Parallel Development

The Three-Year Developmental Cycle

Key to Our Children’s Education

Dr. Montessori saw the growth of an individual from birth to age 24 in four “planes of development”: birth to 6, 6 to 12, 12 to 18, and 18 to 24 years of age. In each of these planes humans have unique needs and characteristics. She developed a methodology and materials to respond to the evolving individual at each plane. These Developmental Planes are at the very heart of the Montessori educational experience for our children at MSR.

Each Developmental Plane is divided into three-year cycles, making conventional “kindergarten”, Third Grade, Sixth Grade, and Ninth Grade transitional years at MSR. The third year in each sequence, a capstone year, is a culminating experience academically, emotionally, socially, and developmentally. This runs directly counter to the paradigm in schools across the country where Kindergarten is the start of the elementary sequence, Sixth Grade is the start of Middle School, and Ninth Grade is the start of High School.

We respectfully but vigorously disagree.

We know that ages 3 and 4, Grades 1 and 2, 4 and 5, and 7 and 8 are years of academic and intellectual explosion. Yet, Dr. Montessori observed that in the 6 year olds, 9 year olds (Third Graders), 12 year olds (Sixth Graders) and 15 year olds (Ninth Graders), their great work was social and emotional and lays the foundation for the next “explosion”. She concluded that unless the social and emotional growth was addressed directly and effectively, rather than suppressed, academic growth could slow and suffer.

Rather than fighting the social and emotional growth of the children in the third year of each sequence, Montessori encourages it. How?

Instead of making those students, in their transitional years, the youngest of the children in a sequence, we make them the oldest and most mature in their group. We give them age-appropriate responsibility. We make them educational and civic leaders in this community.

The leadership of the older children has remarkable impact on the health of the three-year community they help lead, and it allows the oldest children in each cycle to stand tall with confidence during an uncertain time while internalizing the academic work of the first two years by sharing their knowledge and expertise with the younger students in the group. They become role models for the younger students, who long to reach their level of academic accomplishment and community responsibility.

We embrace the maxim, “You do not understand something until you can teach it,” and giving lessons to the younger students in the group requires that the oldest children reduce complex concepts to their simplest elements and then convey them with clarity and understanding. If they cannot, it is clear that they need a lesson before going on! Thus, without fully realizing what they are accomplishing, our “third-years” internalize and consolidate the academic skills they have garnered for two years before exploding into the next three-year cycle.

The three-year grouping also makes sense because we know from experience that five year olds have much more in common with 3 and 4 year olds than they do with 8 and 9 year olds. Sixth graders have much more in common with 4th and 5th year students than with 8th Year students. And 9th Graders have much more in common with 7th and 8th Year students than with 11th and 12th Graders.

Clearly, the full benefit of the educational program accrues to our children in the third and capstone year of each cycle, and a student’s educational experience is greatly diminished without it. So, too, is the program and the educational experience for the younger students left behind without the gift of the leadership, mentoring, and instruction from the older children they have come to admire.