Montessori Preschool's Approach to "Not Listening the First Time"

first let me say i have NO idea what a montessori school is. but i like what someone said about maybe switching to a "regular" preschool. my 4 year old is energetic, bouncing off the walls, and never stops talking. he would spend all day in time out if there was only one chance given to follow instructions. and let me say he is very well behaved and sweet. he just has a hard time focusing. he does great in preschool and other than an occasional time out (just like at home) he does great. i have zero complaints. raising and/or teaching preschoolers is NOT supposed to be a walk in the park. they are far from perfect. this montessori school sounds a little too rigid for a free spirited happy go lucky 3 year old, to me.

Your post is so interesting to me because I used to be an assistant teacher at a Montessori school and I used to get SO FRUSTRATED because we were not allowed to discipline the children for the very reason that it is a Montessori school! And your assistants told you they can discipline for the very reason that it's a Montessori school! Interesting. It just shows how very different each Montessori school is. I happen to like time outs and wished we were able to give them (although the teachers in the toddler rooms gave time outs and they called it the "thinking spot." But the primary rooms (where I was) were not allowed to give time outs.

Here are my thoughts:
1) I'm sure your daughter has many wonderful, positive moments at school where her behavior is great, but since great behavior doesn't need to be addressed, they are just addressing her negative behavior. It definately doesn't mean her behavior is ONLY bad. They should preface it by saying something like, "We love your daughter and she is usually very well behaved. However, at times, she has some trouble listening to directions." Something like that so they can begin with a positive statement about her instead of beginning with and only saying something negative about your daughter. Definately talk to her lead teacher.

2) I don't know how the ratio is at your daugher's montessori school, but the montessori school I worked at had an outrageous ratio. It was the lead teacher and myself, the assistant teacher and 24 kids!!!!!! That is absolutely insane. It was an extremely stressful job for me b/c 24 kids and only 2 teachers in a class is pure chaos. There were so many behavior issues every single day b/c of how many children the stupid, clueless owner crammed into our classroom. My point - if there are more than 16 kids in your daughter's class, I would pull her out because there is no way there can be optimal learning!! Check into other Montessori schools b/c they don't all have huge ratios. Something else to consider - a non-Montessori school. After working at a Montessori school, I did not see the academic benefits!! The children were allowed to work on any materials they wanted, and some kids just wandered around the room the entire time during worktime b/c there were just too many kids and only 2 of us and we just couldn't get to everyone. In a non-Montessori school, it is structured (a Montessori school is non-structured, which I do not like). A non Montessori school has centers, and the kids rotate, and they learn their colors, numbers, letters and shapes every day. They do NOT learn that in Montessori school every day. After my experiences in the Montessori school, I am anti Montessori schools. The academic materials are great, but in an overcrowded classroom where there is no structure, I don't see how learning can occur. These assistants might have 24 or more kids in their room and they might be feeling completely overwhelmed. Again, I do agree that they could have chosen better words for you regarding your daughter, but please consider the ratio and no structure thing when judging them.

You need to speak to the director of the pre-school and voice your conerns and if there is no a differrence of how things are approached with your daughter I recommend pulling her and looking for another place. Yes I understand that they want her to be a 1st time listner, but thats why she is in pre school ... to learn these things. I work at a pre school and we only give negitive feedback to parents when it is absolutley necessary, children thrive off of postitive attention.

I am not totally sure what the Montessori philosphy is. But, to me, I think it is a bit extreme for time out for not listening after only one time. What out about 1-2-3 methods? To me, I think is actually more useful to the child to give her several chances to modify her behavior on her own before she is placed in a time out - thus the 1-2-3, THEN time out, with plenty of warnings that she may get a time out if she does not change the unwanted behavior. This helps the child develop an awareness of what she is doing and what will happen if she does not stop. Can you even be reassured that when your kid gets a time out after one mishap, she even knows why she is getting time out? I mean, think about it...if you are told at work, don't use that red pen. OK, you try not to use it, but you need write a quick note and you grab the pen, perhaps not even aware that you did it, and out of nowhere your boss "time outs" you by banishing you to a corner of the office for 20 minutes. You'd be like, well, that's not fair! I should have at least been warned, I would have jsut dropped the pen. A time out out with very little or no warning feels like punishment, just for punishment's sake, not so much for learning sake. And what about redirection - distracting the child into doing a positive or safe behavior and then the unwanted behavior can stop. Simple, effective, and the child does not feel punished.

Sure, I agree that many 3 year olds can be "trained," or whatever, to learn good behaviors when only told once...but at the same time, they are just babies! Developmentally they are still so young, and everything is so new to them - from potty, to dressing themselves, even language is not fully established. Many, if not most, are still not developmentally able to control their impulses. It is not totally their fault they are not following directions. Cut the kid some slack. In fact, I would think that a time out for not listening the first time would result in an awful lot of time outs...first, the efficacy of the time out is reduced as the child is "desensitized" to it, second, the child may develop poor self esteem if she feels she is always getting in trouble.

I say, if you are not comfortable with this (and I am with you, I would not feel comfortable either) - definitely state this to the school. If they are adamant about following this form of discipline, then I would strongly consider changing schools.

