anyone with experience with montessori teaching.looking at enrolling my 3 yr old son.pros vs cons.this is all new to me.can't start pre school until fall '09.he's busy busy,needs something to feed his mind during the day.we use a private sitter now.she is good with him,just so much she can do,basics.thanks for any insight and MERRY CHRISTMAS.

My youngest son has been attending a private Montessori school for the last four years. The things he has learned are light years beyond the standard course cirriculum in a public school setting. The reason we took the Montessori approach was because our oldest who is 8 years older recently went thru a public (Magnet) school program and found himself unchallenged a few years back. He is now in his second year at OU and hopefully headed to the Dartmouth Medical program in a few years. IMO The public school setting has been and will be. A one size fits all approach that is geared to emphasize standardized testing which in turn if all goes well benefit the school. Which is fine. But, again only my opinion, thanks to "No child left behind" this environment often creates disparity among those who would excel against those who lag. Which is why we placed our youngest in private school, in public school he too found himself ahead of the curve and would complete his tasks, then sat and waited. Since you've asked for Montessori pros and cons I'll share a few ;)

Pros:
Smaller class sizes.
Less stress.
Open learning environment.
Specific one on one teaching.
Cirriculum geared towards your child.
Improving behavioral skills by:
Fostering independent thought as well as critical thinking.
Fostering leadership skills, the older children help the younger children often teaching them where to find information and how to apply it.
Fostering social skills.
Creating the initiative to be self driven and the ability to think outside the box.

Cons:
Some Montessori schools do not have standardized testing which creates issues if you stay long enough thru 5th grade to consider transfering into a Magnet program without placement scores.
If your child exhibits procrastination, learning on their own curve maybe time consuming until they figure it out.
Monthly Costs
Donation Costs
Lack of tests and no grading.
Lack of teaching to the test, which could be considered either pro or con.

If you have any more questions pm me I'll help if I can.

I don't know that much about Montessori, but it sounds pretty good from the above. Of course, there's the additional cost. Just want to throw out some general ideas to consider.

Public schools are a "one size fits all" to some degree. However, public schools also work with special needs students, students with disabilities, students who come from poverty stricken communities and the like. So they have much more to deal with than a private school.

The testing issue is a problem for the public schools. Curriculum is now being influenced by the tests they have to take to satisfy the state and the feds. This isn't necessarily a bad thing (for the upper grades), though I've seen kids taking five or six practice tests and that sort of thing, and they're in 4th grade.

I would look closely at the available schools, including the Montessori one. In terms of public education in this country there are a wide variety of schools, some that are excellent and as good or better than many private schools, some public schools that are really bad, and a bunch that are in the middle somewhere.

I've been a teacher (college and high school) for the past 15 years or so. I think that what matters the most is what you do with your child when he comes home from school. Does he sit and watch TV and play video games? Or does he read, write, practice the instrument he's learning, go to basketball or wrestling practice, do some wrench turning in the garage with the old man? Build Lego castles? Basically explore the world in an active way.

My two cents.

Just something to think about-

A friend of mine from the neighborhood attended a montessori school up until about 5th grade. When he came to public school, he was a little bit further along then the rest of the kids. The school advanced him a grade. When we went to highschool, they had just finished a new one so they split the freshmen class between the two campuses. I lost touch with him until senior year. I met him at my school and found out that he was held back and now was in a "correctional" school (it was a school built next to mine for people who had failed to graduate, and were on the verge of dropping out). He pulled a 4.0 in the material he knew but almost "shut down" from learning any new material because he said people knew more then him and he couldn't do any better.

He may be a rare case but I truly believe that grades and tests need to be established. I remember bringing A+ test scores home to show my parents and when I got lower grades, I worked harder to improve them.