MONTESSORI SHIR-HASHIRIM
Shir Hashirim | Montessori School
When I first opened our preschool in Hollywood in 1985, the name Shir-Hashirim seemed to be just right. Shir-Hashirim translates literally as “Song of Songs,” but the biblical meaning may be closer to “Song of Creation.” Although our name is Hebrew, we honor many traditions and we welcome students and employ faculty and staff without regard to race, color, religion, or national origin.
When you enter our “house for children” — the phrase and concept are original with Maria Montessori — you may be struck by several features of our everyday educational experience. The first impression may be of the silence of the children’s involvement. Our students are between two and six years of age, and many parents, seeing bunches of such young children, expect to witness significant levels of noise, if not outright chaos. A primary commitment of the Montessori method is not rigid discipline but trust that if children are presented with materials finely tuned to their emerging capacities, they will become naturally absorbed in exploring simultaneously, and through an exquisitely quiet interaction, the possibilities of both the materials and themselves. Montessori education is renowned for following the child by respecting his or her individual pace of development, not simply as a philosophical tenet but in the very practical terms of constantly assessing when the child is ready for which new challenge. It is the sustained experience of personal involvement infrequently changing tasks that underlies the development of the independence we see in the classroom, and that many parents report seeing in their homes and as they accompany their children out in the wider world.
The second surprise may come from noting how the children help and learn from each other. Teachers present new materials and supervise their use, but the children frequently help each other. Our classrooms mix ages that are separated in many educational settings, and this mixing leads naturally to older or more experienced children helping novices in given tasks. The young child naturally looks to the older with respect and for guidance, and the older or more experienced child often learns most profoundly from teaching, an experience we share with them.