The Case for Half-Day Montessori

P. Donohue Shortridge/Children/The Case for Half-Day Montessori
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The Case for Half-Day Montessori

     When Nancy McCormick Rambusch reinvigorated Montessori in America in the 1960s, she implemented an American interpretation of Montessori education. Not wedded to the legacy of those who received training from Maria Montessori herself, American Montessorians were free of the rigid instruction of the European Montessorians who transcribed and prescribed Montessori's words and deeds wholesale. American Montessori included a reformulation of such issues as limit setting, and sought a greater focus on observational pedagogy as well as a more vigorous training of teachers including a requirement of a university degree (Rambusch 1963). Schools sprang forth from the tireless energies of passionate families who sought to create a quality learning experience for their children (Valley 2001). These families valued Montessori education as a natural extension of the hands-on parenting that was taking place in the home. The Montessori iteration in those days was a half-day program for children who would return home in the afternoon.

     For about twenty years, Rambusch's model represented the standard for most Montessori environments. When I began teaching in the early 1980s, the toddler program at our school welcomed 2 year-olds for two hours per day for either two or three days per week. The early childhood program was a three-hour session with an extended day for 5 and 6 year-olds. Most schools at the time followed a somewhat similar schedule. With the rise of the working mother in the last quarter of the 20th century, the face of American Montessori changed (Turner 1991). Many parents became less invested in the school, indeed prospective families often looked for day-care first, and a Montessori experience only second. Many Montessori school administrators and teachers today report that they have difficulty in enticing parents to even attend parent nights, let alone become involved in understanding the Montessori connection between school and home (Shortridge 2003).

     Montessori schools, facing increasing competition from corporate day care made concessions to what seemed like the inevitable and held their centers open for longer and longer hours. The seismic shifts in family life also coincided with the proliferation of the Montessori infant/toddler programs, often available all day. Which dynamic begot which is an open question, but nevertheless, Montessorians tacitly endorsed parents leaving their now even younger children in professional care for a greater percentage of the day than these children were awake at home.

     Over the years, I have interviewed Montessori administrators, AMS leaders, teachers, assistants, parents and most interestingly, the afternoon caregivers at Montessori schools. They mostly agree that the half-day model is best for children, but . . . .

     They have expressed to me a helpless, hopeless resignation that parents need daycare, but add, some only half-heartedly, that it is better that the children be with us than at the corporate daycare (Shortridge 2003).

     Can we be comforted by this explanation? Why have we transformed the Montessori early childhood experience into daycare? The Montessori day for the young child now takes place over seven, eight, nine and even ten or eleven hours per day. Have the needs of children changed since 1960? Or have we altered our practice because parents have demanded that we do?

     The on-going cultural debate for and against working mothers often presents the issues from the perspective of the adult but rarely looks critically at what is best for the child. On the one hand, Working Mother magazine presumes the validity of its case by the mere existence of the magazine. Adult-free pre-packaged food advertises that no mother is needed here either and reassures the harried mother that her child will be fine without her. Critics of daycare are assaulted with accusations of seeking to drive women back to the stove. On the other hand, working moms feel guilty all day long about the time they spend away from their children. They are torn between their desire for work outside the home and a desire to be with their children. But regardless of these arguments, it is the child that stands mute in the debate. His only means to demonstrate his distress is in how he behaves.

     Critical observation is essential in learning how young children respond to being separated from their mothers for long hours every day. I cannot state it better than a master Montessori teacher who has worked with toddlers for over thirteen years:

Very young children don't have the emotional or social maturity to maintain a sense of well being beyond a few hours . . . I have found that children in the toddler years can actually do very well with coming to school five days a week if they go home before they are too tired or too hungry or too worried about when they'll see mom or dad again. I have had children who knew that their mom would be along when we returned from our walk, so they would climb into the cart as soon as mom had left and want to go for our walk. What I have learned is that children will get used to whatever we throw at them . . . after all, what choice do they have (Shortridge 2003)?

     Indeed.

     We in America subscribe to the free market system. But what is incumbent upon us as consumers and producers of goods and services is to be conscious, responsible, informed traders. Whether a business owner or employee, Montessorians bring their convictions with them when they make choices about where they work and how they set up their businesses. One Montessori school owner who has steadfastly adhered to a three-hour program admits that she has a hard time making it financially. She would like to own her own school, but she will continue to rent from the church rather than become a daycare center to pay the bills. She said she is committed to not endorsing having children away from their parents for that many hours (Shortridge 2003).

