Montessori Borealis has been part of the Juneau School District for 20 years as an optional program. After a couple years of planning, the Montessori Borealis community submitted a proposal last spring to become its own school.

Part of the Montessori Borealis school day includes a 3-hour block of time where the student decides what to learn. Montessori Borealis teacher Cory Crossett reads off a student’s work plan.

“He’s going to go on to do some long multiplication. After that he’s going to do some language work and write a poem and parse it, which means to break out the different parts of speech and symbolize those, ” he says. “It looks like it’s on to writing a final draft on his research on Ancient India.”

The plan has to be approved by the teacher.

“And so he’s going to work through this at his own pace and the idea, just like it is when you’re an adult, is to make a plan and successfully complete that plan and, you know, sometimes you’re going to pull it off and other times you’re not, but you’re going to learn how to self-regulate,” Crossett says.

 

Read full article here: http://www.ktoo.org/2014/12/16/school-board-decide-montessori-borealis-school/