Building a castle of learning, child by child

ALBANY — A 3-year-old boy sips water from a glass as classical music plays in the background. A 4-year-old counts out four crackers and a cheese stick, downs them and then washes his plate. A girl scrubs the floor with a mop.

If you're a parent of young children, you know that any one of these scenes is virtually unthinkable. And yet, it's all part of just another day at Castle Island Montessori School, a school still in its infancy. Albany's newest school opened just last week with seven students. The private, bilingual school is still enrolling students, from ages three to six, and hopes grow to 23 children by the end of the school year.

The school was founded by Diane Nickerson, an English as a Second Language teacher at Hackett Middle School and a mother of four. Its temporary home is the Albany Boys and Girls Club on Delaware Avenue, and it will move to the former Sunshine School in Lincoln Park early next year. Even though she has no plans to give up her day job, Nickerson founded Castle Island to create a school unlike any other in the city.

"I'm doing it because it's good for kids, it's good for the community," she said. "In a global economy, to have sustainable living internationally, it's important to have an understanding of cultures."

Two teachers run the fledgling school for now, and Nickerson — who has two children enrolled there — stops in when she's not working. Though there about a dozen Montessori schools in the region, Nickerson felt Albany needed one and that parents looking for an alternative to public schools might enroll a child there. The Albany school district has a Montessori school, as well as a bilingual school, but both are extremely competitive to get into and are bound by the same pressures faced by all public schools.

In a town in which school politics can be bitter and turn adults into frothing enemies, Castle Hill represents the type of education that can get lost in this time of teacher evaluations and days of student exams. Like any Montessori school, it distills what children learn and how they how learn it, into the simplest elements. Children in the school learn everything at their own pace and virtually every interaction is tailored to their specific needs, which is made possible by the small class.

The shelves are arranged in order, from left to right and top to bottom. It's like a book so that a 3-year-old looking for a toy is subconsciously building reading skills. There are glasses and china stacked on shelves that might be full of toys in other schools. At Castle Island, like other Montessori schools, the glass is there because it gives children a responsibility that they learn to take seriously while building the balance and dexterity skills needed to carefully carry breakable items around a room.

Montessori schools have been around for more than a century. There are about 4,000 Montessori schools in the country and about 7,000 worldwide. Even state Education Commissioner John King sends his children to a Montessori school.

At Castle Island, annual full-day tuition is $9,000, but there is a sliding scale based on household income. The school offers tuition scholarships and is looking to recruit refugees or immigrants. Children learn in multi-age classrooms, and the plan is to grow to eighth grade by 2015. A donor, who wishes to remain anonymous, provided a $25,000 start-up grant, Nickerson said.

Nickerson has been an educator for 17 years, in other countries and in urban and suburban school districts. The first time she set foot in a Montessori classroom, she said she was moved to tears. It made her completely rethink her idea of teaching. She took an online class last year called "How to Start a School."

Castle Island has one Montessori-trained teacher and one Spanish-speaking teacher. On Tuesday, Claudia O'Reilly sat with a child on her lap, reading a book in Spanish. Patty Ferry helped students stack a pile of blocks, then stood back to watch, occasionally crouching down to make suggestions as the three children worked together.

"We're looking at a child not just from an academic perspective. We're looking at them socially, mentally," Ferry said. "We want to step back as adults and let them learn to collaborate with themselves."

The school is currently accepting applications. For more information, visit www.castleislandmontessori.org.

swaldman@timesunion.com • 518-454-5080 • @518Schools