
The Montessori Mafia - danielvnzla
http://blogs.wsj.com/ideas-market/2011/04/05/the-montessori-mafia/
======
ladon86
I went to a Waldorf/Steiner school, which shares some of these traits such as
the lack of a focus on assessment and grading and the emphasis on creativity.

We weren't taught the alphabet until the age of about 6-7 and basic arithmetic
at 7-8. We did begin learning foreign languages at age 6, however. In practice
my older brother taught me to read and count well before the Steiner
curriculum did, but I still think that the education was very valuable.

I think that creativity in adults is often stifled because they don't want to
"get it wrong". People are afraid of trying their hand at a new skill or
taking a risk on a new idea because they are "realistic" about their chances
of success. Children just do it anyway. I think that Steiner schools encourage
this attitude, and no doubt Montessori schools do the same.

There's a reason the really big hitters are often first-time entrepreneurs -
they are naive enough to try. Creativity works the same way.

~~~
ronnier
>We weren't taught the alphabet until the age of about 6-7

My daughter is 1.5 years old and knows almost all of the alphabet. Is this a
good thing or bad thing?

~~~
crpatino
Neither good or bad.

It is a clue that she probably is good at "symbolic thinking". More of this
stuff to come in the near future. Just make sure she has plenty of chances to
develop this (probably innate) ability.

On the other hand, as she grows up, you probably should keep an eye on her and
help to mitigate any shortcomings that'd eventually show up. But this is the
same with all children anyway.

~~~
zipdog
It could be a clue about symbolic thinking, or it might be the result of the
approach used.

I've seen an approach where letter-shaped toys are handed out as toys, which
provides a concrete object to associate to the letter. Children using this
seem to be able to pick up the alphabet around 1 year old fairly easily.

~~~
Afton
The important thing is that, as a parent, it's easy to fall into the trap of
comparing milestones. There isn't the evidence that e.g. knowing the alphabet
early means being a better reader later in life. Just like early walking
milestones don't lead to 'better walking'.

~~~
ern
Your comment resonated with me. My wife's very verbal niece could name 12
animals in a book of animals at 18 months. Her mother drilled her, and then
they would take the book around to show how clever their daughter was.

I'd feel quite bad since my son was the same age and wasn't talking much, let
alone identifying animals. The constant showing off and comparisons by my in-
laws led to us taking him to a speech pathologist and to his pediatrician for
an eval, to make sure he had no delays (he doesn't have any).

The other day, my wife realized that her niece (now over 2) couldn't identify
the exact same animals, when they were in a different book, or using plastic
models. She had learned the book, but didn't understand the concepts.

I've learned my lesson about comparing milestones. I suppose a professional
_may_ be able to do meaningful comparisons, but the average parent or
grandparent cannot.

~~~
Afton
Right. And yet it's hard not to feel that swell of pride when your child
'overachieves' on some milestone. But often when a child hits a milestone
early, it's actually because they are doing something _differently_ than age-
equivalent children or adults do it. And that something may well be an
intellectual dead end. The niece in your story may be tagging the name 'tiger'
to something like length of tail, or surrounding context. And I could write
books on the need for serious investigations into what kids mean when they use
certain words.

------
timr
_"When Barbara Walters, who interviewed Google founders Messrs. Page and Brin
in 2004, asked if having parents who were college professors was a major
factor behind their success, they instead credited their early Montessori
education"_

Ahem. I spy a latent variable in this correlation. Can you find it?

Hint: Montessori education may or may not have advantages. But unless you
control for educational background and income of the family, your analysis has
a problem.

~~~
ellyagg
"Montessori education may or may not have advantages. But unless you control
for educational background and income of the family, your analysis has a
problem."

This WAS controlled for. Correct analysis WAS done, peer reviewed, and
published.

It's a shame this is so highly upvoted. Pointing out that correlation does not
equal causation is the very first most obvious criticism to make of a finding,
but don't sail in with that criticism until you've made sure that causation
wasn't actually suggested by legitimate research.

