Published: August 14, 2008 12:26 pm            

Community Montessori in New Albany starts school year with more space

Imagine a school with no grades, detention or hall passes.

Imagine a place where students choose what they want to learn, when and how to go about it.

Those are attributes Community Montessori, in New Albany, boasts.

The charter school opened Wednesday for the first day of school while marking two other big celebrations: the opening of the new teen wing and the 10th anniversary since the original school opened.

Years ago, Barbara Burke Fondren, director of the school, came up with the idea to start a local Montessori and rallied support.

Now, the school is full, with nearly 500 students and another hundred or so on a waiting list.

Eventually, once the school is expanded from just pre-school through 10th grade to include 11th and 12th grades, the school will be able to house up to 600 students.

Burke Fondren said students at the Montessori are encouraged to ask the big questions and explore their curiosity. She used the example of 2+2=4.

“What if you have two screws plus two cell phones. I have four of what? Objects?” Burke Fondren asked. “It’s not always that black and white.”

In the classrooms, called studios, students, who are referred to as learners, do jobs. Those jobs have lessons in them, such as playing word games with one another.

Kyle Herman, who is now in his fourth year teaching at the Montessori, said teachers run classes differently than at other schools.

“It’s radically different here. As a teacher, it was hard at the beginning. I didn’t need to feed the knowledge [to the students],” Herman said. “All they needed was for me to believe in them and show them how to access their knowledge.”

Herman said individual goals are set for each student through programs that align those goals with state standards.

He said setting achievable goals allow students to feel successful, therefore becoming more inquisitive.

“If you have trouble writing a sentence and you are assigned to write a 10 page paper, you’re set up to fail,” Herman said.

Herman said this format nurtures the natural intrinsic want to learn, such as what can be seen in babies.

Wednesday was Abby Mosley’s first day at the Montessori. The 13-year-old had attended school in Henryville up to this point. Mosley said she has trouble holding her attention span in class, so her parents sought out a different approach.

“It’s a lot easier because you don’t have to sit there and listen. You learn the way you want to learn,” Mosley said, after completing more than half of her first day. “It’s kind of like the teacher depends on you and you depend on yourself.”

She said since she is not rushed and gets to pick what to learn first and subsequently, she feels as if she has better concentration.

“It was hard at first, just coming from a public school then doing your own thing and then after a while you get used to it,” said Jazmine Franz, 12, who started at the school last year after attending Mt. Tabor Elementary.

She said the classmates help teach each other through collaboration.

Even the younger ones can see the difference. Samantha Thomas, 8, is a new student at the Montessori. The now third-grader had been on the waiting list since she was in kindergarten.

“You pretty much get to choose what you feel like doing. At Maple [Elementary], they would kind of tell you what to do,” Thomas said.

As for her first day, Thomas said she was enjoying it.

“It’s fun!” she said, grinning. “It was exciting to meet all the new people.”

For others, this is the only school environment they know.

“It’s actually really fun and I like to do math a lot,” Avery Story, 6, said, who has been attending the Montessori since pre-school.

Now, with more space, the school will be able to reach more students, as well as give each learner a chance to graduate from their school. That was one of Burke Fondren’s goals. Another goal was to become tuition free — a task that was achieved in 2002 by becoming a charter school.

Burke Fondren said she’s happy to have been a part of making this school what it is. However, she said it could not have been done without the support of many, including the community.

“It’s humbling,” she said, smiling.

        

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