Your feedback on public vs. montessori type schools.

[tiffanyh]

Thanks guys.
We had aonther horrible day yesterday. Apparently my son cried after recess and having to head back to the classroom. He supposively said to her "I want to go home to my mom" and she said "Well theres nothing I can do about that" and left him crying.

Now I dont know what really happen or the context in which it was said, but I cant imagine a situation where it is okay to handle an upset new 1st grader that way. Our school does 1/2 day kindergarden, so this is his first time out of the house all day so it is tough.

Im not saying my son is necessarily right, I know kids dont always tell teh complete truth. And I do not tend to "over baby" my kids. But I do want school to be a comfortable safe place for him and now he feels like his teacher doesn't like him AND he is nervous about school.

I really dont know where to go from here. My gut is telling me not to ignore this.

 

[nop169]

Let me start by saying that my 10 yo daughter goes to a private christian school and is in the 5th grade this year. Our reasons for choosing this school:
1)we have more control in what our child is taught & wanted a school that reflects our moral values - something sadly lacking in our public schools.
2) Our daughter is very bright (all As for all 5 years) & gets bored easily with schoolwork. In the private school she is one of 12 to 15 students per class & receives the individual attention that challenges her & allows her to progress faster than others who are not as motivated. In public schools locally, the typical class is 32 students per class (1 teacher).
3) The private school is small enough that our child is well known in a "family" of concerned people, but large enough that she benifits from socialization. This allows her behavior & the behavior of other students to be monitored more closely than in public school - public school where a close friend's teenager was having sex under the stairway & no one "noticed".
4) with rampent drug use in our repressed rural area & with the media portraying sex at such an open & alarming way - we felt that our child would be in a better, safer & more conservative school by using the private school.

That being said - please note that we are not socialites nor are we wealthy. We are a middle class family on a 24 acre farm. My wife is a RN & I own a small bussiness. We are common folk who limit the exposure of our child to sex, drugs & violence. We are not super "churchy", actually do not go regularly - but we are moral & try to live decent lives & give back to our community - we are most likely like most of you.

The problem of private school is:
1) THE COST - it is around 440.00 per month plus transportation & lunches. But we feel the cost is justified & choose to send her rather than driving a new car or buying a registered horse... choices we make for the betterment of our family & morales.
2) Not all children at the school are there for the same reason - a few have been placed there because of trouble in public school so the potential for a bad influence is in our school like the public school. The difference is that our parents are involved & are required to be involved. I may not agree with everyones lifestyle or beliefs - we have everything from nonbelievers to extremist - but the parents are involved with the school & their kids & we all want our kids to have a certain amount of morality, to abstain from drugs, & that sex is age appropriate (hopefully after marriage for mine!).

Public schools in our area are bad about asking for more money for bigger buildings & so on but our student to teacher ratio is 30 to 1. The teachers have no control of students in today's schools. DRAMA & sex are rampent among students from 8th grade up. Drugs are available & easily gotten. The parents are not involved.

Our public schools do try - but until the parents intervene & become involved - the issues will continue to spiral out of control. Our public school teachers do try - but children today have no respect & will only do what they want to. Friends who teach feel defeated & overwhelmed. One said she dedicated her life to teach children but feels as if she is in a war zone.

We live in a southern rural area with a severly depressed economy. Stable decent paying jobs in our area is from either the local hospital or duke power. Goverment assistance is a way of life for many & we have seen an epidemic of single parent homes & latch key children. There is a lack of concern for the children while the parents are out living their lives. Drug abuse is common & meth is the choice of death. No longer is there a community of morality & family - it has become in the last year a dog eat dog society. Our (yes I also claim the responsibility for our local lost youth) young people have few choices & no longer does grandma's southern morality reign. It has become a gratification now - regardless of the consequences - society. Is all hope lost? No - but this is why we chose to place our child in a school where we have greater control & she has a chance of pursuing her dreams without the influence of today's vices. I hope & pray she will thrive.

 

[mom'sfolly]

I think a talk with your child's teacher and perhaps the counselor is in order. It may be a teacher/student problem where the teacher and your child don't "click". Or it could be a classroom issue. Here class size is limited to 22 or 23 students in first grade.

First grade is too early for a child to hate school. I would go with your gut here. It is still early days of the school year so keep in mind that fatigue, a new schedule, new people and expectations and a seperation from mom could all be invovled to make this a rough transition for your child.