     We are open and so they come. Montessorians defend the choice to provide daycare with various reasons. Many cite financial realities. They often assert that they have no choice but to give the parents what parents say they want. But what do parents say? On the one hand, many parents have a misunderstanding of what young children need, developmentally. In a 1997 survey, sponsored by the Zero to Three National Center for Infants, Toddlers and Families, over half of parents responding thought that young children needed exposure to more rather than fewer caregivers in a day (Fisher1997). But other parents zoom right into the heart of it. One mother admitted to me that she doesn't often go into the center because she knows if she did, she would have to change her life to be more available to her child (Shortridge 2003). And then, how do we respond to that parental guilt? When the anxious parent arrives at the end of the very long day for her and her young child, she wants to be reassured that her child is OK. Do we give her our honest assessment or do we sooth the mother's guilt at the expense of the truth? It becomes a vicious cycle.

     The reality is that Montessori schools, by and large, are now open for the entire day. The shift has been made from early childhood education to daycare, even though Montessorians don't often openly debate the merits of this shift. Some call it Montessori extended care (Turner 1991) and many provide a quality program, but who is the consumer? Parents look to Montessorians as the experts in child development and reasonably assume that we know what's best for children. Doesn't it logically follow that if a Montessori center offers a 10-hour day program, parents may conclude that we child experts think it is a good idea to do so? Or, on the other hand do they observe us as we operate Montessori daycare even though we do not believe in it? The question begs itself, Are we following the child?

     We observe that young children attach to one or two people who love them unconditionally, yet attachment studies come down on all sides of the issue of attachment and daycare. The controversial Minnesota Longitudinal Study of Children and Parents caused a stir in recent years because it addressed the hot-button issues of daycare and attachment. Conducted by Jay Belsky and his colleagues, proponents and opponents of daycare each claimed something for themselves. Daycare proponents cited findings that children acquired more verbal skills in daycare while opponents pointed to higher levels of aggression. Nevertheless, Belsky expressed concerns over the long day for young children.

Higher levels of non-maternal care, regardless of its observed quality, predicted the emergence of 'insecure attachments' between children and their mothers and the development of various kinds of problem behaviors (Belsky 2002, 167-170).

It might be useful to observe at any center, Montessori or otherwise, from 3:30 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. or to follow a parent and young child to the supermarket at 5:30 p.m. Observation is the key. As Maria Montessori herself said of her own observation skills, "He should open his eyes, I can't help it if things he says are impossible continue to happen." (Kramer 1976, 258).

Children indeed benefit from a quality early childhood experience, but that can be accomplished in two to three hours per day. What they fundamentally need is more hours at home with their parents. We can help parents make the choice to be with their children. Start a dialog with teachers, administrators and parents to assess whether Montessori all day serves the child. And, invigorate the debate at the national level. As a Montessori teacher trainer, I have learned from my students that most Montessorians choose this work from a desire to innovate, lead and seek the truth. We are not followers or conformists; most of us want to change the world. Are we practicing what we know? We are service providers; not merely in the technical sense of the practical service we provide, but in a larger realm we are in service to the secret of childhood. We know this. Let our practice be guided by what we know to be true. Daycare encompasses the whole day and early childhood education requires only half the day.

References

Belsky, J. (2002) Quality Counts: Amount of Child Care and Children's Sociemotional Development. Journal of Development and Behavioral Pediatrics 23 (3), 167- 170.

Fisher, D. (1997) Pre to Three: Policy Implications of Child Brain Development Testimony before Senate Subcommittee on Children and Families, June 5, 1997.

Kramer, R. (1976) Maria Montessori, A Biography, New York: Capricorn.

Rambusch N. (1963) interview of Nancy McCormick Rambusch reprinted from the Catholic Register, May 31, 1963, found in Special Collections, Millbank Memorial Library, Teachers College, Columbia University, MG 136, Box 9, Section 7.1, Folder 5.

Shortridge, P. (2003) Six Essentials: What Seasoned Montessorians Know. Unpublished Manuscript.

Turner, J. (1991, Fall). Montessori: Common Core in Diverse Daycare Settings. Montessori Life, 3(4), 12-17.

Valley, R. (1976) Starting a Montessori School in the 60's. Montessori Life, 12(1),9.

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