The three-year cycle in a Montessori environment at Keystone is of the utmost importance. A
commitment to the full three-year cycle will benefit your student in many ways.
Learning for Mastery
Montessori schools are intentionally structured utilizing a three-year cycle. One of the many benefits is
to provide third year students with opportunities that can only take place in the third year. Having spent
the previous two years learning a multitude of skills in their classroom, the third year is about mastery.
The Montessori curriculum is a series of carefully developed lessons and materials that are meant to
cycle back to a culminating experience during the final year.
Children as Independent Leaders
Not only do guides observe children mastering these skills independently, but the children have the
chance to teach to others. Educators across many settings will agree that once the student becomes
the teacher, we can surmise that true mastery has been attained. So while your child is teaching
younger children how to do something, they are showing us just how well they know how to do it. Not
only that - they are gaining confidence in a truly authentic way. No one needs to tell the child how well
they are doing because they feel it themselves. When children teach children, it’s not just about
knowledge being shared, but also about cultivating world citizens. Teaching each other is an act of
kindness, and a way for children to practice helping others around them.
Fueling the Spark
In Montessori classrooms one of our greatest tasks is to keep the fire burning inside children’s minds.
We structure our work so that children may follow their passions and learn deeply about things that
matter to them. We see each child as an individual and think one-size-fits-all educational approaches
tend to extinguish the joy of learning. Instead of drilling facts into children, we place materials before
them so that they may discover the truths of the world themselves. Rather than asking them all to do
the same thing at the same time, we value their choices and trust their educational process. It is the
guide’s job to keep them on track, but they offer children the freedom that lets them deeply explore the
learning that calls to their souls. The three-year cycle is a critical part of a child’s Montessori
experience.