NEWS AND VIEWS

St. John's Ukrainian Montessori Pre-School celebrates 15th anniversary

by Lada Bidiak

NEWARK, N.J. - On the morning of October 31, the children of St. John's Ukrainian Montessori Pre-School came trick-or-treating to the parish rectory. My daughter and I happened to be visiting my mother at the time, and I was astonished by just how well mannered these children were, and by how well they interacted with the Rev. Bohdan Lukie and with Bishop Michael Kuchmiak. My husband and I have entertained the idea of sending our daughter to this pre-school for some time now, but after observing Olenka Kolodiy and her assistants with these students, I have no doubt that Maya will be part of this group within the next few years.

Mrs. Kolodiy and her assistants, Halyna Lysenko and Nataliya Kahuy, employ the Montessori method in teaching their students, stressing self-discipline, motivation, concentration, and thoroughness. This method, developed in Italy by Marie Montessori nearly a century ago, emphasizes learning through the five senses, with each child learning at his or her own pace and according to his or her own choice of activities.

According to Ms. Kolodiy, the four main divisions of the Montessori curriculum are as follows: Practical Life (the child perfects coordination, lengthens concentration, learns to pay attention to detail, learns good working habits, and perfects skills needed to function in a given environment); Sensorial (the child relates to the environment through stimulation of sense impressions); Language Arts (the child learns to recognize letters by sound, learns to recognize sounds in words, and learns to form short vowel words), and Mathematics (the child is introduced to quantities and numerals, learns association of numerals with quantities, learns the decimal system, and learns counting by tens).

Ms. Kolodiy, who received her Montessori teacher training through Fairleigh Dickinson University in Teaneck, New Jersey, launched the St. John's Ukrainian Montessori Pre-School in 1989. For the past 15 years, she and her assistants have been endowing their students with a positive attitude towards school, pride in their environment, a strong self-discipline and self-understanding, and a sense of responsibility to other members of their class and their community.

For further information about this unique pre-school, please contact educational director Ms. Kolodiy at (973) 371-3254.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, December 21, 2003, No. 51, Vol. LXXI

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