Montessori de San Juan partners with US-based STEM program for child-friendly engineering education

Back in 2009, a parent named Dori Roberts had a hard time finding an educational program to get her six- and eight-year-old started on engineering. The Virginian mother was also an educator specializing in math and science, and she quickly realized that there is a need for a Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) program that is geared towards young children.

Where most parents would have just given up and enrolled their children in regular schools, Roberts saw opportunity. With her extensive background in STEM and a passion for teaching, she started Engineering for Kids (EFK), which is now one of the world’s most popular child-friendly STEM programs. It is franchised and implemented in 30 American States and in 30 other countries.

Thankfully, Philippines, will not miss out on this excellent STEM course. Montessori de San Juan, a local school that utilizes the latest in techniques in both traditional and progressive learning, recently partnered with EFK and is offering the after-school program as an extra-curricular activity to its students.

The program is offered to students four- to fourteen-years old, and features fun and interesting ways to present engineering concepts appropriate to each individual child. It goes beyond just classes by giving children opportunities to learn more about STEM through workshops, camps, and other events. Through these exercises, the children learn problem-solving, cooperation, critical thinking, and many other skills that will serve them well in the future.

MDS Principal Sandy Arellano, who has a Masters Degree in Education and is one of the country’s leading voices on integrated learning, believes that the EFK program will not only teach, but also inspire students. “The hands-on activities offered in EFK will foster their natural curiosity,” said Arellano. “Once that curiosity is activated, the students will continue to explore and develop their problem-solving, analytical, and applied knowledge skills.”

Currently, the EFK program is offered throughout kindergarten and junior high-school. It operates like a school club and is applied outside of regular school activities. The program runs for two quarters of the school year and is available for both students of MDS and those from other schools. The program costs P10,000, but MDS students may avail of the program for a discounted rate of P7,500.

Although the EFK program is not available for Senior High School Students, MDS offers top-rated tracks in Humanities, General Academics, and Accounting & Business Management for its Senior High curriculum.

To learn more about Montessori De San Juan and its programs, you may contact 725-6306 or 239-1102, or visit http://montessoridesanjuan.com.ph.

The Fun Side of Science at Montessori de San Juan

Science and Math are always considered as hard and boring subjects—unless you’re a student at Montessori de San Juan!

Each year, a Science and Math Fair is conducted at the school’s grounds. This gives the students an opportunity to showcase and display their interest and knowledge on the subjects. Students from all levels put up their booths and call people over so they can explain their science experiments.

Pre-schoolers excitedly explain what density is and demonstrate by dropping an egg in salt water. There were grade schoolers who talked about how different chemicals can produce different colors of flame when introduced to fire. It’s amazing how these concepts come easily to these students at such a young age, when some of the topics are introduced at higher levels in standardized schools!

Montessori de San Juan prides itself to be one of the pioneer schools that promote Montessori education. This is an education philosophy made popular by Maria Montessori in the early 19th century, where children’s learning abilities and learning speed are prioritised over anything else. Run by Ms. Sandy Arellano, she boasts that Montessori de San Juan not just implements the Montessori method of education, but also incorporates a more progressive approach to education.

“This way, the children can learn on their own pace,” Ms. Sandy explains. “We have students with different kinds of learning capabilities: some are visual learners, some are tactile learners, and our teachers make sure that all of the students are given the attention they need. This is also why our classes have only a few students, so the teachers can give each one the education they need.”

Montessori De San Juan now accepts applicants up to Senior High School. Enrolment for all levels for school year 2016-2017 is until May 31. For more information about Montessori De San Juan, call 239-1102/725-6306, or visit their website at www.montessoridesanjuan.com.

Montessori Education: A Royal Choice

The Royal Baby, Prince George, recently started schooling at Westacre Montessori school nursery in Norfolk, UK. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge intend to give their children as normal a childhood as possible, so they enrolled their son to a school that employs the Montessori method.

Just like most Montessori schools, Westacre boasts of achieving the best possible outcome for each child, and have in the past met the needs of disabled and special children. The school has been said to keep their children interested and motivated to participate in activities.

Montessori education is a teaching approach developed by Maria Montessori in the early 1900s. It focuses on personal development rather than rote memorization. Montessori education discourages exams and grades and instead focuses on individual progress. Schools using the Montessori approach are known for a liberal style in teaching children, and can include mixed-age classrooms.