~~~
calpaterson
The cited study found improvements, not latent billionaireism. The broader
claim is wild speculation.

~~~
dhs
I'm a parent, and I'm interested in improvement, not latent billionairism. So
to me, such studies are useful, even without broader claims.

------
brlewis
I have children aged 13, 10 and 5. The oldest spent 1 year in a traditional
preschool, but they've gone exclusively to Montessori school since that time.

What strikes me about this article is its characterization of Montessori
schooling as largely unstructured and free. I think it must be comparing it to
a much over-structured methodology, perhaps like the public schooling I got
growing up.

Styles vary somewhat among Montessori schools, but what I've seen is that in
the early years, the age Montessori is most known for, there are specific
materials children work with and specific ways they're expected to work with
them. A child may not get out a work he/she hasn't been shown how to use. He
must return the work to its proper place before selecting another one. The
materials aren't tools for self-discovery. They're tools for letting self
collide with reality until such time as the applicable real concepts are
understood.

However, the one simple freedom of being able to choose a work does make it a
sharp contrast from the lock-step style of education I grew up with. I hear
public schools aren't always this way, according to relatives who sent kids to
public school in Lexington, MA.

In higher grades the emphasis on materials fades, but the basic idea of
letting children work within a structure remains. For example, in upper
elementary (grades 4-6) the students develop their own classroom code of
conduct. They're given some structure about how to do it, though. I see
Montessori as a balanced methodology on the freedom/structure dimension, not
an extreme.

~~~
Periodic
I most important memory for me is that Montessori allowed me to excel. It was
exceptional at getting out of the way and letting me learn if I was
interested, and I most certainly was.

What I remember most from my Montessori education in my early years (preschool
through elementary) was that we were allowed to progress at our own pace. Our
teacher(s) set up various tracks of things to complete, for example we had
math cards you could study and then do some problems on and eventually take a
test to move on to the next set, or we had a series of books and you needed to
select one from the set and answer some questions before moving on to one from
the next set. About half of our time was allowing us to work on whatever we
wanted. If you got ahead in a subject, the teacher would find more for you to
do on it. If you got behind, the teacher would try to help you get over
whatever hurdle of understanding you had.

As a result, I was a few years ahead of myself in math. Every time the teacher
got a new set of math cards I would do them all as quickly as I could and I
prided myself on being a few years ahead. However, my reading was a bit behind
because I never really cared to do the in-school reading as I preferred sci-
fi. There were other children who were just the opposite.

The benefit was that I didn't have to sit in a class room doing the exact same
boring lessons as the rest of the class. If I could figure something out in 5
minutes I didn't have to sit through a 1-hour lecture on the subject.

------
damla
Maria Montessori lived in Italy a 100 years ago, and no doubt she was a
reformist. She was the first woman doctor, she worked with children with
mental disabilities when children was not considered humans, and she noticed
that, her approach is applicable to all children. She invented very useful
methods and tools for teaching preschoolers. She made wonderful toys which are
now called "Montessori Materials". Her method is spread to US, and "adapted".

Montessori teachers are certified largely by two centers in the world, in
Italy (<http://www.montessori-ami.org/>), and in US (<http://www.amshq.org/>).
As far as I know AMI sees itself as the "original" Montessori, rejects others,
and more strict in many ways, like they don't allow any toys in classrooms,
they don't have any books (just lapbooks produced by teachers or children).

I have real problems with strict, spiritual Montessori. Why would we be
against to toys? Maria Montessori crafted wonderful toys for her students, and
now they are called "Montessori Materials". What's wrong with Lego's? I think
if Maria Montessori had Lego, she would use them.

Montessori, Waldorf, Reggio Emilia, all have different methods to inspire for
raising kids and even for start-ups
([http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=10...](http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1001&context=famconfacpub)).
But, none is magic.

------
realitygrill
This is just confirmation bias. Page credits "part of that training of not
following rules and orders, and being self-motivated, questioning what’s going
on in the world, doing things a little bit differently." As a Montessori kid
myself, I could see myself having differing opinions depending on how the
future turned out.

Successful: go back and credit Montessori for making me a rebellious, curious
nonconformist.

Unsuccessful: go back and partially blame Montessori for those same values,
that make navigating this world of rules and structures difficult.

