The Child Is the Teacher: A Life of Maria Montessori

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v44/n24/bee-wilson/like-a-bar-of-soap

by crapvoter • 4 years ago

136 151 4 years ago

lrb.co.uk

In the US, anyone can open a Montessori school. It's not regulated.

marcus0x629• 4 years ago

For context, my daughter is in a Montessori school in the United States. My wife was on the board of the school for a few years. We did a bunch of research before enrolling her in the school she attends.

The school is absolutely regulated by the state department of education. In order to operate as any kind of private school, they have to meet certain requirements and agree to oversight by the state. While I’m sure the details vary by state, and I’m only familiar with the requirements in my state, I think is probably pretty common across all 50 states.

For the Montessori aspect, yes, there are a bunch of “Montessori” schools that don’t really follow Montessori principles (at least there are in my area.) If you want to find a school that does actually implement Montessori principles, you have to do research (looking for membership in an association like the American Montessori Society is a good first-pass filter) and interview the school. There’s no substitute for due diligence for this.

robotguy• 4 years ago

My wife, a Montessori preschool teacher for 30 years, calls these unaccredited schools Monte-sort-of.

massysett• 4 years ago

In my state (Maryland) there are two categories of private school. With one, there is at least some state supervision, teachers have to be certified, etc. The State Board of Education must approve these schools. A few of the private schools are in this category.

The other category is called "church exempt." Quite simply these are exempt from education regulations. They only need to show that they are operated by a church organization. A large number of the schools are in this category.

fullstop2• 4 years ago

I remember looking into Montessori schools for my kids and found them to be quite expensive. On one of their web pages they attempted to justify the cost by saying that the children would have access to very nice furniture.

For every legitimate school there seems to be another which is just a cash grab.

Wowfunhappy2• 4 years ago

I mean, I don't know what types of prices we're talking about, but running schools is expensive, so when you aren't government-funded you have to charge a lot.

marcus0x629• 4 years ago

Ours is on the lower end of private school prices for our area (around $1200/month,) but it is a non-profit. That brings its own set of challenges, but keeps costs down. Top private schools in my area are more than $3k/month, for reference.

bjt2n39043• 4 years ago

The radical idea at the heart of Montessori’s method was not that children learn by play but that adults prevent them from learning by interrupting them. It was these interruptions that turned schools into places where ‘the body was tortured and contorted and the blood poisoned’.

The internal conflict I have over this is intense. On one hand, I firmly believe most education in America serves to keep children stupid -- and most public schools are more like prisons. Pink Floyd and such.

On the other hand, I also resist the notion that if you just let children be and investigate what they want, they'll naturally grow up to be healthy well rounded members of society.

Perhaps this is too simple an understanding of Maria's method, but I've had few people explain it well to me.

marcus0x629• 4 years ago

It’s more guided discovery than a free-for-all. My daughter attends a Montessori school. She can, by and large, select what she works on from a pool of age- (and skill-) appropriate activities. She sets a goal each semester for something she wants to master (right now she’s working on a math puzzle.)

Our state does require a certain number of hours of instruction in core subjects, so there is a requirement for a certain amount of math, reading, etc. You could argue that what we have isn’t “pure” Montessori as a result, but to operate legally, it is what the school has to do.

I don’t think Montessori is for everyone — I know families at our school where some of their kids attend, and some are in public school because it works better for that particular kid. For us, it has been great for our daughter.

bjt2n39043• 4 years ago

If it were between a public school and a Montessori school, the choice would be fairly easy. Such is my distaste for public schools.

I think though, what made her such an effective educator wasn't her method. Teaching seems to be more of an art form than a science. There are certainly fundamental principles of education, just like in art.

The art seems to be knowing when to use "one size fits all", and when to use "know the rules so you can break them".

Edit: And ultimately, I think the largest factor overlooked is the presence of the parents in their children's education.

A friend of mine is sending their kids to a Montessori school, and they're thriving there. But before that, he and his wife read and sang with their children every night. That does, in my mind, more than any other teacher could possibly do.

maria22• 4 years ago

I think the key points you’re missing are that:

1) this is directed at young children.

2) “what they want” is really “what they want [in the context of the environment you’ve created for them]”. So the kids can’t do whatever they want.

Wowfunhappy2• 4 years ago

1) this is directed at young children.

Note that while today Montessori is most commonly used in preschools, there are Montessori schools for much older children, and that was the original vision.

tesin2• 4 years ago

The missing part to the explanation is that Montessori teachers expend a significant amount of effort curating the physical space for learning. The classroom and the materials (with a strong focus on physical objects) constantly allow for the engagement in learning activities. This requires a lot of planning and maintenance. They're also not unattended - the scope is just longer durations. An hour, and afternoon, instead of 20 minutes for a worksheet.

Imagine putting a scientist in an excellent lab, with all the machines their domain required, fully stocked with reagents etc. Then in the morning, asking if three different tasks, which they'd like to do today. At the end of the day, asking what still needed to completed, and adding it to the three tasks for tomorrow. This is obviously a massive simplification, but hopefully it conveys the idea.

camgunz• 4 years ago

There are definitely Montessori schools/teachers that basically do nothing, but the idea is:

- create an environment for the child that encourages focused play (everything's in reach, nothing is too loud or flashy, etc.)

- intently observe the child (like, literally take notes), figure out what they're into, and give them more of it

People definitely feel different ways about this, similar to you, but not just about Montessori. Lots of places in the EU have reformatted their educational systems to be less rigid, and the results are pretty good [0]. I admit that if I had a kid unable to read by ~9 years old I'd be concerned, but it looks like generally things still go OK.

[0] https://archive.ph/wLw5E (BBC)

bitexploder3• 4 years ago

A lot of early education is based on sensitive periods. Materials are introduced at ages and times when the child shows interest. It is guided learning.

Kids learn to do things like cut apples, with a regular knife. At age 3. I will never forget one parent’s reaction. She was horrified and asked us “won’t they cut themselves?” My partner: “yeah, usually.” You could see her mentally nope out. That is a great viewpoint into Montesorri’s philosophy: that small kids are way more capable in many regards than adults assume.

