Montessori methods of learning offered at area school
By Kellen Olshefski
Staff Writer
On a parcel of land between East Troy and Mukwonago, a man has built a program, providing educational experiences unlike any other in the area.
Geoffrey Bishop, founder and executive director of Nature’s Classroom Institute and Montessori School in Mukwonago, began his life journey on a sheep farm in North West NSW, Australia.
After his childhood, he spent five years at an agricultural boarding school to go on to study Horticulture and Landscape Architecture at universities in Sydney and Melbourne.
After higher education, he traveled the world for 10 years, spending most of his time trekking the rural areas of more than 80 countries, learning cultures and finding an understanding of his place in the world.
Then, in the mid 90s, Bishop came to Wisconsin to open an organization focusing on organics, sustainability of school, getting children back outdoors, and helping adults understand the importance of play in the natural world.
Environmental education
Established in 1996, the environmental, education program which operates during the normal academic year, services 80 schools across the nation from Wisconsin to Texas.
The program works with schools, public, private, inner city and Montessori, bringing in students for a weeklong program.
“Some would describe it as similar to a camp, but the only similarities to a camp is that they stay here overnight,” Bishop said. “The rest is completely different.”
Bishop explained where the program differs from a camp is when a school expresses interest in a weeklong program, the organization goes into the school, examines the curriculum, and builds a personalized program to fit the school and the students they’re sending.
He said when most people think of an environmental education center, they think of a nature education center, teaching about the natural world. However, he said this is only about 10 percent to 15 percent of the academic curriculum that happens during the week.
“Environmental education, when you break it down, is basically everything in the built and natural world,” he said. “In our program, kids can be learning geometry in an outdoor environmental education center.
“We’re using the environment to teach geometry or we’re using the natural environment as a background or catalyst to our history curriculum or whatever it happens to be.”
He went on to explain that being an outdoor learning experience, the organization ensures that students involved are prepared for all kinds of weather – they have everything they need.
Bishop said the organization has spent a lot of money, especially for inner-city children, making sure every child is dressed for the weather.
“We’ve actually purchase snow pants, boots, gloves, everything so that every kid is well prepared to be here dress-wise so they can enjoy their learning without worrying about it.”
Students arrive on Monday mornings and stay in one of the property’s 28 bedrooms, each equipped with two to three bunk beds and its own bathroom.
Bishop said he invented, built and wrote the curriculum because he wanted children to be able to learn in a hands-on approach. He said holding class in a natural environment helps the lesson to stick in the children’s memory.
“If you saw it in a book, I can guarantee that in 15 years you will have no idea what a marsh is,” he said. “But if I’m standing on a marsh, I can put my hand on it, I can guarantee in 15 years time you’ll say, yeah, I know what a marsh is. A marsh is this spongy grass thing.
“At least they can give you some basic idea of what it is. I’m not saying they’re going to remember every minute detail, but they’ll have a recollection of the difference between a marsh and a prairie.”
Bishop also said the natural environment is a great base for creative writing as it’s something children can use to write about things they see or feel.
“Most kids hate poetry. We have kids doing poetry out in the natural environment and they love it,” Bishop said. “We have kids writing poetry out in the natural environment and they go crazy because they understand what they’re writing about and how it relates to their inner feeling.”
One of the most incredible things about Bishop’s program is that the kids who come back year after year, some as many as 14 times according to Bishop, never get the same experience.
“It’s not just coming in and you get the same program … we track all those kids and what they’ve done so that we can change the program so that each time they come, they have a unique program.”
The Montessori School
Bishop has also created another national presence on the parcel of land – the Montessori School, which opened in 2001.
“We have the national American Montessori Society calling us, asking us to do things,” he said.
“We’re like a little pin-hole, 65 kids in the middle of rural Wisconsin, but we have the national Montessori body looking at what we’re doing here for inspiration on what to do at other Montessori schools.”
According to Bishop, the Montessori methodology was pioneered by Maria Montessori in the 1800s. The psychologist and physician studied and observed the way children learned and interacted. From this study, she made assumptions on brain activity and how learning works.
“So, Montessori looked and said, a child has the capacity to learn, no matter where they come from,” he said. “She understood that each child needs to be presented an education in its own unique way.
Bishop’s school starts children at as young as two and a half years old, fostering an environment to promote independence and self-learning.
Bishop said Montessori focuses on the individual education of the child – the child’s ability to independently learn and make independent choices.
According to Bishop, the Montessori method essentially has three main parts. First, the trained educator builds an environment that is attractive, resourceful and meets the child’s needs regardless of their age or academic development.
“Most people look in a Montessori classroom and say, oh, what beautiful toys,” he said. “There isn’t a single item in a Montessori classroom that doesn’t have an educational goal … a progressive goal that goes all the way up through their Montessori education.”
The second part is when the educator presents the lesson and materials to the child.
The third part is observation. The educator watches and takes notes on how the child learns, where their interests are, where they’re struggling, and so forth.
The objective of the child, now that an attractive learning environment has been built, is to come in, take care of their clothes and lunch order, choose a lesson, and start working – all without adult interaction.
“They’re not coming in, waiting for a teacher to say, OK, let’s get to work,” Bishop said. “Just like when you go to work, you don’t have an adult telling you, OK, now, there’s your desk and here’s what you’ve got to do for the day.
“You know what you’ve got to do. You go in, get started and do your job. That’s exactly what happens in a Montessori classroom.”
With a Montessori classroom also focusing on social interaction, according to Bishop, students often go to teachers to learn what other students are doing.
“At some time, they’ll go to the teacher and say, I want a lesson on this work because I’ve seen other students using it, and I’m interested in using it.”
Lessons cover everything from, starting with the “little ones” on practical life lessons such as focus, pouring liquids and the pincer grip used for writing, up through algebra, geometry and economics with the middle school students.
According to Bishop, Montessori believed “sensitive periods” when a child is most open to learning a skill. They happen throughout the development of a child and it’s these periods Montessori educators watch for.
“The teacher needs to discover those sensitive periods and be able to help the child learn within those periods,” he said.
Montessori education starts at such a young age due to the amount of learning a child engages in between the ages of 0 to 6, according to Bishop.
“Between 0 to 6, the human ability to learn is off the charts because when you think about it, they’re learning an entire language, motor control system, they learn how we, as a society, function, who are relatives, strangers,” he said.
“You start to think, wow, that’s a massive amount of knowledge. That period of 0 to 6 is an extremely important part of a child’s education.”
However, the young ones aren’t the only children receiving an education here. Children up through ninth grade attend the school, and parents are pushing for a high school program.
Most importantly, however, is the life skills students learn at the school.
“That’s the type of educational system we’re putting together. It’s practical, it’s related to the real world, and kids are in charge of it,” he said. “That’s what our motto is – ‘Preparing your kids for life.’”