PG's writings would make me think that he leans more towards the Montessori
side of things, and probably a lot of HNers are the same. I'm glad jsavimbi
spoke about his need for strong discipline.

~~~
brlewis
Montessori only looks like a "not following rules and orders" environment in
comparison to an environment where you ask permission to use the bathroom, and
are told every hour of every day exactly what to do. Montessori has structure,
just a lot less, more comparable to the amount of structure I have in my day
job.

------
ziadbc
I really like the idea of Montessori, and if I have the cash I'd like to send
my future kids there someday.

That being said, I see correlation here, not causation.

To be a little bit tongue and cheek, I could write the headline:

"99% of successful people do not attend Montessori schools"

~~~
araneae
You too can cheaply imitate a Montessori school by

a)Taking your kid out of public school and

b)Encourage your kid to do things he finds interesting with you at home and
take him to museums and crap

True, it requires a mostly unemployed parent, but Montessori has just
discovered how kids learn naturally at a young age. Just like a kid learns a
language without having to be formally taught, he learns other things without
formal education as well. The older years it's a different story, but there's
really no need to pay a ton of money for a Montessori pre-school. Any parent
can do it.

~~~
arn
This is a bit disingenuous. As mentioned in a previous comment, there is a
method to Montessori. It's not "let the kids do whatever they want". It is a
form of "formal" education and took years of research to come up with.

While parents can certainly homeschool, you can't claim it's an equal
substitute for Montessori education.

~~~
araneae
I was challenging that; I think that the reason Montessori kids do better
isn't because Montessori is genius, but because it's more in tune with how
kids learn naturally. It's more that standard education is bad, not the
Montessori is good.

~~~
arn
But it's still so wrong.

Even if we can agree standard education is bad, that doesn't make everything
else good by default. Including just "let your kid do things he finds
interesting and take him to museums and crap".

~~~
three14
How do you know that the Montessori method is what makes Montessori good,
though, rather than the GP's theory?

~~~
arn
It doesn't matter. It seems there has been a least one study that suggests
Montessori is "better" than standard school (the premise of this whole
discussion).

But to try to extend that to say that almost anything BUT standard school is
good puts a huge burden of proof on the original poster.

If a>b, it doesn't automatically make c-z better than b too.

------
bediger
Why does this result surprise anyone? Traditional US schools exist not to
cultivate individuality, and make people more expressive and creative, but
rather for different reasons.

Grade school is designed to teach people enough to read The Bible, and enough
writing and arithmetic to not get cheated by the fancy, downtown shop keepers.

High school is designed to teach the bulk of the citizenry to work according
to a fixed schedule, probably in a factory, along with a faceless mass of
similary trained people.

It sounds inflammatory, but it's true.

~~~
icco
That sounds like a bit of a stretch. American public education focuses on
learning the basics so you can be then trained by either your occupation (ala
factory worker, etc.) or by your next institution (university). On top of that
depending on where you grow up, the school focuses more on one or the other.
Grow up in the bay area, there is a higher chance your school will focus on
getting kids into a university. Grow up in an agricultural community, you
learn more skills associated with living on a farm (more focus on basic
economics, biology). But then again, this is just what I observed. It's
possible that if you grew up in the midwest, they taught you to read the
bible. I know that's what they taught my mom in Missouri in the 1950s. No idea
if it's still the case.

~~~
yalurker
This comment is so absurdly wrong and offensive I had to read it several times
fearing I was missing some sarcasm or satire. I'm sure you didn't mean it as
such, so here is some information from someone who went to school in the
midwest.

Schools in the midwest do not focus on "skills associated with living on a
farm". Even in agriculture-centric Iowa farm labor is about 8% of the
population, the other 92% of people are employed in
offices/stores/factories/etc. For comparison, 5% of workers in California are
employed as farm laborers for some part of the year.

The schools entire focus is on university preparation (often to a fault, many
students would probably be better suited by a more vocational focus). No
public school is teaching anyone to read the bible, and to my knowledge
private Catholic or other religious schools are no more common in the midwest
than in New York or California.

Ignorant stereotypes based on state/region are just as foolish as any other
ignorant stereotype.

~~~
nickpinkston
Yea, where I went to high school (rural Western, PA), kids would bring guns to
school for demonstrating something for a physics class (real story), history /
social studies was very pro-American biased, and there were many funded clubs
and activities around hunting / fishing / outdoors. Oh yea, everyone got the
first two days of deer season off of school too - whether you took advantage
or not.

------
Terretta
Only if your education differed from the so-called basket of techniques lumped
together as "the Montessori method".

