When I was looking for child participants for a research study, I was told to talk to this school. Immeadiately, I was impressed with the director's openess to research and willingness to help me gain parental trust and get participants. Dropping off the consent forms, I was directly impressed with the school. Physically, the school was clean, bright and well organized. Psychologically, the environment was calm and nurturing. As I continued to be at the school (running my study) I noticed that children did not need to be told to behave or stay on task, they did all this by choice. Children worked independently on various tasks that were tailored to their own developmental level. Teachers were guides, and children were in direct charge of their own learning- THEY WANTED TO BE!
Montessori schools supposedly all run on the philosophy of self guided learning, but I'm not sure they all nurture the child as well as this school in Nittany Valley.
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