Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Montessori Mafia

blogs.wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 160 posts

Re: The Montessori Mafia

#111

Post by arn »

araneae wrote: post #108
arn wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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".

Re: The Montessori Mafia

#112

Post by [deleted] »

kbutler wrote: post #37
bostonpete wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the parents of people who care enough about their education to enroll them in a montessori school... Really? You think it's just a matter of caring enough to make it so? I think I'd phrase this differently -- that the parents of people who have the means to send them to a montessori school probably would have the means to give them other advantages in life as well, so their kids are probably going to do pretty well…

> the parents of people who have the means to send them to a montessori school probably would have the means to give them other advantages in life as well, so their kids are probably going to do pretty well regardless. I disagree with the emphasis on the "means" of the family. Contrast the success of immigrant families who struggle to get an education for a child with the wastrel habits of many "rich kids". Care is c…

[deleted]

Re: The Montessori Mafia

#113

Post by 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.

Re: The Montessori Mafia

#114

Post by brlewis »

smilliken wrote: post #101
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…

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 pur…

At my kids' Montessori school they begin using computers in 4th grade and are required to own one in 7th-8th grade, so my experience is the same as yours. However, I wouldn't call it a "counterpoint" since Waldorf and Montessori are different.

Re: The Montessori Mafia

#115

Post by greendestiny »

teej wrote: post #36
gxs wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly right. I suspect that the parents of people who attend Montessori schools are more educated than average to begin with. Go into an inner city Los Angeles elementary, and I guarantee you the great majority of parents wont have even heard of the name. TL;DR: the parents of people who care enough about their education to enroll them in a montessori school, would have probably turned out pretty bright kid…

The article mentions a study that shows the direct influence of a Montessori school. The study was published in Science . You can read it here: http://www.montessori-science.org/montessori_science_journal... (click "see article full text") An excerpt: On several dimensions, children at a public inner city Montessori school had superior outcomes relative to a sample of Montessori applicants who, because of a random lo…

I understand that research into something as complicated as education can't control all variables. But I can immediately think of numerous other variables - what about the other children at the schools backgrounds? what about the level of funding the schools received? the level of training of the teachers?

I think Montessori and Steiner are far more dogmatic than sense dictates - but stay this way, despite the negatives, in order to give their system a magical quality. Determining the quality of a school is hard. So people are willing to cling to a belief because they don't know any better.

Just one example of negative; Montessori doesn't use imaginative play. It's been shown to be a great tool to give kids better concentration spans. But the writings of Montessori are against it and the dogma has to be followed.

Re: The Montessori Mafia

#116

Post by brlewis »

Terretta wrote: post #17

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 ou…

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

Re: The Montessori Mafia

#117

Post by aik »

Alex3917 wrote: post #33
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…

"There's a reason the really big hitters are often first-time entrepreneurs - they are naive enough to try." I think it's often because they don't understand the difference between a good product and a good business, so their expected outcomes tend to be at the extremes. Some of them end up doing ridiculously well, but overall I wouldn't consider not understanding lead gen, sales cycles, margins, cashflow, lifetime c…

I don't understand, why exactly don't they understand any of those things? I would expect them to be exceptional at them.

Re: The Montessori Mafia

#118

Post by aik »

cwp wrote: post #93
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.

I'm hooked. Please explain how?

Re: The Montessori Mafia

#119

Post by thinkingeric »

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…

"most children classified as 'dullards' by the education system just don't understand how to cope with the traditional model of teaching"

Can't say I was ever classified as a 'dullard' but my grade school scores indicated that I was. Even when I went to college, after a stellar start, my performance deteriorated. After considerable time, I was able to go back to attend a world-class university and excelled, largely because I had learned what the goal actually was. When I was young, I mistook the 'traditional model of teaching' for learning, which was something I was quite good at. The goal of being the recipient of 'teaching' (ie, a student) is to achieve higher scores than everyone else. In fact, learning is potentially an impediment because it requires critical thinking, and you won't get far as a student with that. Some students understand the real goal and do quite well. And some may even learn at the same time. Many others are simply frustrated or turn off completely, as I did.

Post reply on HN