It's been my experience that a home environment with parents who read and care
about expanding horizons will tend to offer the children guided "self-
directed" learning, observation and indirect teaching, and productive routines
of "focused" activities versus idle play, and these children will tend to
outperform peers without that same desire to constantly learn instilled in
them -- _regardless of the formal education_ they acquire.

~~~
brlewis
Could you detail your experience more so we can compare its statistical
significance to the scientific study cited in the article?

~~~
Terretta
My experience covers parents who make an active choice about where their kids
go to school versus those who don't. Both my parents were teachers and youth
group leaders. We therefore interacted with more parent/kid combos than most
people do.

Pick a sizable group of kids selected to indicate strong parental interest in
how the children learn. For example, kids whose parents at any point
considered homeschooling them. You'll see above average scores, even if, in
fact, the child in question ended up never being home schooled. The selected
trait seems to be simply parental interest in the child's learning.

Curiously, the Wikipedia article on Montessori claims among randomly
selected/rejected applicants, the selectees performed better. That would seem
to eliminate other variables. But it also says any difference was gone again
by age 12, quite a few years before the successes cited in the link.

I suspect that given the right home environment, it's not that Montessori
makes your kid smarter, but that generic grade schools make your kid dumber
until the age children manifest individuality. Also see "Outliers" for
thoughts on how arbitrary performance and learning measurements seem in grade
school as a function of birth month versus school year.

------
speleding
My kids (4 & 7) just moved from a traditional school to a Montessori school
last summer because we moved house. I wasn't completely sold on the philosophy
yet but my kids LIKE going to school a lot more now and it seems to work
really well. Happy kids, learning a lot.

But it is very counterintuitive for the engineer in me who wants to measure
progress by how much of the alphabet they know. It takes a lot of trust in the
somewhat nebulous and touchy feely Montessori philosophy, if you read the
wikipedia page about it you'll see that even the educators can't agree on what
it is exactly. (Montessori did use scientific methods to arrive at her
recommendations, but interpretations differ). There's things the type of
educators in such schools do that makes us rational people cringe (kids are
not allowed artificial flavoring in their lunch food...). But, well, it works
(for my kids at least).

Since I am too rational to give up on measuring I conclude we are probably not
measuring progress the right way by testing how much letters in the alphabet
they know.

~~~
kenjackson
_kids are not allowed artificial flavoring in their lunch food..._

Why would that make you cringe?

~~~
speleding
It makes me cringe because there is no scientific evidence at all that
artificial food additives are bad for kids. Quite the opposite actually,
artificial additives are tested to death before they are allowed on the
market. It has no relation to the Montessori philosophy, I was just giving an
example of the "kind of person" the typically teacher is there, basing
decisions more on feelings than rational evidence.

~~~
roel_v
"I was just giving an example of the "kind of person" the typically teacher is
there"

I was afraid to say something to this effect, but now that you've started it I
might as well share this little anecdote ;)

Around the corner of my office is a small school for highly gifted children.
They work together with a 'regular' Montessori school here and they follow the
same approach - let children find their own interests, stimulate those etc.
(disclaimer: I don't know much about Montessori, it's just what I understood
from how it works).

Either way, back in 2008 most of a certain social class in Western Europe was
infatuated with Obama, how he was going to change world etc. With 'a certain
social class' I'm stereotyping, I know - it's relevant for the point; I'm
talking about the Prius-driving, Fair Trade shopping salon socialist with
cushy government jobs with near-100% job certainty who've never in their lives
run a business or done any work that is not in one way or another funded by
tax payers. (I'm including university teachers and professors here, they're
overrepresented in my neighborhood).

Anyway, around US election time, this school for highly gifted children I
mentioned hung out some drawing of the children on their window. One of them
said (I'm paraphrasing here, I don't remember the exact wording) 'Obama will
clean up the mess that Bush left behind him'. This in a hand writing and on a
drawing that showed that the child could not have been much older than 6 or 7.

This is my impression of many of these schools - highly opinionated teachers
and parents who live in a upper-middle class cocoon who preach the word of
'free exploration of ideas' and 'self-actualization' but only when it leads to
the same type of thinking they themselves adhere to.

I guess it's logical - I'd be abhorred too if my daughter grows up to be a
socialist or communist. Everybody wants their children to be at least somewhat
like them. Still, indoctrinating children at that age with political
propaganda - it gives me a bad feeling.

------
bryanwb
I am pretty skeptical of the Montessori approach.

Take kids from wealthy, well-educated families and put them in small groups
with educators that also happen to be very well-educated and very passionate
and you will get great results whatever the pedagogy.

Contrast this w/ poor kids whose parents had low educational attainments,
stuck in giant classes with poorly-paid teachers.

If you put 6 well-off kids with 1 passionate, well-educated teacher, you will
get good results almost every time.

Montessori approach may have its merits but I find it very hard to separate
them from the demographics of its students and teachers. The study in
Milwaukee does not seem sufficient to establish a link. Those passionate about
teaching are probably more likely to be attracted to the Montessori school
than the regular public schools because it has a distinctive approach and
probably more liberal management.

I would love to love to know if the Montessori schools in teh Milwaukee school
had the same teacher/student ratio as the other schools in the study. I am
betting they didn't.

------
phren0logy
Is this even correlation? Is there any evidence to suggest that Montessori
students are over-represented among the successful? Or are they simply
proportionate?

