Parents’ choice of preschool disciplines: Play, work, or pre-grade school format

A young mother wrote me that she will be sending soon her four-year-old son to a preschool. Her choice is either one of the well-known religious preschools or a Montessori preschool. Could I please distinguish between the two? This is a timely inquiry because young parents are already starting to enroll their preschool children.

Last Monday, April 8, I was invited as a speaker at the 39th annual convention of the Philippine Pediatric Society at the PICC to discuss the pros of sending children to school at an early age, while Dr. Alexis Socorro Reyes defended the cons of early schooling. From the start my co-speaker and I knew that there is actually no need for arguments on this matter. It is simply a case of understanding the true nature of children during the first six years of life.

Play, work, or the grade school format

Unlike public school parents who can barely afford preschooling, parents who send their children to private preschools have a choice of three disciplines: creative play discipline advocated by the University of the Philippines and JASMS, work discipline used in genuine Montessori preschools, or pre-grade school discipline prevalent in most of the sectarian and religious preschools. Many parents and teachers still think that the end goal of preschooling is only to prepare the young child for formal reading, writing and counting, or the traditional learning skills.

Therefore, many parents even wait until the child is five years old before sending him to a preschool, thinking that a one-year preparation for Grade I is sufficient. For public school children who cannot afford preschool, DepEd (the current acronym of the Department of Education) lowered the entry age for regular Grade 1 from seven to six years old in 1995. This is a result of the EDCOM survey of the school system in the Philippines which pointed out that one of the major factors of Grade 1 drop-outs is the lack of preschooling. After seven years, the DepEd compromise of inserting a preschool program during the first two months of the school year should be evaluated.

Blue chip investment

Actually, speaking in stock market language, the blue chip investment is an excellent Early Childhood Education (ECE) and not college education, which many parents save for.

This is a great mistake. By then, parents have missed the greatest investment period of the child between birth to six years. This period of life is characterized by a powerful Absorbent Mind. Between birth to three, the child learns unconsciously. By mere breathing, the child learns how to speak and walk all by himself without the help of any teacher. Dr. Maria Montessori, who discovered the natural developmental energy of children from birth to adolescence analyzed that the Absorbent Mind is like a camera by which a baby absorbs language and behavior of the environment. Thus, a Filipino orphan baby in Paris can speak French better than a scholar in Sorbonne.

The Absorbent Mind of a child acts as a "secret teacher" establishing his routine of waking up, washing, eating breakfast, playing, lunching, napping, taking a walk, supper time, story time and bedtime so that by three to six years old, he can be scholastically directed in a two- to three-hour preschool session.

For economic reasons, parents enroll their children in a preschool at the age of four today. That is all right since he can still be conditioned to love work and order. Our Pagsasarili preschool parents with their modest income can only afford a P350 monthly tuition fee. Their testimonies of how their children continue to amaze their teachers in traditional public or private elementary schools (where they usually enroll) since they are already capable of doing second and third grade work. For the past 19 years, serving eight improved slum areas of Metro Manila, the OB Montessori Pagsasarili Child and Community Foundation has financially sustained itself while continuously unearthing the richest goldmine of childhood — between the third to the sixth years of life.

Routine of a ‘creative’ play school

I would not have appreciated the similarities and differences between a Montessori "work-oriented" versus a "creative" play preschool setup if I did not first experienced the latter at Telly Albert Zulueta’s San Lorenzo Preschool in Makati for four years whose curriculum was inspired by the JASMS program of Doreen Gamboa, a prominent American educator.

I was newly married then and had no children yet. Every morning at the start of a three-hour session from 8 to 11 in the morning, I would make sure the dollhouse had enough play clothes for the fours, who pretended they were papas, mamas, doctors, nurses, etc. I also made sure there were fresh play dough, crayons for freehand drawing, as well as scissors, paste and colored papers in trays laid out in low shelves. Three working tables with benches could sit 30 four-year-olds (junior kindergarten). Work extended to some reading and Math readiness drill sheets. The fives (senior kindergarten) who concentrate on Language and Math workbooks were in another classroom. The special Independence Day, United Nations Day, Christmas or rainy seasons would be the core topic for news sharing, story time or art work.

Rainy day topics would either be tadpoles and frogs, or health rules to prevent catching colds and fever. This would be reinforced with Raindrops or Froggy songs matched by storybooks. With teacher discussing the different aspects of rain, storms, typhoons and floods, during news sharing, each child would be inspired to draw or paint his own impression of such events.