 

[tdkmom]

My kids go to a public school. We have tossed around the idea of a charter school for our oldest (daughter just started 11th) due to several factors. One being that she has always been very intelligent and only in 1st grade ever had a teacher who would challenge her. All of her teachers have agreed that she is bored in class and only one offered a suggestion. It was that since she finishes class work so early that she could bring any reading material she wanted to class to do while waiting for everyone else. Our school does not want anyone to be ahead of anyone else. As time went on she got very disgusted with the immaturity of girls her age and hated going to school. She still maintained all A's but...so this year the option came up for her to go to a Technical school. She is so much happier there. The kids are there to learn a trade whether they are going to work directly out of high school or continuing their education. My daughter is taking an Allied Health/Sports Medicine curriculum so that she can begin a Physical Therapy Doctorate program after high school. If the option around here had been available earlier then she would have began a charter school around 7th grade. My son is in public school also (3rd grade) and loves it so far and I have been very lucky with the teachers he has had so far. They have pushed him more and he loves being with friends. I won't go through what I did with my daughter though so at any time I feel it's not working, I will pull him and keep him at home. Hating school is the worst thing for both the child and parent.

 

[simplyscrambled]

I don't know any other districts other than my own, but we have many, many options. We have neighborhood schools, a Spanish Immersion program, Montessori, multi-age program (I teach this), and School for Independent Study which includes a Homeschooling portion, as well as a small 2 room school on the outskirts of town with required parent involvement. Different programs for different children and their families.

Certainly talk with the teacher and the principal and see if together you can find a solution for your child.

A teacher should be able to differentiate his/her program.I know in my own multi-age classroom of 1st/2nd/3rd, for example, I have 1st that are learning 1 to 1 correspondence and number formation to a 3rd grade boy that completed 50 problems of simplifying fractions in 1 1/2 minutes! (We've had him for 1/2/3 and he was one of those bright but bored students that caused 'trouble' in K because he was bored.) I guess I'm saying it's highly teacher dependent as far as what a classroom is like, rather than 'public schools' vs 'home school' or 'private school'.

 

[dlhunicorn]

Why have you specifically asked about a montessori school (is there one near you?)
There are different "types" of montessori... There are also private (usually christian private) schools which utilize a "type" of montessori-like system where the child learns at his "own pace" (so geared to the individual child and not dependent on the whole class of individual students doing the exact same thing at the same time) > I like these systems.
My daughter went to a montessori school (granted it was here in holland but the principles are the same. She is dyslexic and this was the only school type at that time that allowed her to deal with the specific problems that arose from that... it increased her self confidence and she is now a teaching assistant in special education. She did try going to a "normal" system later in high school but that did not work out and she returned to the montessori where she flourished.
My son on the other hand would have failed miserably at the montessori but flourished in the first type described above (the montessori was just too much freedom for him)
With your son being so young it is difficult to decide on which would be more suitable for him and then it all depends what is on offer in your particular area but my gut feeling in this case (from your description) that home schooling would not be suitable as he is already finding social interaction and problem solving trying... he needs more social interaction than you can offer him at home.

 

[rufus]

We sent our kids to a Montessori school through the second grade. It was very expensive, but well worth it. From there they went on to public schools.

The public schools were so far behind the Montessori school because they were bogged down trying to teach kids English. About three quarter of the kids were just learning English, forget about math or reading.

I made sure my kids knew how to read before I sent them to school. If you do not take the time to teach your kids, they are out of luck. Public schools seem like they are too involved in social issues to waste time on education.

The school wanted to know why our kids were not signed up for free lunches. Did we know about the food stamp program, WIC and aid to dependent children? Were we aware of the federal housing programs?

When we went to PTA, we discovered that we were one of the few intact families in the neighborhood.

Rufus

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Quote:
Hear! Hear!!

 

[Suellyn]

TiffanyH.. Any updates?

Quote:
I think THAT is the bottom line... You know your son, and if your gut is telling you that this is an issue that can escalate, or have lasting impact on his attitude towards school, then I would trust it absolutely.

A lot of the focus of Kindergarten and First Grade is (or SHOULD be!), to shape a child's attitude towards school & education... Any teacher worth his/her salt should be promoting a positive/comfortable experience, and ESPECIALLY in the first couple weeks of school for these very young children who are transitioning to a "full day" of school, away from home.

I would definitely contact the teacher & request that the two of you work together to help your son. I would ask for input on specific strategies for both at home and at school, to promote a "team approach".

I would base a lot of my opinion on the teacher, and whether this is going to work out for your son, on the conversations & the school's responsiveness & level of concern/cooperation!!!

Follow your gut.

 

[tofumama]

I homeschool my 3 kids, as I felt that public school was not for us. I have 3 VERY different kids with 3 very different learning styles and personalities. We are fortunate to live in a town with an excellent school system, if we were to choose to ever go that route. For now, this is what works for us. As far as socialization, that is one of the biggest misconceptions about homeschooled kids. My kids not only have friends their own ages, but they also have friends that are older and younger. We belong to a homeschool coop that exposes them to all ages, and being hs'd also affords them the opportunity of being out in the community more as they go everywhere I go. They know many adults in the community, and can interact with them as comfortably as their peers.

Long story short...no one knows your child better than *you* and if you think or feel their is a problem, than I would run with that. Good luck to you with whatever you decide!