independence

At C’E we follow the child by using data to reimagine the community experience. Keeping real and transparent data makes us (and parents) confident in our environment and in the Montessori Method. It makes independence safe. When we are all well-informed on student progress we are willing to allow for curiosity, discovery, failure, perseverance. Imagine the safe environments where your child first learned to walk, to talk, to paint, to explore – at C’E Montessori that is the kind of environment we create everyday.

accountability

TRANSFORMS THE CLASSROOM EXPERIENCE

In the best Montessori classrooms, the greatest freedom comes in a perfectly organized and accountable system. By closely tracking student data we create the greatest possible freedom. Then, we make the data transparent, interesting, and available to number-conscious parents, so that they are willing to embark in the adventure alongside their children.

TEACHER TOOL

Teachers have a resource to keep an up-to-date record of their student’s scheduled activities and progress through the Montessori Preschool Curriculum that covers the five areas of a prepared classroom.

PARENT TOOL

Parents have access to an up-to-date interactive assessment of their child’s scheduled activities according to the 5 areas of the Montessori preschool curriculum.

spanish immersion

Children walk into school ready to learn language - any language. During this sensitive period for acquisition and building we focus on teaching in both English and Spanish to ensure a solid foundation for language learning throughout a child’s school years. Each classroom at C’E Montessori has both a Spanish and English Lead Guide. Lessons, conversations, circles, and school culture is delivered interchangeably in both languages and we count on an important community of teachers and families that reinforce this with culture and context on the importance of being multilingual.

why montessori?

Montessori is Moving

Humans were meant to move, exercise, explore. In Montessori this never stops. We allow our children to move, to discover, to think and learn on their feet. Lessons are short, sitting around is minimal. Walking around the classroom is encouraged, this is where spontaneous encounters occur, with a new friend, an interesting lesson, an opportunity, an obstacle.

Montessori is Manipulatives

The connections between our hands and our brains are crucial in strong early childhood development. Here, we learn through our hands using Montessori materials, we build our knowledge and our experience through touch. There are no screens, no handouts no lectures. The Montessori Method relies on a classroom that we interact with constantly by moving through it, touching it, and manipulating it. Maria Montessori said, "​What the hand does, the mind remembers." If a child is able to use their hands to discover, their discoveries become more meaningful to them. The concepts they learn are much more rooted than any rote memorization could be, because in using their hands, they experience their learning. They are an active participant.

Montessori is Choice

Children like coming to school in the morning because they know the day is theirs. The choices that they make and the work that they explore is entirely up to them. Adults are there to guide. A relationship to learning and empowerment is developed from the very first day of school. Maria Montessori understood that all children, indeed all people, have different strengths and interests. The Montessori Method offers children the “freedom of choice” in order to maximize the learning process through these individual differences. Some people misunderstand “freedom of choice” to mean that children just do whatever they please and/or there is no such thing as discipline in a Montessori classroom. This is actually far from accurate. Through careful observation of the child, teachers (and parents) can provide the right activities and create the prepared environment ideal for the child’s development.

Montessori is a Sequential Curriculum

Montessori classrooms hand over real agency to children by delivering a curriculum available to them through the prepared environment. While children follow their own path and can advance through the curriculum at their own pace their experiences are backed by a scaffolded and mastery-based closed system.

Math, Language, Sensorial, Practical Life, Cultural Geography and Sciences. All sequential, all available, so that the promise and power of an individualized curriculum owned by children is delivered each morning in the prepared classroom environment.

message from the director

I have always been curious. That has never changed; only increased as I’ve grown older. I am lucky that my family and my education have afforded that. They have provided other things that prepare me for life, but none proved as important as this curiosity.

The more I learn, the more curious I get. What I learned in the Montessori classroom transformed me. A full class abuzz in productive work, a quiet child perfecting a pouring exercise, a child waiting patiently for a classmate to finish their work, to then collaborate with them and make a free-standing pink tower.

Independent Focus, Self-love, Transformative Community, True Friendship.

The Montessori classroom proves powerful because it plays upon the inherent strengths of the child. Children love to learn. They learn better in motion, through their hands, with room to explore, fail and learn from those failures. To develop their innate curiosity, and build an identity around success as they explore the world and their place in it.

What can we do to grow this idea, and let more and older children into this world?

My infinite curiosity drove me to answer that question through C’E Montessori. We did not change the traditional Montessori classroom; but did unleash its power and changed it to something transformative. We know that the worst thing to do, when you’re curious, is just tell what it is; Maria Montessori taught us that.

