[WhiteDaisy128]

I'm a 5th grade teacher here in North Carolina...as part of our initial licenture stuff, we have to spend X ammount of time observing in other classrooms. I observed in a "upper (elementary) grades" classroom in a Montessori School. It was VERY different...from a teacher standpoint, I didn't like it at all...but perhaps because it's so different than what I'm used to...here is what it was like...

First off, the school was divided into three levels - 1. Primary (which was Pre-K and K); 2. Lower Grades (1st-3rd grades); and 3. Upper grades (4th & 5th grades). I observed in a 4th/5th grade classroom.

It was Monday morning...the kids came in and were 100% silent during morning time...which appeared to just be center type work doing whatever they wanted...then when the bell rang, the teacher went to the front of the room, turned on some music and all the kids came to make a circle...she then (silently) led them through 10 minutes of yoga. Then they all sat down and had a morning meeting. In the meeting they discussed what they wanted to do that week (in the following format):

Teacher (looking at Johnny): Johnny, what do you think you want to do this week?
Johnny: Umm....something in music.
(teacher writes music centers on the board).
Teacher (looking at Sarah): Sarah, what do you want to do this week?
Sarah: Ummm...how about multiplication?
(teacher writes multiplication on the board)
etc.

Then after she gets 6 or 7 suggestions they write them on their individual calendars. She says they each have to do something in each of the areas they just discussed to turn in by Friday. They were to check off things as they got them done.

THen there were work blocks where students worked on their own thing (for example, Johnny might go to finish his music work first, while Sarah went to a math station).

I saw VERY little direct instruction...kids mostly worked from card files or things like that.

Like I said, not for me...I'm not a traditional teacher at all (I teach on a TOTAL integration team), but that was just tooo far out for me...I don't know how the kids pass the standardized tests...not that we need to teach to the tests...but kids have to get a foundation from somewhere and they can't learn the foundation from a card file of activities...

That's just what I saw...I'm not sure how it'd be in the lower grades...