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The Montessori Mafia

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Re: The Montessori Mafia

#101

Post by smilliken »

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…

As a counter-point, using computers was an essential part of my education when I attended a Montessori school. I agree with your conclusion though; schools like this might easily adopt the "pathologies of the community".

As an aside, I think the biggest benefits I received from attending Montessori were independence and self-motivation-- I was never forced to learned something, I had to want to learn it first and pursue it myself.

Re: The Montessori Mafia

#102

Post by igrekel »

ronnier wrote: post #56
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…

>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?

My son knew the alphabet too at that age. He is now 5 and has forgotten and relearned it quite a few times since then. Knowing this, I wouldn't worry about it really.

Re: The Montessori Mafia

#103

Post by igrekel »

ellyagg wrote: post #57
timr wrote: post #5

"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 inco…

"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…

I have a hard time believing that. Around here, Montessori schools are private and expensive. These school are all established is wealthy neighborhoods, so even if you forget that they are expensive, you still need a pretty good income to live in a place where it is convenient to get your kids to school everyday or be willing to go through important sacrifices for your children's education.

Re: The Montessori Mafia

#104

Post by onan_barbarian »

mirkules wrote: post #77
onan_barbarian wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 schoo…

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…

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.

Re: The Montessori Mafia

#105

Post by nickpinkston »

yalurker wrote: post #52
icco wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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 a…

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.

Re: The Montessori Mafia

#106

Post by timr »

ellyagg wrote: post #57
timr wrote: post #5

"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 inco…

"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…

"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"

What a shame.

The Science paper cited at the bottom of this article found that Montessori kids from one school in Wisconsin had slightly better performance on some kinds of academic tests. The story's "finding" is that Montessori kids are overrepresented amongst the creative/business/economic elite. Clearly, one follows from the other, right?

But yes, let's talk about the up-voting of comments that sound approximately correct, but actually aren't.

Re: The Montessori Mafia

#108

Post by araneae »

arn wrote: post #99
araneae wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

Re: The Montessori Mafia

#109

Post by run4yourlives »

ronnier wrote: post #56
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…

>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?

It doesn't matter what she knows, it matters that you encourage her to learn more and follow where her mind takes her.

For my boys, (3.9 and 1.5 years) I looked into Waldorf and was actually completely turned off by the fact that reading was completely ignored until much, much later. (7 years) For my eldest, who is already reading 2 and 3 letter words and phonetically sounding larger ones, this would be such a set back that he would be discouraged.

I think it isn't important where he is right now, but more so that he is encouraged to continue learning and continues to have an enjoyment of learning. I think that's really where our schools fail and why a self-motivated Montessori child can be a high achiever.

Re: The Montessori Mafia

#110

Post by gnosis »

ladon86 wrote: post #91
kwantam wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 stun…

"I think this came about partly as an extension of Steiner's views on television as something that stunts imagination and creativity."

I wasn't aware Rudolph Steiner had any views on television, since he died in 1925, before even the earliest television sets were commercially available.

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