Not all kids are cut out for the Montessori approach at preschool age. My nephew is a prime example. We enrolled him at three, after 6 months it was obvious he was just not ready for the program, he like your daughter was unable to follow directions and spent a lot of time in time out. Your daughter like my nephew may simply need to be switched to a preschool that is less academic and geared more towards the social development of a preschooler. By the time my nephew turned 5 and was ready for kindergarten we re enrolled him in Montessori and 7 years later is still doing very well.

one you can not expect a 3 year old to follow directions the first time every time. This needs to be stressed to the teachers. Yes time out is an appropriate punishment for misbehavior but obviously these teachers need to go back and have a look at what is age appropriate expectations. I would go to the principle because it sounds like they don't praise her for anything good she does and they focus on what really isn't misbehavior and are punishing her for being normal. sounds to me there are things going on that isn't right.

"They all think my daughter is happy and doesn't really have any problems, except listening, following directions the first time and fine motor skills."

Really? "She doesn't have any problems except for these 3 problems..."
I have to say, the main problem most of the time is not the kids---it's the parents. Parents refuse to hear when their children may be behavior problems or when they may need a little extra help. It is unfortunate that the teachers did not give more positive feedback--hearing negative feedback all the time is often counterproductive for everyone involved--however, it is important for parents to listen and process the information that just maybe, the teachers are right. Putting the kid back in day care where they play with blocks all day and do mindless busywork does certainly not seem like the solution to this issue. It sounds like the parent is having more of a problem with the program than the child.

Montessori is the best education I could ever think of for a child; it is nurturing, structured, and it encourages independence. I couldn't think of a better place for a young child in today's world. It is unfortunate that this specific Montessori school didn't work out, but that is not indicative of all Montessori programs. Each school is a little different. I would urge you and anyone reading this not to jump to conclusions about the Montessori method just because of one parent's negative feelings about one specific school. I myself have toured, taught, and attended hundreds of Montessori schools around the world and the evidence is just so obvious: Montessori kids are smarter; they score higher on all standardized tests, and they are more successful and adaptive to the social world.

Additionally, putting your child in a daycare center where nobody is going to give you any type of productive feedback besides glowing reports (She had a great day!) is completely counterproductive. I would never put my kids in a place just so my ego could be stroked.

I've never heard of a 3 yr old, or a 4 yr old or heck and 18 yr old that will always follow directions the first time. That is an insane standard and I would talk to the principle. Since you aren't getting any satisfaction from the teacher and her assistants, that may be the only real option you have for figuring out why they are being this way to your daughter. No child should be in time out that much, unless of course, they are trying to train your daughter to be a robot.

the only thing I can really say is that Montessori schools (that I've learned from working at one) is that they have a 3 strikes your out rule. It has been a long time since I worked at one, so maybe it has changed by now. I know my brother got kicked out because he acted out 3 times. They are usually very strict with things like that.
I don't know, maybe just talk to your daughters teachers. Sit down and have a meeting with them on how to solve the problem. Go in there with a positive attitude that things will be acomplished. Don't go in there with a bad attitude complaining about them. You have to try and come up with a solution and work together.
I ended up teaching preschool for 5 years before having my own kids. I started as an aide and it really doesn't matter if you are an "aide", "teacher", or "student learning an internship", they are all teachers. They ALL contrubute to your child's learning. Just because you don't agree with them, doesn't mean they are anything less. If you have a problem, you need to set up a meeting and talk to ALL of the teachers and make things right. If you cant then pull her out and put her in another school that is not Montessori.

whoa whoa! Ok so I read the first couple responses, and I did not like what one said "a 3 year old is capable of following directions the first time if they are TRAINED to do so". Ok is it just me or does it sound like we are talking about dogs here. (I know that we potty train and what not) but I think taught is a better word here. And on top of that, when we all WANT EVERY SINGLE 3 year old to follow directions the first time, it is not realistic. I mean how many of you have older kids that listen the first time EVERY time? OK so about the feedback issue, I would be really upset if all i was hearing was negative. My son goes to a Kinder Care and I get a sheet sent home every day of what they did and what activities and positive things he did. If there was a problem with any other children, there is an incident form that is filled out by the teacher and then i have to sign it. I am then told if he had a rough day with listening and that sort. This seems like the best thing to do and you can just try to sit down and tell them that you are not thrilled with the way things are being handled with your daughter. Good Luck! and remember, your daughter and her feelings and education is the most important, if she is not getting that there, maybe think about switching until she is old enough!

Sounds like you need to be a fly on the wall, as I'm sure actually visiting the classroom would alter everyone's behavior and not give you a true picture of what's happening. Hmm... a 3 year old not following directions the first time? I would think that would be more the rule than the exception. However, if you haven't already, perhaps you should do some internet research about practices at Montessori schools. If your daughter were older, I'd say you might want to investigate whether or not she has an auditory processing issue, or whether or not she could be dyslexic; but not at age 3. Sometimes, teachers just don't like a child and will pick on them. Sometimes, a school just isn't a good fit for a child.