There is also almost no need for a traditional gifted program because as kids finish materials nee ones are available. Grades are very fluid in a Montesorri classroom and kids have the freedom to explore everything. I think it works well for most children. Better by a lot for most kids compared to the traditional systems of public school.

So you give them a specialized environment and let them loose and then follow their interests, “follow the child” as Montesorri said. Then you guide them. The materials are designed to make it easier for kids to do on their own, but they also get plenty of help.

It is a very uncomfortable notion for many parents, but my daughter is a great example. She is 10 and easily doing work several grades ahead in topics that she excels at. No need for a gifted program really, the materials and support system is there to let all kids work at their own pace.

the_af2• 4 years ago

Which kinds of knives? If they are sharp enough, and the kid loses a finger or an eye, I suppose that is also a learning experience, but are we willing to let them pay that price?

happymellon• 4 years ago

It is a very uncomfortable notion for many parents

In my experience Americans seem to have a very negative view of knives in general. So I would phrase that as "for many American parents"

A lot seem to only eat with a fork, treating it like a spoon and leaving their knife to one side. My MIL has had to learn that my children use knives to eat, and if she doesn't give them one then they will ask.

brewdad3• 4 years ago

How does Montessori address topics that may not be of much interest to a child but are still important and necessary in developing a well-rounded and productive member of society?

I'm thinking along the lines of getting all students a baseline level of maths even if their passions lie in words and language. Or perhaps vice-versa for the majority of this crowd.

aldonius• 4 years ago

Steiner preschool also entrusts children with knives to cut fruit (or at least mine did, back in the 90s).

I would trust 5-7 year olds with knives unsupervised or semi-supervised more than 8-11 year olds and definitely more than 13-15 year olds!

shp0ngle• 4 years ago

As others mentioned, it’s not “let them do whatever”, but it requires a lot of planning.

You notice it by how more expensive are things (schools, books, toys) with the brand “montessori”. Lots of it is marketing and signaling, but lots of it is just more preparation going into it.

the_af2• 4 years ago

I would feel better about Montessori if there weren't branded items and toys. That part seems distasteful to me.

noworriesnate2• 4 years ago

Here are some interesting thoughts on comparing some of these teaching methods:

[Charlotte Mason's teaching style] is not unschooling, nor is it delight-directed. To illustrate the difference, imagine that you had a son who was interested in knights and wanted to learn more about them. With unschooling, you wouldn't plan any lessons but you would let your son read all the books he could find about knights, play knights games, look up knights on the internet. Then, you'd count those hours as school time. With delight-directed, you would note his interest in knights, and ditch your plans to teach about ancient cultures and US History, and instead plan a semester of lessons about knights. With CM, you would allow your son to learn all he wanted about knights in his spare time, but during school hours, you would continue to assign readings from chronological history and literature so he'd still be learning about ancient Egypt, Rome, US History, etc. because, as Charlotte Mason said, you never know what will ignite a passion in a child, so exposure to many topics is necessary. However, you would keep school hours short to give him plenty of time (and inclination) to learn about knights after school. [1]

Sounds like you might like Charlotte Mason's approach.

[1] https://www.amblesideonline.org/faq

bjt2n39043• 4 years ago

No, actually I don't like that method! Infact, that's the one I was saying I don't like!

This weaponizes hedonism for education -- and it's good for children to learn that education can be gratifying. But there are many things in education that are not pleasing for some time.

If the child is not led to discipline themselves to learn things they don't necessarily enjoy... It's like trying to teach them to eat only things they enjoy.

To circle back, I really think these pop education methods are boiling down to fad diets. You can lose weight with the Paleo diet, or Jenny Craig, or avoiding carbs... But what do they all have in common? Caloric intake rules the day.

jgalt212• 4 years ago

And it's main competitor (at the pre-school level in the US), Regio Emilia, is also from Italy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reggio_Emilia_approach

brewdad3• 4 years ago

My child attended a Reggio Emilia style preschool. It was a great fit for him and many of the students went on to great success in public school later on. I think his class of 20 students ended up with 4 valedictorians by the end of high school.

We chose it because it worked well for his personality type and learning style but also because we could afford it. It cost only about 1/4 of what the nearby Montessori school was charging. Our preschool did require about 6-8 hours a week of parental involvement, so didn't work for everyone. In exchange, I think we paid something like $300 a month for 3 days a week about 15 years ago.

pndy• 4 years ago

Btw, she was on 1000 Lire banknote in the 90s series. Still got mine somewhere - Wikipedia says it would be an equivalent of about 0,51€

[1] https://ibb.co/zmxXYhs

martopix• 4 years ago

1 Euro = 1936.27 liras! I was 12 but I remember it as if it was yesterday.

throwaway712719• 4 years ago

There is interesting quote form speech of Montessori to UNESCO in The Technological Society(Jacuqes Ellul):

'We must awaken the child's social conscience. I know that it is a complicated educational question, but the child who will become the man must be able to understand life and its needs, the fundamental reason for all existence, the search for happiness . .. He must know exactly what he must do and what he must not do for the good of humanity ... To reach these ends, we must prepare the child to understand the meaning and necessity of the entente among the nations. The organization of the peace devolves more on education than on politics. To secure peace practically, we must envision a humane education, psychopedagogy, which affects not one nation but all men on earth . . . Education must become a truly humane science to guide all men to judge the present situation correctly.'

https://archive.org/details/JacquesEllulTheTechnologicalSoci... (page 346)

Its all in the eyes of the beholder, but I felt it almost as the education in brave new world, it was kind of strange, especially because my daughter goes to a Montessori school. I feel it will be much harder for her to reject it than it would've been in a normal school.

A bit like Zizek's take on the modern Boss: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQlJE7ABNu4

musha68k• 4 years ago

I’m not sure I follow what you want to say here? Do you mean the education doesn’t reflect “reality”? If so, don’t you think it can, will and probably has to change?

