Preschool and elementary school memories usually include
standing in line, raising a hand and working in large groups. You
won’t see too much of that at the Children’s House on Monterey
Street, but parents and teachers alike swear that the learning
taking place is unrivaled in the community.
Preschool and elementary school memories usually include standing in line, raising a hand and working in large groups. You won’t see too much of that at the Children’s House on Monterey Street, but parents and teachers alike swear that the learning taking place is unrivaled in the community.
“I don’t know a kid this wouldn’t work for,” said Deborah Armstrong, whose daughters Janet and Audrey attend the Children’s House. “It’s different from other classrooms, but I really think this teaches them an appreciation for learning and figuring things out.”
The Children’s House, located at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, is a Montessori school, the only one of its kind in San Benito County. For eight years Ginger Lobeck and, more recently, Debbie Parga have been serving families looking for an alternative to the one-size-fits-all education found in larger schools.
“A lot of the teachers’ training is centered on respect for the child,” Lobeck said. “We want to teach them respect for themselves, for each other and for their materials.”
Montessori is an educational method and theory developed by Dr. Maria Montessori in the early 1900s as a practical way to educate poor children in her native Italy. The method emphasizes the uniqueness of each child and the teacher is tasked with guiding students toward activities and exercises that suit their own individual developmental and ability levels. Traditional measures of achievement such as grades and tests are typically discouraged, and students are mostly free to decide what they want to work on for much of the school day.
“It isn’t that they’re doing whatever they want,” Lobeck said. “But they can choose from materials that the teacher has already shown them how to use.”
Friday morning students were working with books, studying maps, using counting blocks, learning the alphabet and sewing – almost all on their own and as quiet as church mice. And that was only in the class for 3-, 4- and 5-year-olds.
“There are two ideas about Montessori; they’re opposed to each other so I don’t know how they exist at the same time,” Lobeck said. “One is that it’s too loose and there are no rules at all, and the other is that it’s too strict and it’s nothing but rules.”
But they must be doing something right – over the last eight years Lobeck and Parga say only three or four families have pulled their children from the program after their students enrolled. And more often than not the decision to leave was based on financial constraints and not a problem with the program – the preschool program can cost families up to $4,500 a year and the elementary school program runs $5,100 a year. Lobeck says tuition at established schools in larger cities can easily cost double that, or more.
The program has been so successful that this year the Children’s House was able to expand and offer elementary school level education. Right now the oldest children are in the third grade, but as the children progress Lobeck hopes to expand the program and serve children up to 12 years old.
“Right now most of our students go right into public school,” said Parga. “We hope that we’ll be able to transition them into our elementary school and continue their Montessori education.”
That’s music to the ears of parents like Armstrong, who received a Montessori education herself and recalls fondly how the habits and lessons she learned as a child helped her later on in her education.
“A lot of people think that if the classroom is not controlled it’s out of control, but really it’s about self-control and focus,” she said. “Whether the kid’s interested in Peru or the planets, they’ll all end up at the same place. They’re just taking different ways to get there.”
Danielle Smith covers education for the Free Lance. Reach her at 637-5566, ext. 336 or [email protected].
