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The Montessori Mafia

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Re: The Montessori Mafia

#91

Post by ladon86 »

kwantam wrote: post #87
ladon86 wrote: post #11

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 tha…

My then-girlfriend and I did some work to help start a Waldorf school in western Massachusetts, so I've had a bit of direct experience with Waldorf schools despite not having attended one, and I agree with most of your assessment: the focus on creativity / learning to teach yourself is a huge departure from the traditional approach, "here is how we solve this kind of problem, now practice on these other, nearly ident…

Actually that isn't unique to the school you worked at, it's a philosophical feature of the education system. I wasn't allowed to use a computer until I was perhaps 11 years old, and then only sparingly. I don't think it affected my later abilities, and I was incredibly excited once I got the chance to code at home!

I think this came about partly as an extension of Steiner's views on television as something that stunts imagination and creativity. The first 7 years of the education have a very strong focus on mental imagery, and there is probably a belief that viewing concrete depictions of concepts on a computer is harmful.

I happen to believe that a computer can allow increased exploration of the imagination when used for creative tasks, but in the 90's schools were mostly using them for looking at Encarta and so on. That's exactly what Steiner schools want to avoid for their younger children.

Re: The Montessori Mafia

#93

Post by cwp »

ladon86 wrote: post #11

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 tha…

My Mom was a Montessori teacher. For a couple of years when I was a kid, we rented a house from a Waldorf teacher who lived in the basement. The clash of pedagogical philosophies was epic.

Re: The Montessori Mafia

#94

Post by 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.

Re: The Montessori Mafia

#95

Post by Periodic »

brlewis wrote: post #60

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…

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.

Re: The Montessori Mafia

#96

Post by stretchwithme »

cynicalkane wrote: post #70
il wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it comes down to the fact that, considering the work involved and that the majority of startups fail, it's never an economically rational decision to work on a startup. Realistic to most people means in the "real world" you follow a safe familiar progression from school to entry level job to management to retirement. There are guide rails and evaluations along the way to make sure you're on track. You found a…

It can be economically rational if you value things other than the expected value of your money-to-utility function. People forget that economics takes into account things other than money. A lot of "economic" discussion would go a lot smoother if people remembered this.

Yeah, what's actually rational cannot all be put into a spreadsheet.

Re: The Montessori Mafia

#97

Post by stretchwithme »

grinich wrote: post #42
ladon86 wrote: post #11

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 tha…

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. There is a fantastic TED talk by Sir Ken Robinson on this exact subject. By far one of my favorites. http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/ken_robinson_says_schools_...

That is an excellent talk. The dude is hilarious.

Re: The Montessori Mafia

#98

Post by stretchwithme »

calpaterson wrote: post #74
ellyagg wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 wi…

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

I have to agree, but my gut tells me the claim is likely to be true.

I am interested in what companies and technologies this leads to because so goes the fate of nations.

Re: The Montessori Mafia

#99

Post by arn »

araneae wrote: post #62
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"

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 with…

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.

Re: The Montessori Mafia

#100

Post by bad_user »

ajju wrote: post #38
jsavimbi wrote: post #13

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 Mon…

>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 st…

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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