The Philippines also has Montessori schools that provide progressive, experience-based and student-centered education. One of the pioneers in Montessori education in the Philippines is the Montessori De San Juan, run by Ms. Sandy Arellano.

Similar to Westacre's class structure, Montessori De San Juan does not have book-based classes with repetitive drills. Instead, areas of study are interwoven, with the subjects linked to one another. The school also allows for personal development and formation beyond education, so that their students can have life-long lessons. "Our students are not only provided with an exemplary set of academic tools, but the wisdom, integrity, and compassion to use it for the benefit of others as well," Sandy explained.

Get your child the same royal education as Prince George. Montessori De San Juan now accepts applicants up to Senior High School. Enrolment for all levels for school year 2016-2017 is until May 31. For more information about Montessori De San Juan, call 239-1102/725-6306, or visit their website at www.montessoridesanjuan.com.

Social Studies Month for Montessori de San Juan

Social Studies Month – Montessori de San Juan’s fun and creative way for students to appreciate various cultures

While October is Halloween for most kids, at Montessori de San Juan in Mandaluyong City, students get to dress up, not as monsters and imagined creatures, but in the national costumes of existing cultures. It’s a creative way for them to get to know, respect, and appreciate the various ways of life and perspectives around the world. And it’s no less fun than Halloween, but probably more horizon-expanding.

“All month long, we have art activities related to Social studies and different cultures around the world, we also have an olympiad with elimination rounds inside the classrooms for the final (quiz bee/olympiad),” said Sandy Arellano, Assistant Principal at Montessori de San Juan (MSJ).


Usually, at the end of October, the school holds a culminating activity. This year year, they’ve put together a Social Studies Travel Fair where children were assigned countries and they need to set up a booth/showcase/display for travelers. So this meant the children had to be able to talk about the demographics of “their” country, share food, and dress in their nation’s costume.



The Montessori Method

All this is in line with Montessori de San Juan’s approach to learning – hands on, immersive, interactive, and not just a sit-down lecture of concepts. The Montessori method is an alternative to the traditional way children are taught in schools – with strict rules, tiring homework, rote memorization, and legions of students cramped in once classroom. If only every child learned in the same way. If only repetition sparked in a child an inner curiosity and drive to learn, synthesize, discover.

Via the Montessori method, a child learns from a “discovery” model, where he or she works with materials (and learns concepts in the process) instead of via textbook spoon-feeding. The method also works with various types of learners – the visual, tactile, auditory. It’s easier to spot what kind of learner a child is in a smaller classroom – each class at Montessori de San Juan is populated with 12-15 students per class, with only one section per level.

So you can just imagine how much hands-on fun and immersive Social Studies Month was for the students of Montessori de San Juan.

The children from the upper grades prepared their booth, assisted of course by their social studies and home room teachers. The children researched facts, cooked some food in their home economics class, made pamphlets and power point presentations in their TechEd class, and displayed art work that they made, and so on. Some classes even presented short folk songs and dances.

As unconventional as it may seem, the Montessori method clearly works.

For more info on Montessori de San Juan, you may call 239-1102/725-6306 or visit their Facebook page:

Going Beyond Education

Traditional methods of education have naturally produced some of the brightest minds in the history of man. However, just as every field needs to be upgraded and modernized to suit the demands of future generations, so too does our technique of instruction. The challenge of tomorrow’s students calls for invention, innovation, imagination, and decision. The pioneers of this new frontier will certainly rely less and less on rote memorization and the mere storage of facts and information.

From the 1800s until today, countless hours are still spent on silent (book-based) learning and repetitive drills. While it certainly served its purpose at a time when standardization was the goal, numerous international experts on child psychology, education, human development, and sociology agree that it has become quite outdated.

One of the leading “evangelists” of progressive, experienced-based, and student-centered education in the Philippines is Ms. Sandy Arellano, who runs the Montessori De San Juan School. Her school recognizes that each student, as an individual, is different from all others. As such, a thorough analysis of the different factors that affect their education (e.g. age, learning style, inclinations, background, personality, etc.) is a critical element to how they teach the child. This allows Montessori de San Juan to help kids unlock their true potential without rigid and standardized structures.

