Montessori school changes owners

Carmela Micheli also owns Arcadia Montessori in Tacoma

Nate Hulings

of the Gateway

The Montessori method isn’t your typical teaching style, and that’s why Carmela Micheli has subscribed to the theory for 34 years.

The idea behind Montessori is focused on the individual: To let students gravitate to what they want to learn and to give them time to digest information at their own pace.

Like any school, Montessori teachers present the fundamental subjects that lay the groundwork for a solid education. The difference is delivery, said Micheli, who has lived in Gig Harbor on and off since 1970.

“We don’t have restrictions; we’re not scripted,” she said.

Micheli recently bought Gig Harbor’s Madrona Montessori and changed the name of the school to Arcadia Montessori-Peninsula Campus. The school is for preschool and kindergarten students. She also has owned the Arcadia Montessori in Tacoma for the past three decades.

Micheli’s journey in Montessori education began in 1972 while she was answering phone calls at a crisis clinic in Tacoma. A co-worker told Micheli that his wife was a Montessori teacher. From that moment, Micheli began to read Maria Montessori’s books, and was soon training at Spring Valley Montessori School in Federal Way.

During her studies, Micheli met a fellow student who wanted to start a Montessori school of her own. Needing a teacher, Micheli jumped on board. Two years later, she bought the Arcadia Montessori in Tacoma.

Although the name of Gig Harbor’s Montessori school will change, very little else will. Micheli said she will retain the school’s assistant and continue to teach the Montessori method.

“The instruction is all individualized,” Micheli said. “We’re not assuming that all children learn the same way.”

The entire school is placed in one classroom, with an emphasis on the theory that age does not always equate to ability, Micheli said.

“We’re tracking the individual, not the subject,” she said.

One of Montessori’s main methods involves learning with all of the senses. For example, before children learn how to write with a pencil, Micheli said Montessori schools emphasize movements that utilize the fingers used in writing.

In math, children are given sandpaper numbers so they can feel the numbers while they use their sight and hearing senses. Other counting exercises get students to count and perform basic math before it becomes an abstract figure on paper.

“They are doing the process before they know what they are doing,” Micheli said.

The sense of touch also is used to introduce students to understanding size and mass differences.

Micheli has hired Cheryl LaPlant, who is Montessori--trained, to teach at the Gig Harbor location. The school currently has five openings for the year. Classes will be held from 9 a.m. to noon.

Reach Reporter Nate Hulings at 253-853-9243 or by e-mail at nate.hulings@gateline.com.