We entertained on Saturday evening. We hadn't met our friend's female partner before but we're very interested to meet her as she started a 'Montessori' school about 25 years ago and it continues to thrive.
What is a 'Montessori' school, you may be thinking.
By coincidence, we had recently seen the french film, The Class, about the jungle and battleground that is secondary education in inner city french secondary schools. No different from many of our own. Defensive, unruly, demoralising, sullen environments in which no one is in control and there is a 'slow-burn war of attrition between teachers and a minority of disruptive kids where the few often manage to prevent the education of the many from reaching their potential. Brilliant film but with a dark message.
Montessori' is not a trademark or a brand, but a teaching method developed by the Italian physician and educator, Maria Montessori, who died in 1952. She believed that we should support children to explore and use thier inner natural guidance for self-directed development. The method can be applied to children from 2 years old up to 13 years of age.
We were intrigued and our guest, whom we will call 'Maria' without being preachy or sententious, fielded our questions impressively. The whole experience, it seems, of children in such a school is one where the child's true interests are focussed on and nurtured while the child remains interested in them and until the child wants to move on, not the teacher.
A recipe for disaster, you may think, but this is a school which has consistently been given top marks on inspection and whose children when moving on to secondary schools or higher education achieve high standards and are seen as well-rounded a extremely literate and confident young people.
This was a dinner party, not a press conference, and so we didn't linger too long on the topic but, having spent an evening with 'Maria' we were very impressed and both felt that we wanted to be whisked back 50 years in a time machine and implore our parents to get us into such a school. Simplistic? Possibly. However I have no doubt that there are many children for whom mainstream schooling is anathema and for whom this alternative would be a lifesaver, giving them a touchstone, some bedrock for their self esteem and confidence for the rest of their lives.
Our friend's school is clearly run on a modest budget but amazingly there are many volunteers, some of them professional people, giving expert help, support and guidance, for nothing, simply because of their belief in the project.
It was uplifting to hear such a hopeful message on a cold January evening as we extricate ourselves from another winter.
In our next lifetime, that's where we're heading!