I’m also not sure where you see the parallel to Brave New World, what I remember is that there weren’t a lot of truth-seeking change agents around? Quite the contrary, no?

I would appreciate any clarifications for personal reasons.

throwaway712719• 4 years ago

I mean that it is an attempt to build a system that integrates the child so deeply, that the child can not build resistance, Montessiori's ideal is to start education at birth, how else can you 'shape' the person to take their role and responsibility in society.

In the end, it is still a system for producing workers that fit in whatever the current regime needs, and I think there should be some space for "i dont want to be a part of this, there must be some other way to live"

The first few pages of brave new world gave me this vibe, thats why I said its in the eye of the beholder, you read as much into a book as out of it.

In the same time, my daughter is growing up to be critically thinking and self aware and independent and is enjoying the school very much.

BlueTemplar3• 4 years ago

Further on :

[...]

EDIT : > We note first of all that this technique must be implemented by the state, which alone has the means and the breadth to carry it through. But the rigorous application of the psychopedagogic technique means the end of private instruction — and therefore of a traditional freedom.

[...]

EDIT 2 : > despite all the pretentious talk about the aims of education — it is not the child in and for himself who is being educated, but the child in and for society. And the society, moreover, is not an ideal one, with full justice and truth, but society as it is.

ORIGINAL : > When a society becomes increasingly totalitarian (and I say "society,” not “state”), it creates more and more difficulties of adaptation and requires its citizens to be conformist in the same degree. Thus, this technique becomes all the more necessary. I have no doubt that it makes men better balanced and “happier.” And there is the danger. It makes men happy in a milieu which normally would have made them unhappy, if they had not been worked on, molded, and formed for just that milieu. What looks like the apex of humanism is in fact the pinnacle of human submission: children are educated to become precisely what society expects of them. They must have social consciences that allow them to strive for the same ends as society sets for itself. Clearly, when modern youth are fully educated in the new psychopedagogic technique, many social and political difficulties will disappear. Any form of government or social transformation becomes possible with individuals who have experienced this never-ending process of adaptation. The key word of the new human techniques is, therefore, adaptation, and we shall come upon it repeatedly as we consider each of these techniques separately.

P.S.: One of main gists of Ellul's thought is that the technoscientific progress results in an increasingly totalitarian society.

svnt7• 4 years ago

The near-inverse of Montessori is Waldorf, which is based on the work of Rudolf Steiner.

If Montessori is skilled guides redirecting children to a constrained set of works until those kids do it themselves, Waldorf is a magical fairy godmother cuing children by song and felted puppets to engage their imagination in story and play.

Both seem to have value. I believe Montessori’s methods feel so robotic in America because America is not early 20th century Europe, where so much magic, song, and fantasy was already an omnipresent part of the culture.

BlueTemplar3• 4 years ago

But according to Montessori herself, "magic, song (?) and fantasy" were considered to be bad... at least where children education is concerned, but also probably for teenagers and adults, considering her Catholic views ?

robocat2• 4 years ago

My friends that went through Steiner in the 80s do not remember Eurythmy fondly. As an outsider, https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nlmySOg9vsc from 2016 superficially appears to show Waldorf hasn't changed much.

msla4• 4 years ago

The problem with Waldorf is how much is based on blatant pseudoscience:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waldorf_education

Steiner considered children's cognitive, emotional, and behavioral development to be interlinked.[81] When students in a Waldorf school are grouped, it is generally not by a focus on academic abilities.[54]: 89 Instead, Steiner adapted the pseudoscientific proto-psychological concept of the classic four temperaments – melancholic, sanguine, phlegmatic, and choleric.[82]

[snip]

Today, Waldorf teachers may work with these pseudoscientific "temperaments" to design instruction for each student. Seating arrangements and class activities may take into account the supposed temperaments of students but this is often not described to parents, students, or observers.[90][91]

Do kids have different personalities? Yes. Should education take that into account, in some fashion? Possibly. Is a Medieval conception of "personality" linked to "fluids" the way to do that? I'm pretty sure we can do better with the benefit of centuries of hindsight and actual research.

Experts have called into question the quality of this phenomenological approach if it fails to educate Waldorf students on basic tenets of scientific fact.[111] The Waldorf approach is said to cultivate students with "high motivation" but "average achievement" in the sciences.[112] One study conducted by California State University at Sacramento researchers outlined numerous theories and ideas prevalent throughout Waldorf curricula that were patently pseudoscientific and steeped in magical thinking. These included the idea that animals evolved from humans, that human spirits are physically incarnated into "soul qualities that manifested themselves into various animal forms", that the current geological formations on Earth have evolved through so-called "Lemurian" and "Atlantiean" epochs, and that the four kingdoms of nature are "mineral, plant, animal, and man". All of these are directly contradicted by mainstream scientific knowledge and have no basis in any form of conventional scientific study. Contradictory notions found in Waldorf textbooks are distinct from factual inaccuracies occasionally found in modern public school textbooks, as the inaccuracies in the latter are of a specific and minute nature that results from the progress of science. The inaccuracies present in Waldorf textbooks, however, are the result of a mode of thinking that has no valid basis in reason or logic.[113] This unscientific foundation has been blamed for the scarcity of systematic empirical research on Waldorf education as academic researchers hesitate in getting involved in studies of Waldorf schools lest it hamper their future career.[114]

There is a difference between a philosophy of how to teach kids actual material and a so-called "philosophy" which results in teaching kids nonsense. It also leads to a question: If you remove the pseudoscience, is it still Waldorf?

082349872349872• 4 years ago

If you stop and think about the education in brave new world, how different is it from ours? Do we judge people's socioeconomic status by their clothes? Do we tell ourselves platitudes concerning other socioeconomic statuses? (you're poor and dirty, they're rich and arrogant, we're upright real honest to god middle class, etc.) Sure, Huxley turned everything to 11, but is there any part of the AF 632 world that doesn't reflect something that already exists here in AF 114?

