not montessori, but i was in an "applied scholastics" (scientology) school for a few years. what a trip that was.
Any juicy stories?
Ask HN: Anyone go through Montessori education until age 12 (end of grade 6)?
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Re: Ask HN: Anyone go through Montessori education until age 12 (end of grade 6)?
#72Yes, I went to a Montessori school through 6th grade (now 25 years old). I have mixed feelings about the experience. I agree that it did well to set my up academically. I ended up going to middle/high schools that were relatively average academically, so I was pretty strong in all subjects in comparison to my peers. Ultimately I went to a very prestigious college and now work in a wonderful finance job I love. Howeve…
I had never heard of Montessori schools before this thread so I'm sure there is more going on than I'm aware of - but I wanted to point out that what you describe here: > school had about 15-25 kids / class year. Some of the larger years were split into two groups with separate teachers. Every year, maybe one or two kids left to go to other schools and one or two new kids joined, but for the most part I grew up with…
Huh, is that the maximum number of students of the same age? To be clear, the Montessori school I went to had a little over 100 students with all 6 class years combined.
For context, in the US many public middle/high schools are like two orders of magnitude larger per class year. Many schools have like 1000 kids / class year.
Re: Ask HN: Anyone go through Montessori education until age 12 (end of grade 6)?
#73Both my kids transitioned from Montessori to public school at 11 (grade 5) in the US. 13 and 16 now. + Love of learning and self-driven discovery + Top of class in pretty much all subjects + Comfortable giving presentations + Comfortable working in groups + At ease working with younger students/children and essentially mentoring them + Excellent handwriting + Respect for teachers - Difficulty with testing that involv…
Just want to point out this sounds more like a private->public pros and cons list. I’m not doubting it at all, just not sure if it’s due to the Montessori method. Most Montessori’s are or are operate similar to the private setting.
I attended a small, private, religious, non-Montessori school through middle+high school.
While the atmosphere wasn't toxic like I hear people say about public school, few of my peers were interested in learning, excelled academically, etc.
A non-negligible portion of the kids in my school were the ones kicked out of the public school for grades or troublemaking. I think they did better at my school, but that population affected the academic experience. My brother went to another nearby religious school and it was the same.
My school was caught in a loop of poor funding -> sub-par teachers -> less enrollment -> less funding.
I expect a school focused specifically on self-actualization and skill-building to have better results than an arbitrary private school.
Re: Ask HN: Anyone go through Montessori education until age 12 (end of grade 6)?
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
> - Difficult transition to the cliques and more aggressive social dynamics of public school Am I naive in thinking that the aggressive social dynamics of public school adds no value whatsoever to a child's or teenager's development? Like, _why_ would anyone want to put their children through that? Is it _really_ integral to a person's social development to understand how to interact with bullies (worst case)? I admi…
I agree that a lot of it's needless and painful, but there's some merit in knowing how to defend yourself (physically, mentally and emotionally). There's a lot of the petty BS that you learn from in school that transposes to adult life. I hate watching my kids deal with it, but I'd be remiss in raising them if I didn't prepare them for that.
But why do they need this from public school over say any other social ... activity (?). For example sports.
I am genuinely questioning whether public school makes children socially mature rather than only being a traumatic experience for many pupils, for no other reason than that public schooling is the default choice.
Re: Ask HN: Anyone go through Montessori education until age 12 (end of grade 6)?
#75My wife went to this indian alternative education school, a boarding school called Rishi Valley. They've opened many branches now, though I can't speak for the ones I don't know, all based on the philosophy of Jiddu Krishnamurti; you can read more about them here: https://jkrishnamurti.org/schools
Rishi Valley's teachning style is, honestly, what I wish my education had been. I remember being a kid and asking my teacher for "more", questions about what happens _beyond_ what we had just learned, and them saying "don't worry about it, you'll learn next year". Rishi Valley's approach is "why don't you come later and I'll show you? is anyone else interested?". They really try to emphasize learning for the sake of learning, and kids can choose from multiple subjects.
