Since individual work is based on personal contracts with the teacher, students is able to progress at their own pace in a non-competitive atmosphere. At the Jacobs Center, students take time to share their individual research projects, and to take questions from their peers. Multi-age classrooms provide many unique opportunities for learning. Each year, at the School of the Woods, begins with a ropes course field trip. Designed as a team building retreat for employees of businesses, the ropes course involves physical and intellectual challenges that require participants to work together and support each other.
Students learn to take risks and to trust each other.
The intensity of the interpersonal interactions serves as a milestone in the transition between childhood and adolescence and lays the foundation for group work and peer teaching that is essential to the Montessori Middle School environment. In early childhood and elementary Montessori programs, the curriculum is built around hands on concrete materials that are carefully designed to help students learn at their own pace. Using tools and raw materials, and other resources including computers, books and each other, the Montessori Middle School remains a hands on environment, but one where the students create their own materials. Maria Montessori called early adolescence the age of creativity. Given the tools, resources and support, middle school age students thrive on opportunities for self expression.