Near North Montessori #4

This is the fourth in a series of six raw tapes where videomaker Anda Korsts visits Near North Montessori School in the Ukrainian Village neighborhood of Chicago to learn about how it works.

0:00Copy video clip URL Continuation of interview from previous tape with the father of a child at the school. He continues to talk about the benefits of going in to observe. The background noise caused by the children makes this section hard to hear.

3:18Copy video clip URL Korsts talks with a parent who is picking up her children. She says she brought her kids to the school because she didn’t want her kids to go to the Latin School or Francis Parker (two of the other prominent private tuition-based schools in Chicago). School director Jackie Bergen explains what it means that Montessori is a “parent-run school.”

5:59Copy video clip URL Shots of various items in the classroom, including chemistry chemicals, diagrams of butterflies and plants, a goldfish, and a xylophone.

9:42Copy video clip URL Interview with the 9-12 teacher who wouldn’t answer questions on tape #3. Despite the fact that he agreed to set aside a few minutes for this interview, for some reason, he basically refuses to answer any questions, saying the answers would be too long. He eventually lists the activities that the class did that day, but will not answer any questions about educational philosophy. In response to Korsts’ question, he says that the area he would like to change in the curriculum is science, by making it more focused on experiments.

13:09Copy video clip URL 6-9 kids in gym class doing stretching and calisthenics, led by another student.

22:22Copy video clip URL End of tape.