InitialLastName• 4 years ago

No, because (despite what we tell ourselves about social progress) our world and society aren't that different than the world Huxley lived in and was commenting on.

Dystopian fiction is outlined by an author's attempt to take notable societal patterns in their own time and extend them to their most extreme conclusions (sometimes modulo an interesting plot); one shouldn't be surprised when the most compelling works do a good job of capturing and explicating one aspect or another of the author's society.

kardianos• 4 years ago

Ah yes, reverberations of the New Soviet Man. "Awaken the Child's Social Conscience" to come into a world where they don't need to be controlled, but know exactly what they must do already. ... "truly humane". Also the inversion student-teacher roles sounds like Paulo Freire and his opposition to the strawman "banking model" (Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 1970).

The question comes ultimately to: Is Rousseau correct that adults are correcting and that children in nature are pure, or are humans naturally selfish and children must be taught goodness and culture for them to live good and well. I believe in the second mode; the first one end in disaster for parents and society.

amadeuspagel• 4 years ago

TIL, the banking model of education[1]. It doesn't seem like a strawman to me. It is of course only a model, and not a complete description of existing education.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banking_model_of_education

throwaway712719• 4 years ago

I dont question the teaching of 'goodness and culture', but how deep do you teach it? Imagine our ultimately technical society manages to build an education system that is so personal that it directly reprograms you. You go to school, hook up your airpods and get the program.

How will culture change if everyone has exactly the same culture and goodness?

lo_zamoyski2• 4 years ago

I think that if we wish to evaluate the Montessori method, we need to avoid cynical laziness on the one hand and utopian expectations on the other. Some things that came to mind while reading the article and the reactions to it:

- Not all Montessori schools are the same. Not all are accredited by a Montessori body.

- Children may benefit from varying methods, and Montessori seems capable of absorbing or accommodating them to by having the teacher adjust to each child's individual needs.

- Individual needs do highlight the oddness of modern education, of how impersonal and bizarrely artificial it is. In a natural setting, children grow up in a family in which they learn from their parents and siblings, through the interactions with friends, and so on. Our social interactions, especially those that take place in the family, are all about responding to each other's individual and particular needs. Learning and what is needed to learn falls under this category of human needs. Learning is fully integral and self-same with life itself, not some thing to be artificially set apart into some separated, alienated thing, a factory that thinks of students as units.

- As Montessori was Catholic, and Catholicism accepts the doctrine of original sin, it is more sensible to presume that she did not accept a Rousseauian anthropology. However, a rejection of Rousseauian anthropology doesn't automatically construe children as little monsters or reject the notion that we may become corrupted by others later in life. As a Catholic, Montessori would also be familiar with the age of reason before which children maintain innocence of any personal sin (sin entails culpability, culpability entails assent, assent entails understanding, and children still lack understanding). Of course, children can be said to be selfish in the sense that early in life, they have a good many basic needs that need to be met by others, etc. The effects of original sin concern the greater or lesser insubordination of both the corporeal faculties and the will to reason (the tendency to sin is a tendency to act, with greater or lesser awareness, against reason and what reason informs us is the good).

- I doubt the encyclical criticizing "scholastic innovators" was criticizing Montessori specifically or all educational reform. Papal encyclicals are not some kind of grumpy, curmudgeonly grunt of the pope in which he complains about things young people are doing that he doesn't like. They're often quite pithy and contain a good deal of foresight and depth (Pius X's predictions w.r.t. "modernism" have played out, for example). Note that at the time, the modern system of schooling was not that old (some say it was inspired by Prussian methods). What he was likely criticizing were strange fads in education rooted in really bogus philosophical anthropologies. All education systems make tacit assumptions about human nature, and if they are wrong, they will misshape educational methods and possible misshape the child. There is no way Montessori held the do-what-thou-wilt view of children or would have opposed punishment categorically. She may have only objected to the prevailing educational paradigm, and in it, the way punishment was used.

Viliam1234• 4 years ago

Is Rousseau correct that adults are correcting and that children in nature are pure, or are humans naturally selfish and children must be taught goodness and culture for them to live good and well.

This is a false dilemma. The fact that humans are capable of many different behaviors means that we are biologically prepared to exhibit all of them... in certain circumstances. Actually, the difference between nature and learning is also a false dilemma. The nature of homo sapiens is to learn. Some apes are born smarter than human babies, but the human babies dramatically exceed them at capacity to learn.

For example, it is natural to be nice to your family and friends, and hostile to strangers. The culture tries to overcome this. Less hostility to strangers, and less nepotism, so that a large civilization can be built. The civilization brings many good things (food, safety, comfort), but also lot of frustration, as we constantly need to overcome our instincts. Sometimes we find out that we were suppressing our instincts more than was necessary, and can relax a bit.

The main thing we teach children is self-control. Children can be super nice, when they are in the right mood. We teach them not to hit or bite their potential friends, when they happen to be in the opposite mood. Does this make friendliness natural or learned? The question is false. We learn how not to ruin the thing that we naturally want.

In education, kids are better at learning by observing than by listening. Teachers often err by talking too much. Instead, they should talk less, and let the kids observe each other as they succeed. Still, the teachers should teach; it is not reasonable to assume that kids will reinvent the entire civilization in 10 years.

neonate• 4 years ago

http://web.archive.org/web/20221208063803/https://www.lrb.co...

https://archive.ph/n0LJM

scottmsul• 4 years ago

When I was 5 my parents put me in a "normal" kindergarten, where I failed to do literally anything - I wouldn't make any marks on any of the sheets, not even my name. They were worried I had some kind of developmental problem.

Somewhat out of desperation they put me in a Montessori school. By the end of Kindergarten I was reading at a 3rd grade level and understood the basics of multiplication.

We ended up moving by 1st grade and I went back to "normal school", where I did ok since I already knew everything.

subpixel• 4 years ago

I also knew everything in first grade, so I was bored and acted out and eventually the teacher put a cardboard box on my desk so nobody could see my and I couldn't bother anyone. Some say this explains a lot ...

euroderf6• 4 years ago

Yup, boredom makes a teacher's nightmare. Spitballs, tweeters, paper airplanes, animal noises, the full litany.

balls1872• 4 years ago

I recall there being no correlation between attending Montessori schools and later success in life.

