The Middle School Program
In AMP (Adolescent Montessori Program, serving 12 to 15 years old), the themes that govern the methods of teaching are synthesis and integration. First, the characteristics of the adolescent student are considered by Montessori educators to be a synthesis of the characteristics of both the Primary-age and the Elementary-age child. For this reason, Montessori adolescent pedagogy integrates concrete and active learning experiences with opportunities for reflective and contemplative study of increasingly abstract concepts and ideas. Second, the pedagogy integrates intellectual and ethical development, creative expression and the academic disciplines, giving students the opportunity to apply academic knowledge, judgment and creative skills to problem solving in projects that require physical activity, ethical choices, self-expression and abstract application of interdisciplinary knowledge. The focus of the pedagogy is the adolescent's civic, ethical and social development as well as the adolescent's adaptation to the demands of the changing natural and human world.
The students work with teachers who are experts in academic, practical and specialized skills. Learning experiences include opportunities to address individual learning needs through individual and small group tutoring, as well as opportunities for collaborative learning through group work, project-based learning, seminars, workshops, discussion groups, book groups, research tasks, practical projects, and community work. As an individual-centered and constructivist practice, Montessori educational philosophy and practice recognizes that students may achieve at points that differ from their peers. Learning experiences are not based on the expectation that all students will achieve at the same time or by a specified end point. Teachers use their knowledge of the child, the curriculum, and the suggested achievement bands within their state or country to inform their support and monitoring of student progress.
AMP can be described as expansive. It combines both active and reflective approaches to learning through interdisciplinary studies in the context of collaborative projects in which adolescents work alongside specialists to achieve socially and economically meaningful goals.
