Montessori Madness
Tweet
Especially when it comes to education, I am a traditionalist bordering on conservative. I don’t believe in things like drilling dates and numbers into kids without giving them the tools to understand the important concepts behind math, literature, history, etc. But what I am against is classrooms that allow just anything to go. I don’t see anything wrong with uniforms in school, and I think we ought to give teachers a heck of a lot more power than they have now. Which leads me to this article discussing the growth of Montessori style schools. A few years ago, Montessori schools were profiled on 60 Minutes, and if it’s anything like that it’s a big ball of stupidity. The idea that the majority of kids are going to choose to do schoolwork versus screwing around is batty. When I was young I was what you would call studious, nerdy, etc. and I actually liked school. But if I had been given a choice, I would have messed around. That’s what kids do.
This seems to represent what I hate most of the ’60s ethos, a misguided reaction to the oppressive ’50s where “anything goes” became the motto of too many. No, kids shouldn’t be stuck in a gulag disguised as a school — but the classroom shouldn’t look like a miniature version of Haight-Ashbury either.
21 Responses to “Montessori Madness”
GOP Rep. Spencer Bachus Facing House Ethics Probe For Insider Trading
Jennifer Aniston Reportedly Pregnant With Twins
PHOTOS: Tamara Ecclestone At The Langham Hotel
Red Front? “Center For American Freedom” Logo Echoes Communist Style
Romney Calls For Defunding Planned Parenthood, Wife Was A Donor
GOP Fundraising Email Asks Supporters To “Knock Out” Obama
Romney Comes Up Limp In Nevada
Obama Opens Lead On Romney In New Poll
Latest Entries
Why Do Liberals Support Drone Strikes?
Weekly Standard Rolls Out The Iraq Argument For Iran
Equal Polarization, My Ass
Some Crazy Stuff That Happened In World War II
Maryland Republican Campaign Funds Used To Defend Voter Suppression
The Obama Jobs Record In One Graph
Martin O’Malley All In For Marriage Equality
Newt Gingrich, Filled With More Excrement Than Your Average Politician
New Year, Powerline Still Stupid
Thanks Again
Meta
Blogroll
Disclaimer
The views on this site are mine and mine alone, and do not reflect the views of my employer, Media Matters for America
© 2000-2011 Oliver Willis
I’m pretty skeptical of it working widely, but some of the smartest people I know have done greatin Montessori settings.
While the ‘true believers’ will insist it works for all children, I think that is probably wrong. People have very different learning styles and as such, it’s great for naturally curious kids who like to work through challenges.
It’s also more guided than many people seem to think. Children chose, but they have a set of options—like any good parent will tell you–you define the choices or you are in real trouble, but within the choices are a lot of flexibility.
Yeah, I think it may actually work for a few kids but at the expense of the majority of kids.
I think that’s probably true and why it shouldn’t be a model for public schools–but more of what it traditionally has been–a boutique private option.
Dude, watch Strangelove again–if you don’t get it, watch it again. And again.
Not everyone learns in a structured classroom environment. Schools attempt to mold children to be productive members of the society. But you can learn a lot things just by being curious. In fact, I bet the most intelligent students gain most of their knowledge on their own, outside of the classroom, by being curious about the world.
I am not aware of any schools “that allow just anything to go” as a matter of practice. Where did you get that from?
I am not familiar enough with Montessori to argue about it, but I take this as evidence of its success for at least some students: people with the ability and money to send their children to other schools send them to Montessori schools and appear to be satisfied. If they’re happy, we should all be happy.
What we know about the “traditionalist bordering on conservative” approach is that it does not work for a large number of students. It never did.
Society was not alert to or concerned with the fact that the approach didn’t work because uneducated and barely literate people could still get jobs in America’s large industrial economy.
I went to the supposed archetype good school: middle class and upper middle class suburbs, traditionalist down to the diagrammed sentences and filled with white, pre-TV baby boomers. Yet significant numbers in my graduating class could barely read, knew almost no math, no history and no science. They were in vocational education. They went to work for GM, Ford, US Steel or J&L, or other industrial concerns. They made very good money had generic middle class lives until the early 90s when their jobs began to disappear.
RedBastardGod,
I totally agree. As The Boss put it: I learned more from a three minute record than I ever learned in school.
Read any book by Maria Montessori, and you’ll discover that what works about it is not that kids “Do whatever they want.”
Oddly enough, the same myth prevailed about “Progressive education” in the early 50′s, when I went to school in a regular class, until I did so well, I was “skipped”; kids who failed were “left back’; and kids who couldn’t pay attention were put in “sunshine classes” instead of being given ritalin.
Funny world, huh?
[yawn] other comments have stolen my thunder but if I believed a single article in the WaPo had to tell me about something new, I’d be one gullible and uninformed bastard. My kids are in a mixed Montessori/traditional public school and, not that I want to rock your world or anything, but both programs are better for the interaction and the whole school population is testing ahead of standard.
When people I think are smart mouth off like this about something I know about, I wonder how much of the rest of their stuff is just half-cocked bloviation. Where are you on that scale?
More importantly, Paul, where are you?
For those of you slamming more hard-line education, have you noted where we rank educationally next to Japan & Co.? I’m not saying we go as hardcore as them, but patting kids on the head isn’t working either.
(And it’s all bloviation, just some have a bigger megaphone than others)
The connection I was trying to make, for those of you with a modern education who require visual aids to literacy, was that when ever anyone begins to make use of an educational innovation — even if it is 100 years old — it is always interpreted as “letting kids do whatever they want.”
