The Montessori Mafia

#1

Post by danielvnzla » Wed, Apr 06, 2011, 6:54 PM UTC

Re: The Montessori Mafia

#2

Post by jsulak » Wed, Apr 06, 2011, 7:05 PM UTC

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.

Re: The Montessori Mafia

#3

Post by slay2k » Wed, Apr 06, 2011, 7:08 PM UTC

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.

Re: The Montessori Mafia

#4

Post by ziadbc » Wed, Apr 06, 2011, 7:08 PM UTC

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"

Re: The Montessori Mafia

#5

Post by timr » Wed, Apr 06, 2011, 7:10 PM UTC

"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.

Re: The Montessori Mafia

#6

Post by Kylekramer » Wed, Apr 06, 2011, 7:16 PM UTC

jsulak wrote: post #2

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.

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.

Re: The Montessori Mafia

#7

Post by mortenjorck » Wed, Apr 06, 2011, 7:18 PM UTC

ziadbc wrote: post #4

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"

"Ironically, the Montessori educational approach might be the surest route to joining the creative elite, which are so overrepresented by the school’s alumni that one might suspect a Montessori Mafia: Google’s founders Larry Page and Sergei Brin, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, videogame pioneer Will Wright, and Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, not to mention Julia Child and rapper Sean “P.Diddy” Combs."

"The creative elite" -> "so overrepresented" -> list of five names in tech, one rapper, one 20th Century culinary master

I stopped taking the article seriously at this point.

Re: The Montessori Mafia

#8

Post by kloncks » Wed, Apr 06, 2011, 7:19 PM UTC

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

Re: The Montessori Mafia

#9

Post by phren0logy » Wed, Apr 06, 2011, 7:21 PM UTC

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

Re: The Montessori Mafia

#10

Post by asolove » Wed, Apr 06, 2011, 7:22 PM UTC

slay2k wrote: post #3

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.

As in most things, people are more important than methods. Now, there is some correlation, as people who care about teaching kids to really learn will tend to be more involved in Montessori or other small private schools or magnet public schools.

But don't decide based on reading and abstraction, go meet the people in the communities you would be putting your child into (including home-school communities) and see if you fit in with those people and if they seem nurturing. And explore more traditional options to see if the people there are exceptional.

My wife works at a small Catholic school (who would have thought?) with an amazing community that fosters intergenerational, self-guided, scrape-your-knee-climbing-a-tree sort of learning. I'm sure most parents drive right by and think "pfft, Catholic school," and their abstractions are leading them to miss a real gem.