, that we havescreens completely, completely
away from us, not even ourphones.
We're supposed to keep ourphones like completely out of
sight.

Flora McCormick, LCPC (07:53):
Yeah, completely out of sight.
Yeah, such a goal for all of us.
Are there any kids you wouldsay?
Montessori elementary is notreally for like a one thought
that I have is maybe I'vesuggested it sometimes to
families where the child ishaving difficulty behavior wise,
social, emotional, wise in thelarge classroom, unable to

(08:13):
regulate as easily.
Or, um, yeah, regulation is abig piece of it.
Um, but would that fit wellwith the Montessori environment
or not?

Kristina McKinney (08:25):
Um, it really it depends on each individual
child, because I've seenchildren completely change
coming into Montessorienvironment from public school
with those kinds of issues,challenges.
But I've seen it also go theother direction, where they
think like people were like, ohwell, we'll just, we'll just put

(08:45):
them in Montessori school andthey'll be fine.
And it's not always the case.
A lot of times they still needadditional outside supports,
just depending on what exactlyis going on, because there's
just such a huge range of thingsthat could be happening and
they may be neurological or theymay be behavioral, there may be
something going on at home.
There's so many things toconsider.

(09:06):
But I think by and large itbenefits any child.
Any child can benefit from anytime spent in a Montessori
environment because of our, youknow, kind of holistic approach.
We do no testing, we doassessment, but it's not put on

(09:26):
the child to perform.
We assess, okay, do they?
Do they know this particularthing, Do they know that
particular thing?
And we look at the statestandards.
They know this particular thing, Do they know that particular
thing?
And we look at the statestandards.
We do, you know, try to try tofollow um, in elementary
especially, we try to try tofollow what the state standards
are, Um, but we approach it in adifferent way because the
children in an elementaryMontessori program.

(09:49):
They have a three year cycle todo all of their work, so they
don't have to do only firstgrade work their first year,
only second grade work theirsecond year.
They could be doing third grademath in their first year and
they could be doing first gradereading in their third year.
It's just completely whereverthey are, and so they have that
three-year cycle to do all ofthose things.

(10:10):
So we do, we try to uphold thesame standards.
We just approach it in a verydifferent, more customized,
individualized way.
And that's what I think reallyhelps the neurodivergent child
or the child that has certainchallenges dyslexia or
dysgraphia or whatever it isthat's causing them to struggle.

(10:32):
We're able to work around it,help them get through it,
instead of you know like, ohwell, you can't be in this class
, you have to go over to thisother place.
It's not like that at all.
Have to go over to this otherplace, it's not like that at all
.
So we're able to support those,those differences, because what
we're finding, you know, theresearch is showing every brain
is so different and every brainlearns a different way.
There's so many learning stylesand there's just so many things

(10:54):
that that can affect it one wayor another.
And there's, there's I'mstarting to see this more and
more that Children who, like we,started talking about twice

(11:22):
exceptional, and I'm reallyreally liking that, that turn of
phrase these days, because some, to help them get where they
need to go without trying to putthem in, you know, try to try
to fit the mold, as it were,because we're breaking the mold.
The mold needs to go away.
That's where I'm at with it.

Flora McCormick, LCPC (11:41):
Totally so I guess like maybe just one
final thing to give listeners areal picture, could you give
like a day in the life of aMontessori school day?

Kristina McKinney (11:53):
Well, one of the cool things about about our
classroom is we have a clockthat on every hour has a bird
call, and so the hours of theclock all have a picture of that
particular species of bird.
So throughout the day when thehour changes, it's kind of
distracting.
At first we're, like you knowit, kind of startled you.

(12:14):
You're like what Sounds likethere's a bird in the room, but
over time you get used to whichbird is on which hour, and so at
noon is a red-tailed hawk, andso they know that at noon they
hear the hawk.
It must be lunchtime.
What that turned into was sortof a little you know,
imaginative, creative play gamefor them.

(12:35):
While they were at the lunchtable.
They would, you know, sort ofto pretend that the hawk was
going to come eat their lunch.
So I decided to kind of runwith that.
Okay, well, we're obviouslyinterested in the bird call, so
why don't we start a giant hawkresearch project?
Yes, I went downstairs to ourschool library and found all the
bird books, and so we starteddoing research on hawks and did

(12:55):
this huge, you know, like posterof what you know what is.
How big is a hawk?
What's the wingspan?
You know, like what is itshabitat?
You know that, that type of thetype of thing.
So just turn into a researchproject.
So now we have information onevery single bird on the clock
and what their you know, whattheir size is, what their
habitat is.
And now we're starting torecognize the bird calls.
We're like, oh yeah, that one,that's the um, you know the

(13:19):
stellar's j or what have you?
Just little things like that.
Just turn into big projects andyou just, sometimes you just
inspiration just finds you andwe have the ability to just run
with it.
Yeah, and some children getreally into it and they do this
for three weeks and some look atthe picture of the bird in the

(13:41):
book and move on to somethingelse.
They're like, oh, I want to goback to doing crossword puzzles
on jupiter, uh, the the type ofstuff so they have.
The children can absolutelychoose whatever they want to do
for the day.
And I have some children thatlove to make.
You know, make booklets, and sowe have booklets of all the
biomes of the world, and sothey've gone through the entire.

(14:03):
You know all the continents andall the biomes of the world,
and so they've gone through theentire.
You know all the continents andall the biomes of the
continents and done maps andthey've looked at the, the
creatures from from that, fromthe biomes of that continent,
like just just booklet afterbooklet of you know botany or
parts of the seed or parts ofthe cell, that kind of thing.
Um, and it's interesting to seethe, the different learning
styles, how some children like I, just I want to, I just want to

(14:25):
make booklets all day, likeabsolutely go to town.
There's something like don'twant to write anything, and so
you kind of have to be like wehave to find, find a reason to
make them practice thosemovements without it seeming
like I'm making you do writingyeah, maybe if it's there the
motivations can be verydifferent even from the same
child from day to day.

Flora McCormick, LCPC (14:47):
Sure, and the way the classroom's set up
and how you function as a guideor educator is conducive to
responding to that.

Kristina McKinney (14:58):
Yeah.

Flora McCormick, LCPC (14:59):
That's so wonderful.
Thanks for sharing with us moreabout what the Montessori world
can offer to kids.
And, yeah, thank you so muchfor your time.

Kristina McKinney (15:08):
Thanks so much for having me.