~~~
hugh3
Even if they were disproportionately represented, it wouldn't prove much --
only that parents of smart children are more likely to send them to a
Montessori school.

------
slay2k
I've been thinking about how I'd educate my own kids, and currently it's a
tossup between the Harkness approach a la Phillips Exeter, the entirely home-
schooled approach, and something like this which seems like a hybrid.

If anyone has experience with any of the above, I'd love to hear about it.

~~~
3pt14159
DO NOT do full time homeschooling, my mom tried it with me for grades 2 and 3
(as we were moving around) and the results were horrible socially. Do a
private school.

~~~
m_myers
DO full time homeschooling; my parents tried it with me and the results were
great.

Two can play this game. :)

------
billmcneale
I have no problem with the Montessori method but if you're going to throw the
names of a few very successful people as examples, you also need to show the
full picture, i.e. for all these Montessori kids that became so successful,
how many other successful people did _not_ got to Montessori?

If anything, the fact that they only list 4-5 names tells me that at best, the
kind of education you receive at that age is not that important after all (I
think your parents and your environment are probably bigger factors) and at
worst, the Montessori school doesn't really work that well after all.

------
gevertulley
Perhaps what is required here is a re-examination of the fundamental goals of
what we refer to as "education." Is the purpose of school to teach a set of
curriculum or to inculcate the habits necessary to become courageous explorers
of the world and inventors of our own destinies? Montessori is just one
alternative, but now, in a time of rapid change, is the time to begin and
support multiple experiments. We need to explore the full range of functional
pedagogies and see what new ways of teaching and learning can be developed.
Looking for one "best" context or approach for learning is probably never
going to work - the fundamental assumption is wrong.

An educational monoculture suffers the same vulnerabilities that a biological
monoculture does. We should foster a diversity of approaches, supporting the
sharing of techniques, approaches, and contexts.

This is why we are starting a new K-12 school, based on some new ideas
(Tinkering School, and A Curious Summer) and incorporating some really old
ideas (apprenticeship and mastery). We call it _Brightworks_
(<http://sfbrightworks.org>). Have a look at our approach, share your ideas,
join us at the edge of innovation in education.

------
kloncks
Fascinating insight. But isn't this a classic case of of correlation, not
causation?

~~~
s3graham
Puffy did Montessori and he's doing pretty damn well for himself!

Jay-Z started in the projects and didn't finish high school, and he's doing
_even better_!

Holy crap, I know where I'm sending my kids!

~~~
Aetius
Extrapolating this out ... Lakeside School, Philips Exeter or perhaps
Collegiate ;)

------
jsulak
Interesting article, but what about Steve Jobs? Warren Buffet? Bill Gates?
It's easy to pick a few examples of anything, but it doesn't make it a real
trend.

~~~
Kylekramer
For one, all the people you mentioned were in preschool before the Montessori
craze really took over in the States and all the ones the article mentioned
besides Julia Child were later. And of course, you will never find 100%
success in one method and 0% success in all others.

But the Montessori method is fascinating, and does have a few studies backing
it. On a personal level as a Montessori kid, I know it definitely gave me a
head start over many of my peers (by encouraging my math fascination, I was
able to do long division before I entered kindergarten and my sister had a
similar experience with reading) and a much more enjoyable/inspiring early
education experience. There is no one true way, but I know I will personally
place any of my children in Montessori.

