Eating Italian Words

Do Italian words taste better when you have to eat them?

I hope so.

Reggio Emilia Parmesano.

Montessori Carbonara.

After all my love and awe  and praise of the Reggio Emilia Philosophy,  I've come to the conclusion that it's not the best fit for my (now) 4 year old. 

If that isn't enough, after all my feelings that Montessori was absolutely not right for my kid, I'm putting him in a Montessori school for his last year of preschool.

Why the upheaval?

Why bother?

I know in a year or five this will not matter, but right now... it does. 

While there were lots of positve aspects to Shnook's prior preschool, and a couple of reasons we thought we should stay, they were not really the right reasons. 

I'm not sure if I'd feel this way at another Reggio Preschool, but I have to say, I'm bummed it didn't work out, because on paper, Reggio Emilia sounds super awesome and inspiring as both a former educator and a parent.

However, I guess it's all about the execution, and the reception. We came to the conclusion that our kid was doing a whole lot of sitting around in meetings. Sometimes, he was offering ideas, but from their records and my own observation, it wasn't enough to keep him motivated. The bottom line is that he wasn't doing as much as sitting, listening and occasionally talking, and that's what you have to do for most of your adult life. TSA and I could both tell, he wasn't totally happy. 

This wasn't to say he was completely "unhappy," but, hell! It's preschool! Shouldn't he be happy?At least generally???

Also, after being around him all day, every day,  for 3 months of summer, I realized he really liked to "do stuff" all the time and he needed a bit more...erm... structure than he was being offered (did you hear that whip crack?).  

It's now been 3 weeks since he started his new school and I've noticed  he's more engaged in his classroom than he ever was last year. He talks more about school, the kids and what he did all day. Could this be because he's matured? After all, "4 is a whole lot older and bigger than 3." he told me. 

Absolutely. 

Regardless, I never thought I'd be one of those parents who switched her kid's preschool willy nilly. I tried to explain the situation to my retired teacher neighbors in Vermont, I'm pretty sure they thought I was  a crazed, overbearing, helicopter  mother.  

So goes another unexpected hurdle of this thing they call parenting...

onto the mass hysteria of the Kindergarten search.

Photo by zoyachubby on Flickr 

Comments

[Cassandra]

Ha! My son was a mess in last year's "Reggio inspired" preschool. After one month in Montessori preschool, he's completely blossomed. He wants to go to school even on the weekends. I think there are a lot of misconceptions about Montessori. First of all, it's not overly "structured": Kids get to pick their own "jobs", so they get to feel empowered by making their own choices! (Unlike at Reggio inspired schools, where they get lumped into a group project based on someone else's choosing.) They are called jobs to foster a positive attitude about work: because they are actually fun projects. And best of all, they work on their jobs at their own speed. Also at my son's Montessori school, there are plenty of GROUP activities, too, like music and Spanish class... And a show-and-tell style "share" once a week. My son's Reggio school last year had 5 teachers for 20 kids and it was total chaos in that classroom. His Montessori school this year has only 2 teachers for 25 kids and it's as calm (yet lively) and peaceful as can be. The Montessori training these teachers have is some kind of magical method I have yet to fully understand. They believe in empowering your kid to be INDEPENDENT and my own kid is way more confident as a result. Rather than trying to control the kids, they seem to guide them.

[Italy]

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