She's the mother of Mountaineer Montessori. In 1976, she took the fledgling school under her wing, nourished it, nurtured it and watched it grow with the passion and dedication of a doting mother hen.
No one can mention Mountaineer Montessori without thinking first of Mary McKown.
Monday, Jan. 12, 2009 - In one of the classrooms at Mountaineer Montessori, longtime teacher and director Mary McKown talks about the growth of the school she has guided since 1976. Weighing retirement at 68, she vows to train a qualified replacement before she leaves.
It's not just directing and teaching at the alternative school that keeps her on the run, though. When she isn't in the classroom fostering principles of the child-centered, self-directed learning concept, you might find her out pounding the pavement. An ardent distance runner, she finished two marathons last year.
At 68, she's nursing thoughts of retirement. New adventures beckon. That Peace Corps dream still nags at her. She won't leave until she trains a trusted replacement to coddle her education baby.
"I grew up in Salem in the north-central part of the state. It was a wonderful small town with Salem College being one of the focuses. At that time, it was a thriving place. My dad was a high school teacher and basketball coach, and my mom was also a teacher, but I didn't think about teaching.
"I was interested in retailing, particularly fashion. When I was young, I was involved in 4-H clubs and the projects I was interested in involved sewing. I grew up making all my clothing. My mother was an excellent seamstress, and taught me how to sew. I was particularly interested in fashion retailing. I wanted to buy and be in fashion. I never did that.
"I majored in home economics at WVU, with an emphasis on clothing and textiles, then got my master's degree at the Women's College of North Carolina, in Greensboro.
"From there, I went to Washington, D.C., to work, and ended up as a home economist in business for the National Canners Association. The emphasis was food. Then I married and moved to Huntington. I lived there about four years, divorced and went back to Washington. I had a 4-year-old child, and because of her and the influence of my sister, I just became fascinated with Montessori. My sister had her son enrolled in the Montessori School of Northern Virginia and she was an administrator there.
"When I went back to Washington, I took the Montessori teacher-training program, which is probably equivalent to another master's degree. The training was therapy for me after a divorce. Without really planning, I just discovered what I wanted to do.
"Even before I moved back to Washington, I had thought about going back to Marshall and majoring in early childhood education. Just watching my own child develop was fascinating. I wanted to nurture that as best I could.
"We consider Montessori an education method, but it really is a way of life. It's very different from traditional education. The emphasis is on self-direction and self-motivation to help children develop a good self-image.
"So the focus is not just on academics but on their social, emotional and spiritual development, as well. The classrooms are so important. We prepare the environment to satisfy the needs of the children, and those needs change.
"Dr. Montessori felt that people have sensitive periods to acquire information. These periods energize a child and provide a real force. They reach a maximum intensity, and disappear. Montessori teachers know what the sensitive periods are, and we watch for them and offer materials for the children to use to satisfy those needs. It's very child-centered, as opposed to teacher-centered. In this program, we follow the child. There may be 22 children doing 22 different things.
"Classrooms are set up so there's an area for daily living or practical life exercises. What they do with the hands feeds the mind. There's an area for sensorial development for math and numbers and cultural subjects. Lessons are given and children can work with the materials for as long as they want until need is satisfied.
"There's a three-year age span, so ages 3 to 6 are together and ages 6 to 9 are in group, then 9 to 12. The children are very cooperative and noncompetitive, so there's a lot of collaborative learning.
She's the mother of Mountaineer Montessori. In 1976, she took the fledgling school under her wing, nourished it, nurtured it and watched it grow with the passion and dedication of a doting mother hen.
No one can mention Mountaineer Montessori without thinking first of Mary McKown.
It's not just directing and teaching at the alternative school that keeps her on the run, though. When she isn't in the classroom fostering principles of the child-centered, self-directed learning concept, you might find her out pounding the pavement. An ardent distance runner, she finished two marathons last year.
At 68, she's nursing thoughts of retirement. New adventures beckon. That Peace Corps dream still nags at her. She won't leave until she trains a trusted replacement to coddle her education baby.
"I grew up in Salem in the north-central part of the state. It was a wonderful small town with Salem College being one of the focuses. At that time, it was a thriving place. My dad was a high school teacher and basketball coach, and my mom was also a teacher, but I didn't think about teaching.
"I was interested in retailing, particularly fashion. When I was young, I was involved in 4-H clubs and the projects I was interested in involved sewing. I grew up making all my clothing. My mother was an excellent seamstress, and taught me how to sew. I was particularly interested in fashion retailing. I wanted to buy and be in fashion. I never did that.
"I majored in home economics at WVU, with an emphasis on clothing and textiles, then got my master's degree at the Women's College of North Carolina, in Greensboro.