~~~
jarin
I don't remember most of my Montessori school experience (other than making
baked apples and learning how to wrap a sari), but I know that despite going
to a very competitive and exclusive K-12 school afterward, I was one of only
two kids in my kindergarten class who could already read. I used to sit in the
back of the room and read during nap time.

I also vaguely remember having a head start on math as well, which allowed me
to breeze through the math games during computer time and play more advanced
games like Rocky's Boots (a game where you assemble logic gates). Like the
"January-born hockey player" thing in Outliers, I feel that going to
Montessori school may have possibly given me a compounding head start in my
computer education. Either that or it just gave me an inflated ego.

~~~
mirkules
I was born and raised until age 12 in an eastern European country, and I will
tell you that I was _shocked_ when I first set foot in an American classroom
in 6th grade - they were learning "longhand" division, something I did in
grade 2.

What I take away from your anecdote combined with my personal experience isn't
that the Montessori system is really awesome or that European schools rock,
but that the public education system in America is really terrible.

~~~
TillE
> I was shocked when I first set foot in an American classroom in 6th grade -
> they were learning "longhand" division, something I did in grade 2.

I attended an American public school in the suburbs of New York 20-some years
ago, and I very clearly remember learning long division in second grade. I
remember it because I missed that day, and the teacher told me to learn it
from a friend, which didn't work out so well.

The real trouble with public education in the US is that funding is almost
entirely a function of where the school is located. Schools in wealthier
neighborhoods will generally be good, and schools is poor neighborhoods will
be awful. It's an absurd system.

~~~
onan_barbarian
Wow, you all must be genuises or something.

I went to a decent primary school in Australia and spend a year ( out of
phase, so put forward into the second half of Year 3 and then Year 4) in the
US at age 8. The thing that threw me at this age, that was part of the natural
progression in that stage, was 'subtract with carry' (I'm pretty sure that was
it).

I was 'put forward' past this interesting tidbit in my US school, assessed on
a test that was almost entirely centeres around it, found wanting, and placed
in the lowest class in school with about 7 streams. Each test I moved up a
class. All up they regarded it as a triumph of American education :-)

Neither of these schools was terrible, either, and both had 'subtract with
carry' around year 3. That's a far cry from longhand division.

No-one at my kids current school is doing long division in Year 2, either,
although I have creeping doubts about its rigor.

I am hoping this pace continued for all y'all, so that you were doing calculus
in Year 7, and proving exotic conjectures by Erdős in your first or second
year of university, etc. :-)

~~~
mirkules
I don't know about exotic conjectures by Erdos (nice one, btw), but in
elementary school I distinctly remember in second grade my dad ripped my He-
Man comic books because I failed a test in my math class. After that, two
things happened: 1) I studied really hard for my final end-of-year exam and
remember that we were dealing with simple algebra with variables (e.g. x - 5 =
3, find x), and 2) I never read comic books since (sad, I know).

I was really lucky to have a good math teacher in middle school who introduced
us to logic and induction in seventh grade (in hindsight, he prepared me for
linear algebra in college, and I haven't even heard the words "modus ponens"
since middle school until I got to college, second or third year).

Unfortunately, in high school I decided to coast a little bit on my previous
knowledge, so I didn't get good grades, but I didn't read comic books anymore
anyway, and my dad couldn't just rip the computer apart because he is a techie
too :)

Edit: the seventh grade teacher is in the US, he taught "magnet" (gifted)
classes. So, not all hope is lost in the US. Good teachers and good classes
exist even in public schools, we just need to bring up the standard.

~~~
onan_barbarian
I genuinely don't have a horse in this race, but I am far from convinced that
learning concepts sooner is a recipe for long-term win. In many cases, I think
you just get to the same place sooner at much higher levels of effort.

------
jtraffic
I have a hunch (definitely not an assertion) that even if there are effects
from Montessori school early on, they wash out over time, and the major
factors afterward are socioeconomic status and habits of parents, and
subsequent education (K-12). I guess I'm paraphrasing Freakonomics.

------
VladRussian
what type of people would be developed by combined approach of Montessori and
Tiger Mom? :)

~~~
pgbovine
wow my head just exploded at the thought of that :)

if you wanna write a blog post speculating on that, i'd gladly post it to HN

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karolisd
Are all of the examples male? Do Montessori schools help females too?

