Montessori, Roots of Empathy, Aboriginal Headstart and Bank Street.

As I was telling my group about the Bank Street philosophy I realized although there are no Canadian centres that have adopted this model the philosophy has some similarities to Reggio. A couple examples of these similarities are:

  1. The environment a child learns in is very important and is at the root of the two philosophies.
  2. Educating the “whole child” and all domains of development.

When we met as a group I was not sure what the guidelines or regulations Bank Street operated under so I had to go back and do some more research and I was still not able to find anything on licensing or regulations. I did however find that the student to educator ratio is 7:1. Based on my previous research and the fact that the school is nursery-grade 8 I would guess that it is regulated by the education system.

While reading Katy’s research on Montessori programs I was surprised by the “sensitive period” within their philosophy.  This means that children are only taught a new skill if that skill is developmentally appropriate.  I did not know much about Montessori prior to reading Katy’s post but I had a preconceived understanding that it was an aged based developmental milestone program which I have now learned is incorrect.  When our group met I had not yet read Juanita’s post on the Roots of Empathy program but when she was speaking about the program she was so pationate about the philosophy behind the program.  Something she said that struck me was “empathy is not taught it is caught” she had come across this quote while doing her research.  The founder of the program had described empathy this way.  The quote for me embodied the purpose for creating this type of program model.  Both the Roots of Empathy and the Aboriginal  Headstart are fairly new programs which makes sense to me as they both seem to be programs cantered around social and emotional well being of children.  The social and emotional domain of development seems to have a new found focus within the Early Learning community.  Bank Street, Montessori and Roots of Empathy are all models that include school aged children which I really love.  I don’t know why a model, or program, that works for early education should change when a child becomes school aged.  This provides a continuity and community all through a child’s educational journey.

I like pieces of each of these programs and I was surprised about how much I agreed with many aspects of the Montessori philosophy.  The best fit for me is the Aboriginal Headstart.  The family-first approach imbedded in the philosophy fits with my own philosophy.  As well as the emphasis on celebrating children for who they are and what they bring to the program.  Sheena wrote that educators work on empowering families within the Aboriginal Headstart program which is so inspiring and powerful.