We had to make a big decision today.
Eloïse was set to move after the summer from Het Speelhol to a new peuterspeelzaal, namely that belonging to the Amsterdamse Montessori School, about a kilometre from here.
The reason for the move was that Eloïse had been guaranteed a place at the Amsterdamse Montessori School from the age of four. However, places at the school are almost exclusively guaranteed to children who previously attend the school’s own play-school from the age of three. In other words, to make use of the place promised to Elo&ium;se at the school proper, we’d have to move her away from her beloved Wanda before she’s ready.
For months now, I’ve been trying to engineer a compromise for this situation. The school is adamant, however, that an exception to their policy cannot be made.
We’d started to resign ourselves to the idea of having to just swallow the situation. After all, you’d don’t want to jeopardise years of education at the right primary school for the sake of a few months at a fantastic play-school. We’d also met the staff of the play-school and Eloïse had enjoyed her visit there, so we had agreed to move Eloïse there the second week of August.
But over the last few months, criticisms of the Montessori method have started to reach my ears. They suggest an overemphasis on cognitive development and too little time spent on art and craft, music and movement. Anecdotal evidence also suggests that the Montessori approach of letting children pick which works they want to do, ultimately leads to many children excelling in the things they enjoy, whilst neglecting the subjects that they don’t.
A lot of these criticisms come from adults who went through the Montessori school system themselves, so I take them seriously. At the same time, however, none of the stories is shocking.
Nevertheless, we decided to rethink the situation and look around yet again at other schools, even though we’re already either on the waiting list of most neighbourhood schools, or we’ve been told that we’re too far down that list to ever stand a chance.
Our attention ultimately turned to the Geert Groote School, a vrijeschool (a.k.a. a Waldorf or Steiner school) about one and a half kilometres from here. We hadn’t previously considered this particular school — didn’t even really know about it, in fact — but after some research, decided that it would be a suitable school for Eloïse.
Compared to the schools of other didactic philosophies, it’s perceived as quite radical. Its doctrines flow directly from the school of thought known as anthroposophy. At its most basic, Steiner education incorporates physical, emotional, artistic and intellectual elements, rather than dealing purely with the cognitive. Sarah and I feel a great affinity with this approach, because the role of the child’s imagination is strongly emphasised.
Steiner schools are named after Rudolf Steiner, their founder, and also the founder of anthroposophy, eurythmy, and biodynamic agriculture (more commonly known these days as organic farming). Clearly, Herr Steiner spent a lot of time thinking about things.
Anyway, to cut a long story short, Eloïse has been offered a place at the Geert Groote School for the school year 2009/2010. That means she can start there when she’s four, after the summer of 2009.
This comes as a great relief to us. Not only do we identify more strongly with Steiner education than with the Montessori method, but it also means that Eloïse can stay at Het Speelhol until she’s four, which is something we’re all really happy about.
It’s also encouraging that the Geert Groote School has shown itself to be flexible and accommodating. That promises good things for the future.
In the course of my research, I downloaded and read the last few years’ worth of the educational inspection‘s reports on the Amsterdamse Montessori School and both locations of the Geert Groote School. The AMS actually comes away with the better judgement, but I believe that educational inspection favours the more cognitive schools. Not everything can be measured, especially a child’s emotional development.
That said, the second location of the Geert Grote School (known in that community as GGS2), receives an alarmingly bad report. The school has earned the unenviable predicate of zeer zwak, which translates as ‘extremely weak’. In fact, the school is threatened with closure if it doesn’t manage to raise standards in very short order. The GGS1 location, happily, is free of these problems.
One very useful site I found that helped with my research into schools was that of the Onderwijs Consumenten Organisatie (Education Consumer Organisation). Amongst other things, they maintain a news archive, containing stories on all of the Dutch education-related news from the past few years. For one thing, that enabled me to follow the GGS2’s descent into difficulties.
Incidentally, the Dutch vrijescholen community has its own Web site.
