October 23, 2006

I highly recommend Kirkland Montessori. I have two children there—a five-year-old girl and a three-year-old boy---and I find that it is a great learning environment for each of them. Anne Auerbach is an attentive, loving, well-organized teacher. She fosters an atmosphere of kindness and respect. Her love for learning is clear in her excitement in her students’ achievements and insights, and I see every day how this in turn encourages and increases my children’s natural joy of learning.

Many aspects of Kirkland Montessori’s method impress me; below are three in particular:

1. Montessori work challenges each child at his or her capacity at all times. Each work by design provides an individual challenge to the child.

2. The multi-age classroom gives the students the opportunity to teach and to learn from each other. The tendency of older students to exclude the younger ones--that can be seen at some schools--is re-directed toward teaching, at Kirkland Montessori. This provides a good complement at home, where I encourage the children to play and work with their siblings older and younger.

3. One area that fascinates me is the mathematics work. I can see that my children are learning about numbers in a way that bypasses sheer memorization and helps them see and enjoy the relationships of numbers, their order and their beauty.

Overall, I deeply appreciate the atmosphere of dignity and respect at Kirkland Montessori. Each child’s gifts are appreciated while shortcomings are treated with patience. The materials are also treated with respect and kept in order.  The order of the day provides an opportunity for individual contemplation, work with others, and play with others. Anne Auerbach, the Montessori method and the other families have become an important part of my children’s lives.

A grateful parent