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dgabriel
There are certainly some women on the list, but none of them appear to be
founders: <http://mariamontessori.com/mm/?page_id=571>

I would attribute that to there being many more men founders, and that the
vast majority of children attend other types of schools. Any crossover will be
vanishingly small.

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mmcconnell1618
Perhaps creative minded people fit in better in Montessori schools and
therefore credit the school with love of learning. Where's the proof that the
Montessori method created the effect?

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softbuilder
"Questions are the new answers" -- Socrates, 429 B.C.

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jsavimbi
I can't speak for the higher end of Montessori as I only attended when I was
just starting out my career in education, but I found it to be rewarding for
someone with a wandering mind, more so than the strict rote-based Catholic-
influenced education I was subjected to further on. I also experienced British
private school, and that was definitely better than public but without the
scientific approach that I saw at Montessori.

It depends on the kid, I guess. I have an independent, creative side to me
that also needs strong discipline to get anything done, so I'm grateful to
have experienced both worlds. As far as current prices go, my divorced and
randomly employed mother was sending both my sister and I there until we opted
for the local public school as it fit better with our social lives, and I know
there were some kids there in the same boat as us, but overall it was a good
mix back then with the benefit of being in the hippy Cambridge of the '70s.

My advice would be to buy the best education for your kids that your money can
buy, and unless your local school system is the pits, I wouldn't home-school
them. There's a lot to be said for socializing at an early age and teaching
the kids subjects in addition to the regular curriculum isn't against the law
either. If the kids are smart, they'll put the regular coursework behind them
and need the extra teaching anyways.

If the child is a dullard, don't waste too much money on them as you'll need
it for later on for when they really fuck up.

~~~
ajju
>If the child is a dullard, don't waste too much money on them as you'll need
it for later on for when they really fuck up.

In my experience, barring truly mentally challenged children, most children
classified as 'dullards' by the education system just don't understand how to
cope with the traditional model of teaching. Once someone takes the time to
understand them and teaches them how to 'work the system' while still
learning, or once they themselves realize that they can take things in their
own hands, they shine. I have seen this time and again with cousins, friends
and a bunch of kids my mom taught when I was growing up (She is a teacher).

So, if the public school teacher thinks your child is a dullard, it may be a
much wiser investment in my opinion to consider educational institutes that
will pay a bit more attention to the child's needs. In fact, it may not even
take that, it may just take one good, concerned teacher to understand why the
kid can't cope, gain their trust, and then teach them how to get the most out
of the existing system.

All of this is IMHO, and I am not a teacher, just someone who has seen a lot
of kids suffering because of how they were labelled as dullards and
subsequently ignored for years by teachers AND given up on by parents. I have
also seen 'dullards' change course and shine, once they had the right help.

~~~
bad_user
I attended a pedagogical course in college.

This is exactly one of the topics of that course -- some children do not fit
in.

Teacher gave an example of this one fat kid she had that was aggressive and
obnoxious to everybody, while failing at tests and even skipping classes. She
then began to treat him nicer and praise him for every stupid achievement of
his, while talking to the other teachers to do the same -- the child had a
miraculous recovery; as it happens he was being aggressive in response to how
he was treated by other teachers and colleagues.

It's not that teachers don't know this, BUT the public school is overwhelmed
by too many children. In my 1-4 grades I was in a classroom of 30 children
(I'm not in the US, and that number nowadays is more like 20-25) ... how can
you, as a teacher, attend to the special needs of 30 children, everyday?

Private schools have the resources and the capacity for smaller, more focused
classrooms, with teachers that are better paid, and thus happier (well, at
least in some cases). That's the only real difference that makes an impact,
IMHO.

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ILIKECAKE
I went too Montessori and I am sitting behind a damn desk administering
systems...looks like I missed the awewsomness bus

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noahc
I down voted you and the reason why is that I think your thought is a fair
thought to have but you're not adding anything to the conversation. Please
expand on why you missed the awesome bus, or tell us more about your
experiences so we can be better informed about Montessori.

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jhuckestein
"What is 10 plus 1?"

"101?"

"I'm sorry M'a'm, your son is an idiot"

~~~
jhuckestein
Maybe I was too subtle. The message is: our yes or no school system fails to
award perfectly reasonable thoughts such as that 10 plus one might be 101.

~~~
pnathan
No, that's not reasonable.

Concatenation is not the reasonable answer to addition of numbers.