Grade I style preschool

For my generation of the ’60s, we would go to the traditional preschool of Mother Redempta of Sta. Teresa in San Marcelino, Sr. Grazia of St. Scholastica’s or other memorable nuns in the various religious convent schools of the ’60s. As the city population doubled and tripled, private preschools mushroomed in the new subdivisions to help the growing number of young mothers who have started to seek employment and extend the earnings of their husbands. The main consideration was to prepare their children to pass the entrance examination of well-known exclusive elementary schools like La Salle, Ateneo, San Beda, Xavier or Don Bosco for boys or St. Scholastica, Miriam, ICA, Poveda or St. Paul for girls. Even then it was difficult to get a slot in any of them since they give first preference to their own kindergarten students.

In a conventional Filipino kindergarten where classes are segregated by age (nursery for the threes, kindergarten for the fours and prep for the fives), there is an average of 50 children or more, doing the same activity as dictated by the teacher: same pattern of cutting and pasting, same workbook, the common recitation of numbers 1 to 100 together with the alphabets. I was even surprised to see in a convent school the Montessori button frame duplicated 20 times so each can be shared by a pair of children.

Routine in a Montessori or a work-oriented preschool

In an authentic Montessori preschool setup, there are 30 children. The word authentic qualifies the few Montessori preschools who have well-trained teachers and the five sets of Montessori apparata since 90 percent of so-called Montessori preschools have none of these two ingredients but only a signboard and ordinary workbooks. My personal visits to such schools all over the country when I accompany my husband in his speaking engagements confirm this.

Half an hour before school the trained Montessori preschool teacher checks the 25 Practical Life, 13 Sensorial, 20 Language, 9 Math and 18 Geography, History, Botany and Zoology materials. A box or tray holds each apparatus. Picture a classroom with a wash area for hand washing, laundering and furniture washing. Four open shelves, low enough for the child allows him to get number rods, bead chains to count teens and tens up to 1000 as well as the jumbo decimal box which allows small groups to do arithmetic operations using four digit numbers.

I refer to two age groups of threes and fours as the "juniors" and the fives as "seniors". The latter are ready for the three R’s and the sciences using hands-on materials, not workbooks. A writing stand with lead and colored pencils, tracing and lined papers with pencil boxes and paper boards completes his writing paraphernalia. Sandpaper letter boards, classified vocabulary picture cards and moveable alphabet box which is used to "write" words or phrases enable the fours and fives to read and write speedily. Geography puzzle maps of the world, of Asia and the Philippines together with History, Botany and Zoology cards excite the preschoolers.

How do you discipline in preschool?

To a parent, specially a Filipino, the play school class may look chaotic. But since children learn by doing, the apparent chaos is understandable. The teacher’s positive attitude encourages desirable behavior. Thus, instead of saying, "Don’t do this! Don’t do that!" the teacher says, "Walk, not run. Sit on the chair, not on the table. Share materials since we have enough. Let’s be friends..." (when she spots a quarrel that is brewing.)

The conventional way finds the teacher directing the child in everything. The student is believed to be empty or shapeless clay waiting to be molded. Therefore, the teacher tends to dictate: "copy from the blackboard," "read the textbook," or "write down my dictation". Silence and immobility become the criteria for a good grade in Conduct. Since learning is by rote memory, the child’s comprehension and initiative weaken.

The goal of discipline is to help the responsible child build self-control, not to have them blindly obey adult commands since traditional punishment meted causes fear, humiliation, anger, or aggressive behavior among the young preschoolers. Some teachers tend to play favorite resorting to "rewards" of gold or silver stars or punishing the "hyperactive" child by sending her to stand in the corner. This can be traumatic.

A self-help or work-oriented preschool has a well planned classroom. Materials in boxes or trays are within reach of the child. There is a wide range of activities to help the child to care for his person as well as learn independently. No material is duplicated to encourage full concentration and independence of each child. There is no need for the teacher to scold, for each one waits for his turn. A child may watch another work but never interferes. The cycle of work is fulfilled with the child returning every material to its place for keeping. The real discipline is the conditioning of each child to work independently with each apparatus.

I leave the choice to you, young parents.

(The first OB Montessori Pagsasarili Grade School with preschool is made more affordable. It will have its open house on April 18 at #83 Mayor Gil Fernando Avenue, Marikina East Subdivision, San Roque, Marikina City. For inquiries, please call tel. nos. 7229721 to 26 loc. 240)

(For more information please e-mail at exec@obmontessori.edu.ph)