Eventually, kids figure out how to use a knife, or not crap their pants.

Early education is about social and emotional development.

I opted to stick my kids in a foreign language immersion program instead.

badpun• 4 years ago

I recall there being no correlation between attending Montessori schools and later success in life.

Do you remember how they measured "success" ?

alefnula• 4 years ago

Can you share the link to the study you're referring to? I will soon be choosing a school for my kid, and I'm very curious to see if there are any actual differences in outcomes. All the studies I found say there are. (For example https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5670361/)

svnt7• 4 years ago

That study basically says it will make your child better at school, and develops executive function earlier, which according to their results has no correlation with academic success.

If you want a child to be better at school, conditioning them early to choose from a constrained set of tasks with natural progression seems like a good way to make it comfortable for them.

balls1872• 4 years ago

At the time I was selecting a preschool, it wasn't a specific study, however interpretations of various studies.

If it's helpful, this is a more recent one: https://srcd.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cdev.13575 which shows that Montessori preschoolers performed comparably to non-Montessori preschoolers in Kindergarten, though "disadvantaged kids" who attended Montessori schools performed better than "disadvantaged kids" who did not. (My interpretation being the correlation to performance is that the parents got their kids into a Montessori preschool despite economic disadvantages--biased because of what I learned in Freakanomics).

And a tangential analysis: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41539-017-0012-7 that concludes that most studies around Montessori are not sufficient to draw any meaningful conclusions, however adapting Montessori methods into traditional classrooms appears to be beneficial.

Regarding your upcoming decision--if I can offer my advice: find a preschool that best meets your families needs, and not worry too much about academics (at their age). If your children enters grade school with the abilities to succeed in the classroom that's great. If not, it's a great opportunity for them to learn early age how to overcome challenges--which will serve them well when they are adults.

Georgelemental• 4 years ago

There are foreign language immersion Montessori programs! One of my close family runs one

theonething• 4 years ago

Early education is about social and emotional development.

I really think so too. People are falling over themselves about Early Childhood Education (ECE), thinking they need to start their kids' education as soon as possible or they'll fall behind. It's even in the nomenclature, gotta get them started as early as possible.

Our kid is nearing three. My wife takes her to parks, playdates, mommy and me classes where they do arts and crafts, sing songs, read stories, free play, etc and when she's home she just has free play time. Zero screen policy.

Let kids be kids when they're little and enjoy their childhood a little. They'll grow up and suffer along with the rest of us in due time.

vorpalhex3• 4 years ago

"Play is the work of the child" - Maria Montessori

Free play is learning for a child. Those are the right things to be doing.

euroderf6• 4 years ago

Our kid is just three and there's an issue with screens. Even a half hour a day of Khan Academy (currently set to 1st Grade) creates lots of whining at other times in the day for more. A preoccupation with Cars movie characters is OK with toy cars (I guess) but not when there's early morning pleading to watch it again.

But otherwise we're on the same route as you. ATM the kid is heavily into doing jigsaw puzzles on his own (60 pc is about his limit for DIY), and he likes to read to himself now and then.

icare_1er• 4 years ago

The few examples around me proved to be disasters, with kids bordering on autism, who had never been told to say "hello" or show the basics of living in society with other people in the room.

brewdad3• 4 years ago

Which way does the cause-effect flow do you think? Are these schools developing kids who lack basic social skills or do neuro-divergent kids who struggle in regular school have more success in the Montessori environment.

ransom15383• 4 years ago

Feel free to visit a Montessori school. Third grade kids just walking around, some reading a sticker book, some just yelling at each other, some finger painting, no structure, absolutely no learning happening. Some of the kids were in 7th grade math, some couldn't yet multiply numbers. One kid ran up to us said a few incoherent sentences then walked off awkwardly. It's one step above home schooling. The teachers had no plan and were excited to get us volunteering. Pass. Who is famous that went to Montessori school?

sfpotter2• 4 years ago

Consider that in a "regular"-style school, there is no reason to expect the situation would be any better, although it might look the way you think it should. Possible differences:

- the kids may not be "just walking around"

- may not be reading a sticker book

- may not be yelling at each other

- may not be finger painting

Why is any of that good? Do you need to see a neat line of kids quietly sitting in desks before you can assume any learning or anything valuable is taking place? Even if the students were being forced to drill their times tables, you can be sure that not all kids are going to figure it out. But probably the kid who might have learned 7th grade math will not actually learn 7th grade math---if anything, they'll likely get bored because things are moving too slow for them and they're forced to spend time doing something that they perceive to be a waste of time. I don't think there's anything inherently better about this situation.

I think you are biased by your notion of what school should look like.

loloquwowndueo• 4 years ago

Why is fame your yardstick for whether someone’s education was successful?

ransom15383• 4 years ago

Fame is easy to google. Feel free to use: how many are able to are able to get into top universities, how many volunteer, feel free. How many are published authors? Whatever pick anything.

ljlolel• 4 years ago

I don't think fame is at all a good metric (even should be a counter-metric?) but here is a list if you're interested. Seems like they took great care to have evidence. It is not the same as college easy to attribute or prove for obvious reasons.

https://amshq.org/About-Montessori/Montessori-Alumni

ransom15383• 4 years ago

I agree. Use drop out rates instead.

gmnash• 4 years ago

I'd guess that was likely not an AMS or AMI (certified) school.

Here are two famous people that went to Montessori schools: Sergei Brin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHzj3LrXruY Jeff Bezos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ox49EB1tNW4

blodkorv2• 4 years ago

I went to a Montessori school during my childhood.

It really was the worst option for a kid like me. They let my ADD run loose and there was no real organization or dicipline at all. I remember i could spend weeks just walking around in the school and do "montissori tasks" every now and then. For regular school work they asked me every other week what i wanted to learn and let me write it down in a schedule and expected me to just learn it on my own and if i needed help i could ask a teacher for help. This led me to do the absolute minimum or pretty much nothing.