I will tell you, though, that we are excited, and that our changes have transformed the Montessori classroom experience. I invite you to learn more here, to visit us in Williamsburg, and to participate in our community of lifelong, curious learners.

Sincerely,
Fernando Camberos

  • Hanane Zayer

    HEAD OF SCHOOL

    Hanane Zayer has been at C'E Montessori for four years and is our Head of School. Her work centers around maintaining a top-tier Primary and Elementary program while creating cohesion through the curriculum and in our Montessori practice. She supports our teaching staff in developing curriculum and creating the best possible study paths for children at our school. She drives social initiatives at our school. In this, Hanane works hard in creating and maintaining a school environment that is inclusive to all children, teachers and people and works with our neighborhood and communities to partner for the good of the community at large. She organizes our yearly STEM Fair, inviting schools in Williamsburg, and Montessori schools beyond to participate in the event. She also coordinates our school spelling bee and prepares us to compete each year in the Scripps National Spelling Bee. She was born and raised in Queens and her family comes from Morocco. She is an experienced Elementary trained Montessori teacher but has also worked at more traditional schools in NYC and in Charlotte, NC. She loves cartoons, board-games, rugby and gardening.

  • Katherine Correa Acosta

    EDUCATION DIRECTOR

    Katherine graduated from CUNY - Staten Island with a BA in Early Childhood Education and has been a teacher for the past five years. She interned and worked at a Montessori-based school in Staten Island where she discovered the philosophy and loved the feeling of giving children the freedom and respect necessary to grow independently. She was born and raised in Brooklyn and has lived here all her life with three sisters that she still considers her best friends. Her family is originally from the Dominican Republic and she visits her extended family there quite often. She is herself athletic and believes in creating environments for children in the Primary classroom to experience many different opportunities to use and improve on their gross motor skills. Many iterations of her Primary classroom look like mazes or obstacle courses designed to give children opportunities to walk around and explore.

  • Jordan

    DIRECTOR OF SPECIAL PROGRAMS

    Jordan received their B.A. in Education Studies from New York University. Though their major focused on education from an interdisciplinary perspective, they feel most energized while in the classroom with children, which is what has been their focus during the last few years. Before coming to C'E Montessori Jordan worked in classrooms and tutoring centers with young people of different backgrounds and grade levels. They have spent time working with English Language Learners, and adult learners in Rikers Island through a visual arts and human rights education non-profit. They are an AMA certified Montessori Primary teacher, eager to learn more and more about teaching young children about advocating for themselves and others. They spend a lot of their free time painting and drawing and studies Quechua, hoping to move to Peru one day and work in Quechua communities. They joined C'E Montessori in 2020 looking forward to being a part of a community that values anti-racist education, gender inclusivity, and sustainability. 

  • Mary Beth Kennedy

    ADMISSIONS DIRECTOR

    Mary Beth Kennedy is the Director of Admissions and Parents at C'E Montessori. She is one of the founding families at C'E Montessori. She has three children at C'E, a set of twins in our IB Middle Years Program, and another daughter in our Lower Elementary program. She is our prospective parents' first point of contact as they learn out about our school and continues that work curating monthly family events and answering questions for parents throughout the year. Email her if you have any questions about admissions or if you would like a parent's perspective of life at our school.

  • Fernando Camberos

    DIRECTOR OF SCHOOLS

    Fernando Camberos is the founder and Director of Schools at C'E Montessori. He was first introduced and trained in the Montessori method and the International Baccalaureate Program at Charlotte Preparatory School and has been in school administration for over 15 years. He has presented at Montessori and IB conferences worldwide about creating sequential curriculum to develop student voices and transforming progressive schools through accountability. He is originally from Argentina but lived in seven cities in three continents before pursuing Education at Duke and NYU and settling in Brooklyn. Contact him with any questions about school, the power of transparency, or to share interesting thoughts about education in general.

  • Siri

    DIRECTOR OF EXPANSION

    Siri is the Director of Expansion that has overseen C’E grow from a single classroom school to a community of 150 students from the Infant classroom to our IB Middle School She has lived her life in and around New York City, graduating from the New School with a specialization in teaching Environmental Sciences and Sustainability. In this, Siri carves out one of her most important contributions to the classroom and to our school community in general. When reimagining Peace Education and the responsibility to develop lasting peace in the 21st century C’E recognizes the central importance of guiding children towards protecting our environment. Siri helps in creating and implementing curriculum from the Toddler to Lower Elementary classrooms that foster a relationship between the child and the environment that grows from appreciation to care to activism. She also leans in on her experience and love for design and decor in creating classroom spaces that are beautiful, attractive to children and enriched.