I worked as aide for the toddler classroom, but the primarys had some of the same rules. We would always direct them on something and then discipline accordingly. For example, we had a girl who would pull out all the stuff for the handwashing station and then not clean it up when she was done. A large part of Montessori is completing the task from start to finish. So we would ask her to clean up the mess, she would say no, then we would give her the option of cleaning up the mess with our help or sitting in a chair (which was essentially time out). She would then usually either still do nothing or would start cleaning up. If she did nothing, we would explain that she would have to sit in the chair then until she was willing to clean up. It was important (at least in our classroom) that they completed the tasks before jumping to the next task. Otherwise, we would've had things pulled out everywhere with no complete activities or lessons, which would've increased the chaos. Some kids had a LOT more difficulty with this then others. I think there was one response about how some kids are simply not "cut out" for Montessori, which is true. Some just cannot handle the independent learning environment and need some more structure.

I do agree that they probably are giving you too much negative feedback, but they might be doing this because they might be concerned with her ability to be successful in this environment. PLUS, this is a completely normal thing in ANY school setting. Most people don't see the need to report positive things that our kids are doing. Think about the kid whose parents always hear from the principal because they are in their office everyday in trouble, and then there are the parents who have straight A honor students and they don't even know their teachers. Most places and people just focus on the negative. One thing we did when I worked at a middle school was teachers would "reward" students for their positive behaviors (with this like token system) and then we would call their parents and tell them about the tokens they got and why. They parents LOVED it because some of them only heard negative things. Maybe you could suggest it. As far as how to address the situation, I would suggest having a meeting with all of the teachers at one time. Don't go straight up to admin because right now everyone seems to be on a different pages. Plus, the aides spend a lot of alone time without the teachers there (I spent about two hours at the end of the day with the kids alone in "free play") and they behave a lot differently. They react differently with the "authority" figure around.

I would definitely go above their heads and talk with someone in administration. Having been a former 1st grade teacher for 8 years myself, they should know that they should always give positive feedback as well, especially since she's only 3. I'm not sure if this is a private or public, but I would definitely not be paying for my child to attend a montessori school, when 1 teacher is only an intern, and the other doesn't have a montessori license. Doesn't sound very montessori to me. Also doesn't sound like they are approaching the problem correctly even after you have talked with them, so you must go above their heads.

I agree with the teachers as far as following direction the first time, a 3 year old is quite capable of following directions the first time if she has been trained this way. Parents a lot of the time thinks they are to young, so you repeat multiple times for the same direction and the child learn that they will be told several times before the task has to be done, so the parent has drawn the line not the child, if you draw the line at a one time direction think how pleasant that would be not to repeat over and over. The older they get the more frustrating it gets because they don't listen. I work with grown people who don't know how to listen or follow directions. When my children & grandchildren were little we played a game called see if you can follow direction, I would tell them to go get me something (usually something they wanted like a piece of candy or fruit, so they always wanted to play) and it may only have 2 directions and the older they got the more steps to follow. A lot of the time they wanted to take off thinking they already knew what I wanted they would return and realize they should have waited for the rest of the directions. Example direction; don't put that toy in your mouth, child puts it in the mouth, you repeat child does the same, if you had removed the toy the first time and not given it back for awhile, then repeat with same one time direction with a reminder you will remove the toy if they don't listen. So when they are older and you say don't go in the street after the ball and they have been trained with a one time direction, they know you mean what you say and makes trusting your child so much easier. Try it, it works great.

The assistants sometimes have more time spent with your child throughout the day than the directress or teacher. The teacher will teach a main lesson and the assistants are mainily the ones who help the children do their work. I have two children in Montessori. One is 4 and the other is in 6th grade. In Montessori children are shown a task and expected to carry it out by themselves. Some children like my daughter are apt to not paying attention and are put in a time out. I am sure they are not picking on your daughter, it is the process. We have conferences coming up. I plan on discussing with my teacher some points. I know when I first started Montessori I had no idea how the classroom worked. It is helpful to volunteer in the class to see what kind of work they do and the process they use.

I guess I have to say I side with the teachers on this one. Why shouldn't your daughter be following directions the first time? I mean, I get she's only 3 and 3 y/os are apt to NOT follow directions the first time, but why shouldn't that be the expectation. I don't know a lot about Montessori schools and based on the info in your question I don't really know if they give her any redirection (which would also be age appropriate) but in the end, I feel like a time out is an acceptable consequence for not following directions. My daughter is 3 and she goes to time out for not following directions in our own home, so why should it be a different standard at school. As her mother I certainly don't want to tell her 10X to do something so as a teacher, there's no way. Yes, there has to be some level of understanding that her behaviors are age appropriate, but having a high expectation of behavior and academics is what Montessori is known for and as a parent I support that.

As far as them giving you updates on her, I do agree that it's hard to only hear negative feedback and you did the right thing by bringing that to their attention. They should be giving you positive feedback as well, as they should be doing it to her too (which they probably are), but it wouldn't hurt to observe. Most Montessoris that I know of have an observation room attached to them so you can watch but not be seen, which would be a better barometer of your child's behavior for sure. Good luck and I hope it works out to your satisfaction.