I was so behind on everything in school that i had to repeat school years several times and then before finishing cram everything i was behind on during the last year in a separate summer school.

For the kids with natural dicipline and organization it was really benefitial. But for a kid like me that needed to learn dicipline and organization it was truly the worst.

My parents insisted on keeping me there because they really beleived in the montissori way and thought i would do worse in a traditional school.

overlisted• 4 years ago

Same experience here, although I only did one year of Montessori before my parents luckily realized its ineffectiveness. I would quickly find all materials "boring" and didn't want to do them anymore. I guess it could get me to hyperfocus occasionally, but definitely not enough.

danvoell• 4 years ago

Same experience from having a kid in Montessori. It's definitely a method that works for some. We all want our children to be able to "choose their own path" but as a parent don't feel awkward asking the question, does my kid need more structure at this point?

boringg5• 4 years ago

Thanks for your perspective - I have a couple questions since it is definitely a program unique to each child

(1) Was it an accredited Montesorri school? There is a wide range of quality within the Montesorri programs and the quality of the teachers is a real difference marker (in terms of them helping guide childrens desire to learn).

(2) What is your comparative benchmark (ie how do you know you would have done better at another school?) and what is your metric for success (how you performed for tests at school or how you developed as a human? Do you find you have a natural curiosity in the world/learn?)

(3) What type of school did you transition into and at what age?

blodkorv2• 4 years ago

1. I have no idea sadly.

2. I have a guess that i would perform a bit better in a regular and more disciplined school, since i did much better when i moved to "gymnasiet"(late highschool). This school had a much more traditional way of teaching.

3. When i was 16 i moved on to gymnasiet(later highschool) and did okay there. After that i tried to get into university but i did not have good enough grades to get accepted. So i went to a diploma school, much like a coding boot-camp, which i dropped out of to start my company which is what i do now.

nkrisc• 4 years ago

I think it depends on the individual school and teachers.

I went to a Montessori school K-8 and also have ADD. It made some things harder but because of the flexible nature of things the teachers could spend more time with me on planning and organizing and less time on that with the kids who didn’t need it. Looking back I think they also made sure to pair me with kids who had better executive function.

Once I graduated and went to a traditional high school I found the rigid structure made everything harder for me.

coolbreezetft22• 4 years ago

My kid was in a montessori preschool for most of 4 years old and it was a big disaster for him as well due to his ADHD (which we suspected at the time but was not yet confirmed). He was kicked out of the school before the year was up and the next fall we put in him in a French immersion school for Pre-K (mostly out of necessity as we could not find any other full-time care option near us with availability). He still had some minor behavioral issues but overall it was a massive improvement, I think due to the increased and more rigid structure compared to the Montessori system.

We ended up opting for the French immersion school again for kindergarten over free public school just because he was doing well there and we didn't want to "rock the boat" any further. He's definitely not the best student in the class but I'm just happy that he likes it and is participating for the most part.

I don't think the Montessori system is bad or anything as I noticed the more organized and independently-minded kids in the class seemed to be really thriving - as you mentioned above. Just not for everyone

wehtuer• 4 years ago

When I was 4 years old I was trying to be be alive and just goofing and playing around. I went to school when I was 7 (no preschool) and spent the next 16 years in various institutions fortunately graduating quickly from the uni, it was definitely enough school for me. It baffles me that there is something other than kindergarten with no expectations than decent behaviour towards others for that young kids. Kicking 4-years out of "school" sounds "losing all hope for humanity" bad in every way.

andrewmutz• 4 years ago

My kids go to a montessori elementary school. We haven't seen those particular challenges, but I think a lot depends on the particular student and particular school.

There's not a lot of research on the outcomes for students who go to montessori, but what is available is mildly positive.

There is a survey of the literature published in Nature that concluded that the effects are somewhat positive, but since different schools apply the Montessori method in different ways, it's hard to say:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41539-017-0012-7

There's also a study from last year that says Montessori education is associated with positive well-being in later life. They control for a bunch of factors, but it's just association (not claiming causal):

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34899465/

anon2913• 4 years ago

Schooling is difficult. As an example, I went to a normal school, with very good discipline (private), and I had the same problems. Why? Because my parents were immigrants and were shocked at how slowly the American education curriculum progressed, so constantly tutored me at home to bring us up to where they thought we should be. Thus, by the time I was in each grade, I was already several grades ahead in each subject. So I sat in class, completed all my work in a few minutes, including homework. eventually, I realized I could just wait until the last minute to do everything, which basically meant I had to 'relearn' how to properly manage time later on in life.

Ultimately, the entire way schooling is set up towards particular philosophies and particular structures is just an ideological battle that ignores the needs of individual children. Montessori is no different in this regard.

boringg5• 4 years ago

In case anyone wants to read a broader array of examples (instead of sample of 1) - I asked this question 23 days ago and got a fairly large cross section:

Ask HN: Anyone go through Montessori education until age 12 (end of grade 6)? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33622295

Not discounting your experience but adding in other perspectives.

byecomputer• 4 years ago

I remember i could spend weeks just walking around in the school and do "montissori tasks" every now and then. For regular school work they asked me every other week what i wanted to learn and let me write it down in a schedule and expected me to just learn it on my own and if i needed help i could ask a teacher for help. This led me to do the absolute minimum or pretty much nothing.

[15 years later]

I remember i could spend weeks just walking around in the office and do "action items" every now and then. For regular user stories they asked me every other week what I could finish and let me write it down in a schedule and expected me to just learn it on my own and if i needed help i could ask around for help. This led me to do the absolute minimum or pretty much nothing.

karmakurtisaani• 4 years ago

Amazing how well school sometimes prepares you for life.

Mistletoe2• 4 years ago

I have a friend that has a child that attended one of these schools. They eventually had to pull him out of it and attend a real school. He couldn’t even read, etc. These results must sting even more when you read this.

