The news around here is that last Monday I started a job teaching at a private Montessori elementary school.
I started to write 'big news', but I feel really ambiguous about the job.
I was not at all looking to teach kids again because the pay is so low. I was practically hired sight-unseen though, so I figured I couldn't turn down the job. A teacher at the school met some friends of mine and when she said her school couldn't find an anglophone teacher my friends gave her my name. I didn't even write a cover letter; they proposed an interview right away and then wanted to hire me.
Everyone has been asking me how it's going, and I don't know yet how to respond. My colleagues are great, which is a huge relief. But I'd never been in a Montessori environment before so it's a big adjustment. Some of the kids are just wonderful and one girl in particular has decided I'm her new best friend, but then there are the kids with behavioral problems or the poor boy who smells bad and always has dripping boogers.
The job is very yin and yang in the end: the salary sucks, but I have Wednesday's off; I have to be at work at 8:15am, but I'm done by 5:15pm; it's really really tiring, but I'll have 4 weeks of (not all paid) vacation before the end of the school year.
I've discovered that most French people have not heard about the Montessori method. Describing it, I've had some pretty strong reactions as well. A lot of French people don't think the kids will learn what they need to go onto collège. Part of the Montessori method are lessons on "grace and courtesy" where children do role playing to practice good manners and conflict management. When I mentioned this to a colleague of B's, she was shocked that a teacher should be spending time to teach kids manners when that clearly fell entirely on the parents in her opinion.
The American teacher I'm replacing until the end of the year said the school isn't run much like the Montessori school she went to as a kid, so I wonder what role each culture plays in influencing the method. Anyone else seen a Montessori or Waldorf (called Steiner in France) school in France?
4 comments:
well first, congrats on the job. A job is a job right? Even if the pay sucks...
I've never taught at a Montessori school and I never will. In my opinion, teaching kids manners and 'conflict management' is the parents' job, not a teacher's. Plus, I hate kids so that might have something to do with my decision too :p
Congrats!
I've been to a Montessori school in Canada and I have really fond memories of the years spent there :)
Congratulations on the job - I'm sure it will be an interesting experience even if it's not exactly your dream.
All schools teach kids manners (I think ... I hope!)It's just that normally it's done little by little rather than in special lessons.
With early morning care, the canteen, after school activities and parents who work long hours, lots of kids spend more time at school than they do at home. If schools didn't teach manners, often nobody else would and the teachers and other kids would suffer the consequences far more than the parents!
Thanks everyone!
As my parents pointed out, kids don't really make a difference between what they learn at home and at school. It's just their life. They also have trouble with time/space (they ask a lot on Tuesdays and Fridays if there's school the next day), so they definitely haven't mastered the concept of applying what their parents say to other situations.
To make the best out of the situation, I think I'm going to focus on teaching a core group of students well, and letting the other 2 teachers deal with the problem kids.
Post a Comment