“We recognize that good academic performance is merely the natural result of a happy, motivated, and well-adjusted student. Our practice focuses on the cause, rather than the effect,” Sandy explained, when asked how their students regularly perform better than their peers from so-called “bigger schools”. Indeed, it is this track record of excellence that has put them squarely on the country’s academic map.

Observing visitors are likewise surprised to see how seamlessly one subject is integrated into another, thus allowing for a richer, more cohesive understanding by the students. Whereas subjects are typically tackled one after another in traditional schools (e.g. math first, then english, then science, all taken in isolation), areas of study are interwoven in Montessori De San Juan, with the subjects purposely linked to one another. It’s not unexpected, therefore, to see a grade-schooler write a fictional narrative about a trip to Mars, complete with accurate scientific facts about the planet, and a computation of how long it took to get them there based on their average speed.

Moreover, Montessori de San Juan believes in formation beyond education. “We understand that the time our students spend with us is limited, therefore we endeavor to build a strong and lasting foundation for lifelong learning,” she emphasized. “Apart from developing their intellectual capabilities, building their character is equally important. Our students are not only provided with an exemplary set of academic tools, but the wisdom, integrity, and compassion to use it for the benefit of others,” Sandy concluded.

Montessori De San Juan now accepts applicants up to Senior High School. To learn more about Montessori de San Juan and discover why it is fast-becoming the most talked-about school in Metro Manila, call 239-1102/725-6306 or visit their Facebook page at www.facebook.com/Montessori De San Juan

MONTESSORI DE SAN JUAN: 40 YEARS OF TEACHING THE TRUE MONTESSORI WAY

Is your child studying in Montessori?
How sure are you that it is a true Montessori school in principle and not just by name?
It was only recently, when I attended the foundation day of Montessori de San Juan that I learned what it was like to be a “real” Montessori school.

Developed by Italian physician and educator Maria Montessori, this unique educational system is characterized by an emphasis on independence, freedom within limits, and respect for a child’s natural psychological, physical, and social development.
Among the essential elements recognized by the Association Montessori Internationale (AMI) and the American Montessori Society (AMS) are:
• Mixed age classrooms, with classrooms for children ages 2½ or 3 to 6 years old
• Student choice of activity from within a prescribed range of options
• Uninterrupted blocks of work time, ideally three hours
• A constructivist or "discovery" model, where students learn concepts from working with materials, rather than by direct instruction
• Specialized educational materials developed by Montessori and her collaborators
• Freedom of movement within the classroom
• A trained Montessori teacher

According to Sandy Arellano, Montessori de San Juan Vice Principal, real Montessoris adhere to the teaching modules developed by their founder. The school directors or principal should also get a certification either from the US or Europe.Their teachers she said are also trained in the Montessori method and have to undergo a special in house training in order to teach in their school.

Montessori's education is driven by an aspiring aim that is to aid the child's development into a complete adult human being, comfortable with one's self and society and with his humanity as a whole. Each individual is recognized for his or her own abilities, interests, ideas, needs, and cultural identity.

While other schools continually adding classrooms to accommodate more students, Arellano said they prefer to keep their classrooms small. “We only have 15 to 20 students per class because a smaller class size is paramount to knowing each child as an individual with his own needs, characteristics, capabilities and potential. A small class lets teachers could focus more on the individual learning needs of each student rather than just follow a lesson plan and hope that they will catch up and understand.

Montessoris emphasize learning through all five senses, not just through listening, watching, or reading and our students here learn at their own, individual pace and according to their own choice of activities from hundreds of possibilities.

I was also surprised to learn that Montessori schools avoid giving out homework, believing that learning should be done in the classroom and that time spent at school is already too much.
“We, at Montessori de San Juan, are committed to exposing the students to a learning environment that will assist them in adapting and adjusting to a diverse and ever changing society. We are dedicated to teach our students that the differences in gender, physical or mental ability, culture, and background are strengths to be respected,”she emphasized.

In celebration of its 40th foundation day last January  30, 2015 the school held a Science and Math fair along with a field demo that put together different grade levels in one group to foster camaraderie and boost their confidence.

Montessori de San Juan is located at #3 Montessori Lane St. (between Araullo  and P. Guevarra Sts.)
Landline numbers 239-1102/725-6306, or visit their Facebook page Montessori de San Juan.