Unlike my sister and I, who go to K12, my brother, Sohiab, chose to go to a brick-and-mortar school. However, his choice of school was interesting, as he picked to go to a Montessori school, which as I soon found out, is completely different from a regular school. He goes to Butler Montessori in Germantown, MD. for the record. (He’s only eight.)
Me: What do you like most about attending Butler?
Sohiab: P.E. Also recess. And friends.
Me: So what do you get to do during P.E. and recess?
Sohiab: At recess, I usually play hockey or football. At P.E., we usually play soccer, tracker tag, or hockey.
Me: What do you do outside when it snows?
Sohiab: Well, we sled. The whole class sleds. We build snowmen. It’s fun to sled with my friends, and we play iceball fights. (Ed. Note: apparently, this is like a snowball fight but with harder snow.)
Me: Is there anything else you want to say about being outside? Do you guys hike?
Sohiab: We hike sometimes, like we don’t do it in the winter, but in the summer, we hike twice a month. It’s fun to hike. We just go around all the woods and around the lake and the creek. And we usually find animals and beaver dams.
Me: Have you ever seen a beaver?
Sohiab: Nope. But the trees are usually chewed down by the beavers.
Me: Cool. I hope you see a beaver; that would be awesome. What do you think is the biggest difference between attending Butler and a regular school?
Sohiab: It’s more fun than a regular school. And you can talk loudly in class.
Me: Would you say that the kids at Butler are nicer than at a regular school?
Sohiab: Kind of; they’re more fun. They talk about Minecraft all the time.
Me: You have quite an equestrian program. What did you learn from it and what is your favourite thing about that?
Sohiab: Trotting, walking, and stopping. Riding in general. We also learn about horses. The first few days, we learn things like the bone structure, the parts of the horse, and the safety tips, about what to do if you’re near a horse, for example, not to run, shout, or leave anything on the floor. We learned to never hold a horse and wrap something around your hand while it is attached to the horse. My favourite part of horse-riding is trotting.
Me: How do you guys do math and science? Lots of experiments, eh?
Sohiab: For science, we do have a lot of experiments. Like one time we put water in a cup and then put an index card on top of it, then tipped it over. It didn’t make a mess or spill, which was really cool. For math, instead of doing worksheets, we use a pegboard to do our work.
Me: Is there anything else you weren’t able to say that you want to say now?
Sohiab: We do reports and have going-outs.
Me: What are those? Explain what reports and going-outs are then tell me about the time you went to a Capitals’ practice.
Sohiab: So, first, the report and going-out is kind of connected. First, to go on a going-out, you have to do a report about the thing you’re going to. So, if you’re doing a report on hockey, you can go to Kettler Captals IcePlex [Washington Capitals practise facility], or if you’re doing a report about different types of fish, you can go visit the Baltimore Aquarium. First, you have to do the report about the thing you’re researching. If you’re doing a report about airplanes, you finish the report, plan the going-out, possibly with your friends, find a chaperone to take you, plan a date and time.
Me: What about the time you went to the Capitals’ practice? What did you do there and who did you meet? Was it fun?
Sohiab: Alright, so I went with my friends Andrew, Kameron, Ken, and Wyatt. And then, we met [Evgeny] Kuznetsov, Braden Holtby, and Michael Latta. We also watched them practice. It looked like it was a tough practise. It was really fun.
Sohiab and his friends with Capitals player Evgeny Kuznetsov
Me: Any additional comments that I missed?
Sohiab: Nope.
Me: Okay, thanks for your time!
Sohiab: Alright, thank you.
So that was our interview. It really showed the difference between a Montessori school vs. a regular one, which I found very interesting. I especially thought it would be awesome to be able to plan my own field trips that way, because it gives you many opportunities.
