Baden Montessori School
“Come Grow With Us”
Recent studies have shown that children’s closeness with nature will greatly enhance the development of their cognitive abilities.
Leaders of the Future
Parish leadership has for some time been focused on the developmental needs of our young (pre-school age) children. With the collapse of many Catholic grade schools in the area over recent years, there is the further concern and strain placed on the educational system to provide the unmet developmental needs of young children. At this very influential and critical age of appropriation, We are confident that Baden Montessori School will instill an exceptional foundation for our children, enabling them to optimize their elementary school experience and beyond. We have reason to hope that these children will be among the best leaders for our future.
Humanitarian Benefits of the Montessori School Model
Montessori schooling is a method of human formation and learning suitable to every child’s unique individual’s needs. The Montessori method is supported by scientific research and is a highly sophisticated approach that will promote a child’s capacity to learn and grow. Experts in the field of education have recently voiced their concern over the fact that the needs of early childhood development are often overlooked. The children most at risk are those who live their early developmental years in tremendous cultural and material poverty. Such children usually fall below average in terms of the grading curve by the time grade school begins and tend to struggle keeping up with their peers throughout their academic life. Partnering with OLHC, Baden Montessori School focuses on the developmental needs of children in early childhood development with ages between 2/12 to 6 years of age.
Our Lady of the Holy Cross Catholic Church and Baden Montessori School embody the restorative justice approach in response to the cultural and racial inequalities of our time. This approach prefers laying more structural, substantial, and longer lasting foundations for the cultivation of human potential and culture rather than quick fix options apparent in food pantries and other give away events. The restorative justice approach emphasizes social and personal healing through family and community interaction based on positive core values, in particular, those of trust, responsibility, self-worth, equality, honesty, compassion, accountability, empathy, sense of caring, inclusion, etc.
Dismantling Oppressive Cultural Ideology
The most widely-known oppressive cultural ideology that captured international headlines during the turbulent 20th century was Nazism, centered in Germany under the dictator Hitler. During the 1936 Olympic Games, the notorious dictator refused to congratulate the U.S. gold medalist Jesse Owens for his accomplishments because of Owens’ skin color and African cultural heritage. Still, Jesse Owens and countless other African-Americans throughout U.S. history have voiced outrage to the oppressive cultural ideology, also known as “racism,” at home here in America. Although many other ethnic groups, such as the Native Americans, Irish, Italian, Polish, German, as well as Latinos from Central and South America, have suffered at times from cultural oppression (racism), the African-American experience has been marked by a constant struggle throughout American history having begun during the hostility of slavery dating all the way back to colonial times. Thus, the oppressive cultural ideology of racism in its structural, institutional, cultural, religious, internalized, environmental, and historical forms have persisted in a covert, unsuspecting, and often subliminal way.
Sociologists have shown that oppressive cultural ideology is not something we are born with, but is learned, assimilated, and acquired even at our earliest ages of development, the pre-school ages, 1 to 6. Therefore, it is as imperative as ever, that responsible parents of every ethnic category have a keen interest in the mature development of the children in their earliest years. The Baden Montessori School, in partnership with OLHC Catholic church, is able to assist parents with this extremely important and challenging task.
A Collaborative Partnership
The political and cultural boundaries in matters related to “Church” and “State” are as old as they are on-going. Professionals of all walks of life continue to find creative ways to co-exist and thrive in their attempts to make positive contributions to society, respecting diversity and commonality. Baden Montessori School, as ideally a method of learning, has no religious affiliation, yet its mission remains to be strictly humanitarian, in essence. Baden Montessori School actively welcomes and practices diversity and inclusion in every matter as it relates to race, ethnicity, religion, non-religious tradition, sex, class, and sub-culture.
Baden Montessori School has the blessing of Archbishop Emeritus Robert J. Carlson. Families belonging to the Roman Catholic tradition may request as a supplement to the Montessori learning experience the Good Shepherd program. Roman Catholic families should understand that such a program does not substitute for those prayerful and faith related activities practiced at home and experienced during the liturgies celebrated each Sunday among the entire faith community. These experiences at home and at church reinforce a child’s overall quality of being and are invaluable for a child during his or her early developmental years, as these are years of enormous potential and cultural assimilation alluded to prior.
