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The Montessori Mafia

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Re: The Montessori Mafia

#131

Post by three14 »

arn wrote: post #111
araneae wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

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

Re: The Montessori Mafia

#132

Post by chalst »

cwp wrote: post #128
aik wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm hooked. Please explain how?

Ok, take math. The Waldorf argument went something like this: "Little children can't absorb abstractions so we don't teach math until they're ready." The Montessori argument goes like this: "Little children can't absorb abstractions so we teach math by making it concrete. We don't introduce the abstractions until they're ready." There was a lot of that agree-on-the-facts-but-reach-different-conclusions. The conversat…

This, the Montessori view, is really accepted wisdom now. It was only in the crazy days of New Maths that any educators thought that the right way to teach children was to give them a "foundation" consisting of the most general abstractions possible that everything else could be built upon. Think Bourbaki for children.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolas_Bourbaki

Re: The Montessori Mafia

#133

Post by chalst »

dhs wrote: post #86
brlewis wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the Montessori school my kids attend, children learn letters when they're ready/motivated, usually around age 3 or 4. Basic arithmetic starts around around age 4-5, typically. I don't think Waldorf/Steiner emphasizes materials the way Montessori does: http://ourdoings.com/brlewis/2006-01-21 I'm not actually sure how similar Waldorf/Steiner is to Montessori, aside from both shunning the same bad ideas.

I've researched this for my children, and there seemed to be significant differences. The amount of superstition in the Steiner teachings put me off big time ("Beware of right angles and potatoes!"). Montessori makes far fewer wild assumptions.

Plus educators at Waldorf schools tend to talk up Steiner's poisonous Anthroposophy.

Re: The Montessori Mafia

#134

Post by 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.

Re: The Montessori Mafia

#135

Post by mkjones »

qq66 wrote: post #124
teej wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You can't control for "bright parents." You can control for parents' income, parents' education, parents' height and weight, but you can't control for the kind of attitude towards childrearing and towards life that would cause a couple to send their kids to Montessori school. This is why so many social science results that are "controlled" for various variables actually don't make any sense.

Wouldn't accepting 1000 applications, and teaching Montessori-style to 500 of them and traditional-style to the other 500 pretty accurately control for all of those self-selection biases?

Re: The Montessori Mafia

#136

Post by Muzza »

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 and basic arithmetic at 7-8.

Is that strange? I started school (a "regular" one) at 7 (as is customary in Sweden) and I didn't know the entire alphabet or basic arithmetic then. None of my classmates did.

Re: The Montessori Mafia

#137

Post by paganel »

Groxx wrote: post #59
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…

> they don't want to "get it wrong" I, thankfully, realized this pretty early on, with help from my siblings. Collectively, we quit caring about gold stars, and started to actually learn . IMO, the main problem is that we're taught that it's bad to be wrong , and not good enough to try to outweigh the risks if you're not already fluent in the area. Success is essentially all that's valued at both an educational and s…

> Success is essentially all that's valued at both an educational and social level, which entirely ignores the value of actually learning something, improving your future attempts.

Which I find quite strange, especially as our Western culture wouldn't have existed without Socrates, who championed the exact same ideas you're talking about :)

Re: The Montessori Mafia

#138

Post by gmac »

dhs wrote: post #86
brlewis wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the Montessori school my kids attend, children learn letters when they're ready/motivated, usually around age 3 or 4. Basic arithmetic starts around around age 4-5, typically. I don't think Waldorf/Steiner emphasizes materials the way Montessori does: http://ourdoings.com/brlewis/2006-01-21 I'm not actually sure how similar Waldorf/Steiner is to Montessori, aside from both shunning the same bad ideas.

I've researched this for my children, and there seemed to be significant differences. The amount of superstition in the Steiner teachings put me off big time ("Beware of right angles and potatoes!"). Montessori makes far fewer wild assumptions.

I went to Steiner school, and it's true that the theory is essentially nothing-but-crazy. But the practice of it can be utterly fantastic, and at least where I went the theory was entirely unmentioned. In the final half hour of school we had a lesson on "where did the last 14 years of your education come from?" -- we apparently (for example) literally have seven bodies, but you would thankfully never have guessed it from those 14 years of education.

If I had to pick a single strength of Steiner education, it would be that it genuinely believes that traditional academic skills aren't the only skills worth having. Lots of guff is spouted elsewhere along these lines, but at Steiner school people who were good at sport or art or whatever were genuinely just as valued as geniuses in writing and maths, which gave the place a lovely ethos.

Re: The Montessori Mafia

#139

Post by Ratfish »

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…

Can confirm technophobia in the New Zealand Steiner system too. I believe things have improved somewhat, but TV was definitely the Antichrist.

Re: The Montessori Mafia

#140

Post by gmac »

gnosis wrote: post #110
ladon86 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's certainly true though that Steiner schools tend to be very down on TV, and I have to feel that if the alternative is some kind of creative or social or engaged-in-the-real-world activity then the alternative is almost certainly better.
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