The teachers are often PhDs who have decided that they care a lot about education. Since it's a not for profit school, they're not paid a lot, but they live on campus, and get to interact with kids all day everyday. Most of the money the school gets is put back into rural education.
Now, the transition back to the "standard" system when the kids have to go to college is not smooth. Most of the ones I've talked to mention that they were extremely overwhelmed with the "rat-race" and the fact that everyone was so competitive, where they had been focusing on learning for the sake of learning. Everyone I've met from this school is very good at critical-thinking, and they don't accept a conclusion just because "someone said so", they will fact-check, do their own research, debate, ... Which I think should be the goal of education.
My anecdotal experience is that they overperform their non-weird-school peers though. But is that due to the teaching itself? Or is it maybe because the kind of parents who would put their kids in this school already did some sort of ground-work? I'm not sure!
Re: Ask HN: Anyone go through Montessori education until age 12 (end of grade 6)?
#76The Reggio Emeila approach might be what some parents are looking for when they’ve heard about Montessori.
It was designed for children after ww2 to reintegrate with their neighborhoods and communities after being shut ins and isolated from other children. It has turned out to have especially meaningful parallels in the past few years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reggio_Emilia_approach
I have heard a lot about Montessori and how it’s relative to the practitioner. One thing that comes up is how reintegrating into society can be harder.
Re: Ask HN: Anyone go through Montessori education until age 12 (end of grade 6)?
#77My daycare had it. I don't really know if it made a difference or what I think about it or what it even is. My mom liked it, I guess?
Re: Ask HN: Anyone go through Montessori education until age 12 (end of grade 6)?
#78Yes, I went to a Montessori school through 6th grade (now 25 years old). I have mixed feelings about the experience. I agree that it did well to set my up academically. I ended up going to middle/high schools that were relatively average academically, so I was pretty strong in all subjects in comparison to my peers. Ultimately I went to a very prestigious college and now work in a wonderful finance job I love. Howeve…
>, but for the most part I grew up with the same core set of children for seven years
uuh this is how regular school is in Sweden...
You have a class of people in grade 1-6, then grade 7-9 is a new school, then high school is a new school.
But I guess we all have anxiety so ur right xD
Re: Ask HN: Anyone go through Montessori education until age 12 (end of grade 6)?
#79Yes, I went to a Montessori school through 6th grade (now 25 years old). I have mixed feelings about the experience. I agree that it did well to set my up academically. I ended up going to middle/high schools that were relatively average academically, so I was pretty strong in all subjects in comparison to my peers. Ultimately I went to a very prestigious college and now work in a wonderful finance job I love. Howeve…
At least in my country (Romania), the norm in all public schools is to have the same set of ~30 children you'll go to school every day with from grade 0-1 (6-7 years old) to grade 8 (14 years old). Since there are very few to no electives, you'll spend ~all of your time in school with all of these kids every day for 8 years - and virtually everyone in the country has this experience (private schools are very rare). E…
Same here in Sweden. All school is like this. Not just Montessorri.
Re: Ask HN: Anyone go through Montessori education until age 12 (end of grade 6)?
#80Yes, I went to a Montessori school through 6th grade (now 25 years old). I have mixed feelings about the experience. I agree that it did well to set my up academically. I ended up going to middle/high schools that were relatively average academically, so I was pretty strong in all subjects in comparison to my peers. Ultimately I went to a very prestigious college and now work in a wonderful finance job I love. Howeve…
I had never heard of Montessori schools before this thread so I'm sure there is more going on than I'm aware of - but I wanted to point out that what you describe here: > school had about 15-25 kids / class year. Some of the larger years were split into two groups with separate teachers. Every year, maybe one or two kids left to go to other schools and one or two new kids joined, but for the most part I grew up with…
It is also the norm in parts of Eastern Europe - having the same 20-30 class year between the ages of 6-7 and 16-17.
Could it be that the social life at the 'prestigious college' was just rubbish, e.g. geared towards extraverted mba-types with 'default' social activities being clubbing and drinking?