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Dear Montessori School of Lake Forest Families,
It has been a productive week here at MSLF, full of meetings and cleaning and planning. Classrooms are neat and bright and fully stocked, floors are glistening, gardens are thriving, egrets are hunting, the boardwalk is being installed, the first half of the roof is repaired, new employees are settling in, teachers and staff are refreshed and eager. All is well prepared to welcome you to the 2014-15 school year.
Although we each have our own reasons why we work at or attend the Montessori School of Lake Forest, we know we share a common value: We are all committed to providing the best Montessori education we can achieve. Whether we shape it as teachers, guide it as parents, or support it as administrators, we all work in service of the child.
In the United States, we worry a lot about the state of education because we understand how difficult it is to thrive in a democracy, and how difficult it is to keep pace with social and technological developments. We learn how American students and schools compare to international peers, and we know that traditional education has been struggling for decades. Over and over again, earnest researchers and practitioners puzzle out what children need to know and how to get them to know it. Not many have focused on how children learn. But since we know how children learn, we know what to teach them and when. That is the time-tested secret of Montessori education.
Montessori education has been working very well for more than 100 years. We don’t have to keep testing it; we don’t have to change it. Montessori students learn the languages of math and literature and social life so well that they grow up to invent the new technologies and systems that everyone else races to keep up with. We live in a world that is already strongly influenced by the inventions of Montessori alumni. There is no telling how the world will change as the Montessori alumni population grows.
While Montessori teachers and children continue to pursue education as organized by brain development, their peers in traditional schools are currently struggling with the Common Core Standards. These Standards are just the latest effort to codify what children need to know, and they entirely bypass the issue of how children learn. Consequently, teachers, parents, and children are struggling to make sense of the Standards, struggling to find ways to learn them.
If you wonder whether your child’s Montessori education will keep pace with the Common Core Standards, please click on the links below. You will see that you have chosen a complete pedagogy. It offers a comprehensive and brain-development appropriate curriculum via developmentally attuned teaching methods. It has been tested all over the world and is as relevant in 21st century Lake County as it was in early 20th century Rome. It is sought out by admissions counselors in the best high schools and colleges around the country. And on top of all this, it is a system of education that teaches children to be respectful and self-respecting, and to tie their own shoes! What more can you ask for?
So, welcome back to school for another year of the tried and true education of the future!
Best wishes and see you next week!
Ann Jordahl
Executive Director
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