In general, Montessori preschools cost between $10,000 and $15,000 per year. Elementary school prices are about the same, although those costs could be as much as $35,000 a year, depending on your location.

boringg5• 4 years ago

Counter factual my child is at least 1 maybe 2 years ahead of public school education on reading, writing and math.

School, teachers, parents and children themselves are the difference maker. That said - thats the difference maker on all educational programs.

_blz2• 4 years ago

All these replies for and against Montessori schools in this thread are useless without the names of the schools and perhaps even the teachers involved are mentioned. Wish those who posted shared that info. Seems to me like the execution of the idea is the problem and the outcome has a wide range based on the quality of teachers involved.

Mistletoe2• 4 years ago

But is your child gifted and would already be 1-2 years ahead or even more in the public school system?

The child I mention got back on track once enrolled in a conventional school.

turnsout2• 4 years ago

It really varies, as anyone can call their school "Montessori."

I went to Montessori preschool & kindergarten, and came out doing math at a 2nd grade level. I went to public school, where I spent two years zoning out during math I already knew. It killed my interest for life.

I've worked in computer graphics, and math would have been helpful.

marcus0x629• 4 years ago

The cost of any private school in my area is in the range you described. Some are good, some are not. My daughter has done extremely well in a Montessori school so far. It is unfortunate your friend’s son did not. Montessori might not have been for him or the school might have just genuinely sucked. My nephew didn’t do well in Montessori and my sister had to pull him out. He’s doing better in a public school.

My mother and mother-in-law were professional teachers (elementary/middle school) with graduate educations (masters-level for my mom and specialist with most work complete for her Ph.D for my MIL) and both approved of the school and my daughter’s progress. So, I guess, I’m personally not very worried about the horror story you described.

petejansson• 4 years ago

Turns out Montessori education runs in 3-year cycles (ages 2-3-4, and 5-6-7, for example). Not all schools make that clear, and, if you put a kid in in the middle of a cycle, there is orientation material they will miss. Without that grounding, Montessori can turn out to be a really ineffective experience. (Source: Was a parent who realized this and had to compensate for it. The 5-6-7 cycle was much more effective.)

claytonjy• 4 years ago

Interesting; I spent all but one year of pre-highschool education in montessori, and the groups were

- pre-k + kindergarten - grades 1-3 - grades 4-6 - grades 7-8

I can see how moving 1st grade into the first bucket would help even things out. I think pre-K was often 2 years, though, so the first bucket still covered 3 ages or grade-levels.

boringg5• 4 years ago

She especially disliked the fantastic lies told to children – the tooth fairy and Father Christmas and stories with talking animals. She saw them as an indulgence on the part of adults:

"We are amused by the illusions, the ignorance and the errors of the immature mind, just as at a not very remote date we were amused to see an infant laugh when it was tossed up and down, a proceeding now condemned by infantile hygiene as wrong and dangerous in the extreme. In short, it is we who are amused by the Christmas festivities and the credulity of the child."

I mean it's pretty strong viewpoint to have but there is some validity to it. As a parent I have this low-level guilt to the day when we have to explain that or that they discover on their own Santa is a well intentioned fictitious character. It does feel like this Santa / Tooth-fairy thing is created for the benefit of adults with children getting some value out of the exchange (and some cost as well).

throwaway712719• 4 years ago

My daughter still remembers when she realized we were lying to her for 7 years, I guess that is the best part of those lies, to teach the child to not always trust their parents (which I think its a good lesson).

qqtt• 4 years ago

In my circle of acquaintances with kids - there is nothing but happy memories of Christmas and Santa Claus and my own kids were happy to indulge in the fiction for a while. I think like many things the reaction depends on the kid (just like for some kids Montessori schools themselves can be a good or bad option).

In any case - one would think if the illusion of Santa Claus did cause some trauma in kids, they themselves wouldn’t generally grow up to fully embrace the experience with their own kids.

teachrdan• 4 years ago

I've read two accounts of children who, upon learning that Santa Claus was not real, spontaneously concluded for themselves that God was not real either. Not necessarily a bad lesson! But probably not the one intended by the people who taught those kids about Santa :)

jerf• 4 years ago

I went with the total honesty approach. It doesn't seem to have affected them negatively in my case. I mean, I still enjoy Santa Claus to some degree. I don't think thinking it's real is a critical component of the experience.

My kids enjoy the elf on the shelf sort of thing, and they were always fully aware the elf is not actually getting up to shenanigans at night. Nevertheless it's fun for the entire family, because it stretches us parents to be creative a little bit every night as well. Most recently the elf was starring as Batman in a three-night, three-act structure in which he menanced Joker, then the tables were turned with the Joker having hijacked the Batmobile and running over Bat-Elf, then there was a climactic showdown involving the Lego train tracks the next night. Nobody needed to think these adventures are actually real to enjoy them.

I come in in between; the stories are important for other reasons, but it is in no way mandatory to tell them they're real. Maybe in the 19th century it was less of a big deal, reality was more real in a lot of ways. But in a world of deep fakes, CGI, incredibly organized special interest groups comparable to the size of entire powerful medieval cities a few centuries ago, etc. etc. I need all the trust I can get if I'm going to train them to survive in the unbelievably hostile environment they're trying to grow up in now. Recently I was showing my kids how they're being targeted by video game gambling: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMmNy11Mn7g and I was musing on the fact my parents had basically zero need to be concerned about this. I couldn't have screwed my life up that way if I had set out with the explicit goal of doing so. I need all the trust from my kids I can marshal in this century.

robocat2• 4 years ago

There were some fantastic anecdotes as adults looking back on the deceptions by their parents in this discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33863990 (If you unscrew your belly button, your bottom will fall off). Just in case you didn't see it.

bcrosby95• 4 years ago

When our oldest asks about Santa Claus, we just ask her what she thinks and never answer with a "yes" or "no". When she can reach the logical conclusion that there isn't one then she'll know there isn't one.