That is so diametrically opposed to what happens in foreign schools — including this enmity towards rote and calculation we have here in the U.S. — that it would be laughable if it were not our children we were talking about.
(And, before you think, “I don’t have children,” I grew up in the day when the grocer wrote down your bill on the back of the bag you took your groceries home in, and he didn’t make a mistake 99 times out of a hundred.
Now, they have cash registers that practically talk to the cashiers, and they can’t make change, and they can’t keep the pickles off a plain cheeseburger.
But self – esteem? Oh, yeah! They have plenty of that!)
I know two kids who are being schooled Montessori and their educational development is nothing short of remarkable. Their parents probably interact with them more than most, but they are developing very precosiously.
The interesting thing about Montessori, which differs very little from “Kaleidoscope” or “Magnet” programs, is that it begins with concerned parents, who stay concerned.
In education courses we learned that one of the main reasons you can’t get “ghetto” (“urban center”) parents to come into the school and participate in their children’s education is because their experience (remembrance) of school is not a good one.
Black children with strong parents driving them do well in school. They remember school as valuable and useful. When it’s time for their children to go to school, they do the same thing for their kids.
People who can afford it send their children to schools where they are treated with respect and allowed to develop their inner selves. If you don’t believe kids can be trusted to learn in such an atmosphere that means you favor authoritarian structures.
Montessori is highly structured, as a matter of fact.
Read up on it.
Wow, I didn’t see the 60 Minutes special you’re referring to, but it sounds to me like they didn’t do a very good job explaining what it is and how it works.
It’s actually a phenomenal method of education – it’s nothing like what you’re describing. Sure, it can be done incorrectly (what method can’t?) but most schools do a pretty good job of following the original intent of the method.
When you say:”But if I had been given a choice, I would have messed around.” – that’s based on your reaction to traditional schooling. If given a choice between workbooks and textbooks, I’d choose goofing off, too.
But in Montessori, children are given a chance to actually learn in a hands-on way. Time and again, parents and teachers see kids choose learning over playing. It’s really amazing.
I know I sound like an infomercial for Montessori, so rather than link to my blog or website which have tons of great Montessori resources, I’ll link instead to a totally non-related article but one that will make you question traditional education. After you read it, Montessori won’t look so bad in comparison. Check out: http://www.cantrip.org/gatto.html
Oh, and everyone from Jeff Bezos to Sergey Brin and Larry Page attended Montessori schools – proof that they encourage creativity and out-of-the-box thinking without shortchanging academics, I’d say.
I couldn’t agree more. My highschool experience was at a public high school that was set up to be the school system of the future. (designed and built in 1967) I didn’t attend until the late ’70s, but their system was still active. This system let students choose their own classes, attendance was not mandatory, and most teachers tried to be your friend with the attitude that it would be uncool to go to your parents without talking to you about it first.
This system seemed to be good for the motivated kids, who were able to choose advanced level classes and work ahead if they were able, but for kids like me it was a total disaster. I probably never would have graduated if my parents hadn’t wised up and yanked me out of there after 2 1/2 years and sent me to a prep school instead.
I hated school so much I dropped out of university after my first year and joined the Navy. I went back to university several years later, but only after I had matured and realized what kind of life I’d have without it, but for me it took maturity to bring on that kind of awakening.
Montessori will work well for some children, but for children that are unstimulated by tedious tasks like “pin-punch”, they would probably be better served by a more structured, traditional learning environment.
For those who don’t know, pin-punch is a montessori task where children are given a push pin and a piece of paper with a shape drawn on it, and are expected to sit there and punch holes along the line of the shape until there are enough holes where the shape is actually cut out. What percentage of 3-6 year olds would have the patience to do this if given the choice of “messing around” instead, I have no idea; but I know if it was me at 4, I’d have chosen to mess around.
You might find this interesting.
http://www.concernedmcsparents.blogspot.com/
I am a Montessori trained teacher and like some of the previous posts- read up on what you are trying to dismiss. I have taught for the past 8 years in both public and private Montessori programs. True, parents who seek out this alternative form of education seem to interact with their children on a different level, but I have seen this model work for children regardless of their race or socio-economic status.
We are facing a crisis in our educational system right now. It is not working. Montessori offers another approach that should not be dismissed. Montessori is not just for “rich kids”, it can (and should) be available and succesful with most children. True, it is not a “one size fits all”, but this system and method does better than what we are currently providing in many situations. Our children deserve better, and our world deserves better.
I would encourage you to take some time and observe a Montessori classroom in action, or at least read a bit more about the philosophy before you cast it out as a “fad”. It has proven to be successful all over the world for the past 100 years.
I agree with the Montessori Teacher. This exceptional woman, Maria Montessori was way ahead of her time. The fact her methods have proven to be applicable in today’s modern society, even though they were designed a hundred years ago are testiment to their true value. Some of the greatest child psychologist such as Vygotsky and Piaget took Montessori’s teachings and built many of their theories of child development around them.
Please read up on this remarkable woman before ‘dissing’ her.
I’m a traditional teacher turned Montessori directress. Please investigate the philosophy before you make such comments. If you had, you would know that the Montessori classroom makes room for all kinds of minds. Current brain research shows that Maria Montessori was way ahead of her time. Yes, it is hard for kids to “choose work” all day, but they are capable…more so than any adult can imagine. It’s wonderful you share your opinion, but get back to us as you grow……