One Parent's Perspective on the Three-Year Cycle

Below you will find part of an email recently received by a primary teacher. This parent really seems to grasp one reason why Montessorians believe the three-year cycle is so important.

"...[We] talked last night about what a blessing it is to have a teacher who knows our child so deeply, over YEARS, and who is committed to ALL of the students' success. The three-year-cycle is great for the kids (role-modeling, consistency, etc.), but there is another side of it that we don't often consider: Working with the same children for three years gives the teacher a depth of knowledge about each kid (aptitude, personality, learning style, family issues, all that stuff) that can't be attained quickly or easily, and that is vital to ensuring each student is given the best chance for THAT CHILD to succeed.

While keeping in mind that ultimately we are individually responsible for our own learning, I think the three-year cycle provides teachers a wonderful sense of "ownership" of each student's outcomes that promotes the best teaching--which naturally results in both better learning and better enjoyment of learning for the student.

I think one of the problems in public school education is that teachers don't have to live with their own "mistakes" for more than 9 months. That leads some teachers to work mainly with the kids who are easy to work with, while ignoring or marginalizing the challenging kids, knowing that the "problem" kids will be gone in a year anyway. This is totally logical: after all, what can one teacher do to change a kid's lifetime patterns of behavior in only 9 months? Not much. So why try, when there are other kids the teacher can put her limited time and resources into and then actually see positive progress with? The kid who can't get himself with the program? Well, maybe some teacher will be able to help him next year.

In some ways I think this also leads public school teachers to look for excuses for poorly-performing kids' poor performance, instead of diligently attempting to improve those students' performance. But our teachers' deep knowledge of each student not only allows the teachers to recognize when something doesn't seem quite right for that particular student, but the teachers have "enough" time (three years) to work with the student to actually make it seem like a reasonable investment of the teacher's resources. AND if the teacher doesn't, in fact, help the child improve, it is that same teacher who continues to suffer the consequences: after all, they are going to have to "live with" that student for another 2-3 years, and wouldn't that time be more enjoyable if the kid isn't a problem every day? The three-year cycle gives the teachers an incentive that public school teachers can't possibly have.

At any rate, thanks again for everything you do. I'm so impressed by your consistently thoughtful, reflective, honest approach to every single child in the primary classroom. I am grateful every day that my child's education is in your hands."