"From there, I went to Washington, D.C., to work, and ended up as a home economist in business for the National Canners Association. The emphasis was food. Then I married and moved to Huntington. I lived there about four years, divorced and went back to Washington. I had a 4-year-old child, and because of her and the influence of my sister, I just became fascinated with Montessori. My sister had her son enrolled in the Montessori School of Northern Virginia and she was an administrator there.
"When I went back to Washington, I took the Montessori teacher-training program, which is probably equivalent to another master's degree. The training was therapy for me after a divorce. Without really planning, I just discovered what I wanted to do.
"Even before I moved back to Washington, I had thought about going back to Marshall and majoring in early childhood education. Just watching my own child develop was fascinating. I wanted to nurture that as best I could.
"We consider Montessori an education method, but it really is a way of life. It's very different from traditional education. The emphasis is on self-direction and self-motivation to help children develop a good self-image.
"So the focus is not just on academics but on their social, emotional and spiritual development, as well. The classrooms are so important. We prepare the environment to satisfy the needs of the children, and those needs change.
"Dr. Montessori felt that people have sensitive periods to acquire information. These periods energize a child and provide a real force. They reach a maximum intensity, and disappear. Montessori teachers know what the sensitive periods are, and we watch for them and offer materials for the children to use to satisfy those needs. It's very child-centered, as opposed to teacher-centered. In this program, we follow the child. There may be 22 children doing 22 different things.
"Classrooms are set up so there's an area for daily living or practical life exercises. What they do with the hands feeds the mind. There's an area for sensorial development for math and numbers and cultural subjects. Lessons are given and children can work with the materials for as long as they want until need is satisfied.
"There's a three-year age span, so ages 3 to 6 are together and ages 6 to 9 are in group, then 9 to 12. The children are very cooperative and noncompetitive, so there's a lot of collaborative learning.
"This year, we studied different regions of the U.S. Instead of all the children having to become experts on all of the U.S., they worked in partnerships and studied a specific region and became experts on that region, and then they taught each other. That's the way it is with any research we do.
"I worked at the Montessori School of Northern Virginia for about three years, then I wanted to move back to this area to be closer to my family and to Shari's father and his family in Huntington.
"This school was, at one time, a parent cooperative. It had been formed by a group of parents. It just so happens that they lost their teacher in the middle of the year. This was 1976. I contacted them and I've been involved ever since.
"The school has grown a lot. When I first came, the school was housed in St. Matthew's Parish House on Norwood Road. Then the River School developed, and they had more political and financial, and maybe spiritual, clout than I did, so Mountaineer Montessori was evicted from the parish house.
"I spent days in my car driving around in the summer of 1980 trying to find a place. I attribute a lot of the success of this program to the University of Charleston. They were only using part of this space, and they let me in. They've been our landlords ever since.
"It grew from one class of primary children to two classes of children age 3 to 6, two classes of children age 6 to 9 and the advanced class of 9- to 12-year-olds, which is the one I teach. I direct and I teach, so I really have two full-time jobs.
"It's a job I love. I come to school every day looking forward to the day. Now, I'm considering a change in my life. I see that happening in the next two years. It's going to take two years to find someone to take over as director. I will need to mentor somebody and find somebody to teach. It's not easy to find Montessori teachers here.
"When I was at WVU in 1960, the Peace Corps was formed, and I and a few other students met with Betty Boyd (dean of women) to explore the idea of the Peace Corps. I put it on the back burner because I had plans to go to graduate school. In 1994, I applied and was ready to go off to the Peace Corps. I had arranged for a woman to be in charge of Montessori and her husband was transferred to Florida. So I again had to put the Peace Corps on the back burner.
"In October, there was an article in the paper about the Peace Corps accepting volunteers age 50 and over. I might consider that. My daughter's husband is about to have a sabbatical that will take them to some interesting places. I might spend some time with them.
"I used to practice hatha yoga with a group in Washington, and I was very flexible. When I first came to Charleston, there wasn't that opportunity, so I started running. I ran with a vengeance. If I couldn't run six miles a day, I wouldn't run. I would run at least 50 miles a week.
"I've probably done 24 Charleston Distance Runs, one unofficially and one I dropped out. I get bad leg cramps. I ran the New York Marathon in 2007. I had to walk some because of cramps, but I finished. This fall, I ran in the Richmond Marathon, and in December, I ran in the Charlotte Marathon.
"I love running. It's my outlet. I process a lot of stuff when I'm running. I even plan my lessons when I'm running. I write notes to the parents.
"I would love to see the University of Charleston offer Montessori teacher training. All of our teachers have come to the program because they enrolled their children and loved the way of life and wanted to be involved. So I sent them off to train. It's a big sacrifice to take a year of your life to go off and learn how to be a Montessori teacher. It would be nice if we had a program here."
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