At least at our kids' current age (8, 5 & 5), other kids alone telling them won't convince them about it. We do leprechaun pranks, which we tell them are just us, which their classmates don't believe in (they've discussed this), and they still believe it's real.

They also think faeries are real despite us saying they aren't - their older cousin likes to play "faerie" pranks when she visits. They think we think they aren't real because, since we don't think faeries are real, they never interact with us.

anon2913• 4 years ago

Well realistically, my wife and I have been very honest from day one about santa claus and the tooth fairy, etc.

In fact, we explicitly include our 3 year old daughter in playing santa for our 1 year old.

And the three year old, despite my wife and my insistence that Santa is not actually real, fully believes in it. I tell her almost every day that Santa is just pretend and she looks at me and says 'no he's not'.

Pretend and real don't really have any distinction in the minds of most children.

turnsout2• 4 years ago

This is not advice, just my experience... When our daughter was 1, my wife convinced me to be honest about Santa from the start. I was a little worried it was like taking away a key childhood memory. But our daughter (now 4) loves Santa as a character, and still has a magical experience on Christmas morning. Now it makes total sense to me—she knows Elmo isn't real either, but that doesn't make him any less important to her!

euroderf6• 4 years ago

I have a distinct memory of talking to a friend about how the job of Santa, as presented to kids, was clearly a physical impossibility. I think I was 8 then. So, a small victory for our education and its use in analyzing a real-life poser.

capnslowish• 4 years ago

Montessori is utterly worthless and at times detrimental if the teacher isn’t versed in it and the school isn’t “all in”. Many schools in the states advertise themselves as montessori, but at the core of it, they just don’t deliver. If your kid has any signs of ADHD (no diagnosis, just tendencies), this is a very detrimental environment as they will be allowed to run amuck and completely on their own with the parents being told “he/she will figure it out, just believe!”. These are private schools (at least in my area), so the grading is arbitrary, especially considering this isn’t comparable to traditional school, so is your kid hitting the required goals educationally? Who knows, the school can just make it up (and they do!). “If your child masters this, we’ll give them more advanced work to guide the curiosity!” is a wonderful way to sell to parents, except, unless this surpasses the teacher’s ability to teach said advanced topics, in which case your kid goes and does whatever without any guidance.

I am the parent of such a kid, 4 years in Montessori, 2 separate Montessori schools, both with the same problems, teachers tend to just “nope” out at will, and since these teachers are scarce, the schools back them and keep them employed. Since they’re private, oversight is very lax and when questions to arise, they know what documents to “create” to show they’re doing everything.

If you’re a parent and you go this route, stay on the school like a hawk and make sure they deliver what they promise and not just pretty words, at the end of the day, it’s the kid that suffers. If your gut starts to sense they’re not doing what’s advertised, move on, they’re not delivering.

If my wife didn’t teach our child during COVID at home, we wouldn’t be as acutely aware of these issues as he regressed dramatically after return to classroom.

My child is in public school now, actually thriving in a structured environment.

rashkov• 4 years ago

Thanks for this experience and warning. It sounds like you might still believe in the idea of Montessori, when executed properly by trained teachers. Can you tell me what a proper Montessori experience could have done for your child, if anything?

lowken• 4 years ago

I love Montessori and I had both of my kids in Montessori schools...

However, it's not for every kid. My son did basically nothing and they wanted to have him repeat 2nd grade. My daughter, on the other hand, thrived in the same school.

There is no single fix for education except for choice (in my opinion). Parent's should be free to choose the school for their children and line up the unique characteristics of their child with the different education options available.

PaulHoule• 4 years ago

The phrase "The Child Is the Teacher" triggers me a little because I hang out with some hippies who form circles, pass around talking sticks, and ask questions that children in the group are not equipped to answer.

After long awkward silences some child volunteers an answer which is completely wrong and the adults act like this is pure gold.

It bugs me on many levels, but I think children want to know that the adults around them are in control and that they are in a safe environment and that's not what is happening here necessarily.

vorpalhex3• 4 years ago

The phrase doesn't mean children are little sages with the secrets of the universe.

It means we equip children to teach themselves in a well prepared environment. That might mean just putting a child in a room with a book or it might mean spending a lot of time with the kid and helping them slowly learn vowel sounds.

We tune the methodology to the child so they can become self sufficient life learners.

"The prepared environment" is a critical concept. It means a safe environment that the child can explore that has activities intentionally chosen for that child to learn from. That means age appropriate, developmentally appropriate and so on.

buggythebug• 4 years ago

I don't like this school because it's called "Montessori" - I always thought it's for extreme left wing parents. Sheesh, just teach the kids how to read and do math.

vorpalhex3• 4 years ago

Your comment is nonsensical. Montessori isn't partisan anymore than algebra is.

marcus0x629• 4 years ago

For whatever it’s worth, I’m an advocate of Montessori and I’m not left wing in the slightest. The things I like most about the Montessori approach are the focus on fostering independence at a young age and (some) freedom to focus on what the student is interested in.

I don’t think of either of those concepts as mapping particularly well to any left-wing ideology I’m familiar with except, perhaps, the back-to-the-land hippie movement.

Contrary to some of the BS in this thread, the kids do, in fact, learn to read and do math.

no_wizard• 4 years ago

Does anyone know why Montessori schools cut off usually between Grade 6 and Grade 8?

Once you become a teenager does this style of learning not work out? I'd think if you are in this system by the time you are in Grade 8 and then have to go into a new system it would be more jarring and actually hurt your education

wilg• 4 years ago

Wow everyone in here seems really triggered by this! I went to a Montessori school from K-8. I would say it worked well for me before junior high.

In middle school they had a weird blend of Montessori and regular school structure which was probably a good transition idea but wasn’t executed well.

I think if the teachers are good it’s a nice environment for kids to learn and explore what they are interested in.

I highly doubt the commenters who think that Montessori kids are dumber. But some kids prefer different kinds of structure. The idea is supposed to be that the teachers tailor your experience for each kid.

The Child Is the Teacher: A Life of Maria Montessori

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