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by Sharlet J. McClurkin

The best word to use for what happens to children who leave for public or a separate Montessori “kindergarten” is that their education is “truncated”. This means that the apex of their work is cut off, like the removal of the top of a triangle. They miss 1/3 of their possible learning and miss out on the most important year of Montessori.

Maria Montessori:

Our method has the advantage of being able to draw together children of very different backgrounds. In our first Children's Houses there were children of 2 ½, still too young for the simplest exercises of the senses, and children over five who, because of their attainments, could have passed after a few months into the third grade. In our schools each child advances and perfects himself according to his own individual ability. This method contains the further advantage in that it would make teaching in schools in the country and in small villages in the provinces, where the number of students and teachers is limited, quite easy. Our experiences have shown that a single teacher can supervise children ranging from the ages of three to seven. Since children in our schools learn easily how to write, if our method was more generally copied, illiteracy could be fought and reading promoted.

As far as the teacher is concerned, she can remain a whole day with children of such different stages of development without exhausting herself, just as a mother at home passes the entire day from morning to night with her children without growing tired. (Discovery of the Child, p. 320)

The child who completes the 3-year program is a different being. S/he becomes a beautiful equilateral, completed triangle. But the child who leaves is a “trapezoid”, so to speak, and never reaches the pinnacle of his/her full potential in the Montessori classroom.

Maria Montessori:

Anyone who visits a well-managed school is struck by the discipline of the children. Here are forty children from three to seven years of age, all intent of their own particular work. Some are doing the sense exercises, some arithmetic, some are touching letters, some are drawing, some are at the cloth frames, some are dusting, some are spread out on the floor. A faint noise can be heard of objects being lightly moved about and of children walking on tip-toe. Every now and then a poorly repressed shout of joy is heard. There is an eager shout: “Teacher! Teacher!” Or an exclamation: “Look at what I have done!”

But more frequently there is absolute concentration. A little child of three works peacefully alongside a boy of seven and is as contented with his own work as he is about the fact he is shorter and does not have to envy the older boy's height. They all grow up in the most profound peace. (Discovery of the Child, pp 302-303)