  • Kim

    TODDLER TEACHER & COORDINATOR

    Kim graduated from Queens College with a BA In Sociology focused on the Modern Urban Community. She has been at C'E for the past three years, and has been a trained Montessori teacher and a Lead in the Toddler classroom for the last two. She grew up a star volleyball player for her high school and college and brings lessons, warm-ups and games learned during that experience into our Toddler classroom and Extended Care program. She had previously worked helping children in Corona, Queens as part of a foundation called STACKS run by the New York City Public Libraries to bring more children into the library community through fun after school activities and tutoring programs. She is (proudly) from Queens originally and has lived in and around New York City all of her life, her roots and extended family are from Ecuador. She is C'E's go-to teacher for training new staff in having fun on the playground.

  • Victoria

    PRIMARY LEAD & MUSIC DIRECTOR

    Victoria is from Argentina and first came to C'E Montessori as a visiting teacher for a Spanish immersion experience through music. She is an artist first, a proud graduate from AMDA Integrated Conservatory in NYC after training at the Fundación Julio Bocca in Buenos Aires. She sings, dances and acts through each one of her days at C'E Montessori and outside of school in performances at Teatro Sea, LATEA and Cuchame theatre among others. She has been an important part of school for the past four years, and in 2020 decided to complete her Montessori training and take on a Lead Teacher role in one of our Primary classrooms. Victoria injects artistic flair into everything she does, nap-time included, but most notably plans, designs and runs the C'E Montessori Winter Concert. This yearly December event is the culmination of the fall semester and a great way for children at our school to take on different responsibilities and roles in developing voice and stage presence.

montessori vs traditional school

We learn on our feet. – Active exploring. Montessori lessons are hands-on and active. Montessori three part lessons slowly transfer the onus onto the student after a brief explanation of the Montessori material. Students discover information for themselves. Traditional school lessons are often orated to students who listen passively, memorize, and complete worksheets.

We learn through failure, through trying, through time. In the Montessori classroom, children work on lessons as long as need be, and interruptions are avoided whenever possible. Time limitations are mandated by arbitrary schedules and by the pace of other students in traditional classrooms.

Our teachers are guides. Montessori teachers act as guides and consultants to students on a one-on-one basis. They assist each child along his or her own learning path. Traditionally, a teacher must deliver the same lesson, at the same pace, in the same order, for all of the students.

Different ages learn together. – In Montessori schools, “grade-levels” are flexible and determined by the child’s developmental range, i.e., 0-3, 3-6, 6-9, 9-12, 13-14. This creates communities of power, both academically and socially with lessons to give and learn between the members. In traditional schools, grade levels are not flexible and strictly defined by chronological age within an arbitrary twelve-month period.

We follow the student, our curriculum adapts to them. – Montessori curricula expand in response to the students’ needs. As students progress in the C'E Montessori preschool curriculum they are allowed to discover more and more material. Traditional curricula are predetermined before meeting a classroom.

Our children move at their own pace. – The individual child’s work pace is honored and encouraged in the Montessori classroom. Traditional classrooms and daycares expect all children to work at the same pace.

Our children get to decide when they are successful. – Montessorians understand that the child’s self-esteem comes from an internal sense of pride in their own accomplishments. The ‘big’ work that is accomplished in our Montessori school is to allow that self-esteem and curiosity to grow. In traditional classrooms, self-esteem is thought to come from external judgment and validation via grades and rewards.

We focus on the love of learning. The Montessori preschool curriculum is intended to appeal to the child’s innate hunger for knowledge. Impressionistic Lessons are presented from the onset to continue to support and encourage creativity and curiosity. Children learn to love learning and to continue being curious. Traditional curricula focus on standardized test performance and grades.

Change is Good. The Montessori Method was created by Maria Montessori and is based on a lifetime of study and observation with regard to the way children really learn. Here at C'E Montessori we respect the lessons of the prepared environment, the value of Montessori Materials and whole child development while pushing the boundaries of accountability and parent communications through technology. Traditional education is based on…well…tradition.

We prepare the environment to be the greatest guide. Montessori classrooms are prepared in advance based on observations of the students’ individual needs. At C'E Montessori they are prepared also with automatic feedback from our accountability systems. They include student-centered lessons and activities. Traditional classrooms and daycares are based on teacher-centered lessons or activities.