Not me, but my wife did. Through 5th or 6th grade, I forget. She has very fond memories of it, and hated the transition into traditional school. Her account is that once she got there she was a) appalled at being expected to sit at a desk all day listening to teacher's talk or doing worksheets and b) bored as hell because she was significantly further along in her own education. Worth noting that she ended up at a pretty bottom of the barrel public school.
Ask HN: Anyone go through Montessori education until age 12 (end of grade 6)?
141–150 of 259 posts
Re: Ask HN: Anyone go through Montessori education until age 12 (end of grade 6)?
#142I did Montessori from kindergarten until grade 6 (age 12), in Mexico. I really, really like it. I think it reinforces the kids natural curiosity. In middle school, my first year out of Montessori, I was shocked at how little other kids cared about learning. I remember the teacher discussing something about astronomy, and I raised my hand to comment on some fact I had read, and what followed was mockery by my peers an…
Damn, that part about being excited to learn and share knowledge with your peers only to be shouted down dredged up some memories. Most American schools are so regimented that any exploration of knowledge is actually sneered down. How did our communities let it get so bad...
> Most American schools are so regimented that any exploration of knowledge is actually sneered down.
America’s not special. Schools are very similarly run in every government school system I know of and almost all the others. https://www.informationliberation.com/?id=11375
> How did our communities let it get so bad...
If schools provide childcare and sort and rank the children a large majority of parents are satisfied.
Re: Ask HN: Anyone go through Montessori education until age 12 (end of grade 6)?
#143Just an FYI, most schools I see that label themselves as Montessori aren't actually Montessori, they're just high performance schooling environments for young kids. In our neck of the woods it's the hip thing and well off parents will pay lots of money for it.
Re: Ask HN: Anyone go through Montessori education until age 12 (end of grade 6)?
#144I was a troubled kid. Expelled from 2 kindergartens for disruptive behaviour. My parents tried Montessori, and it worked. They found out I was interested in mythology, so I apparently learned to read from the Greek myths. One of my friends was into cars, so they got him a pile of car showroom brochures and he learned to read from that. There was a non-verbal autistic kid there, too. I played "clap-hands" with them ev…
What kind of kindergarten expels children? It sounds at best grossly incompetent. Are you sure there was no other bias that played a role in their decision? It sounds rather unlikely you were the cause.
Private schools tend to do it if the behavior severely affect other kids. E.g. repeated violent behavior.
Re: Ask HN: Anyone go through Montessori education until age 12 (end of grade 6)?
#145Earlier quoted context omitted.
What kind of kindergarten expels children? It sounds at best grossly incompetent. Are you sure there was no other bias that played a role in their decision? It sounds rather unlikely you were the cause.
Private schools tend to do it if the behavior severely affect other kids. E.g. repeated violent behavior.
Public schools just let the repeated violent behaviour happen :p
Re: Ask HN: Anyone go through Montessori education until age 12 (end of grade 6)?
#146I did Montessori between ages 6 and 15, then transitioned into more traditional education for the last three years. The main difference was how much more challenging Montessori education was. The teachers really observed me and how I performed on assignments, and they could tell when I needed more of a challenge, and assign something to me that was just at the edge of what I was able to do. In the traditional educati…
> On the other hand, I also have a notable lack of respect for authority figures. I went through "classical" education system (with lots of aggression, as somebody else already mentioned in another thread here) - and can tell I also obtained no respect for authority figures. School taught me to survive school by tricking those teachers who had no respect to pupils. Give them what they want and you'r going to be fine…
There might be some confusion over what "classical education" means. Do you mean a traditional/mainstream public school? Or classical as in structured around the trivium?
Re: Ask HN: Anyone go through Montessori education until age 12 (end of grade 6)?
#147Both 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…
> - 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…
How will your child cope in prison if they've never experienced school?
Re: Ask HN: Anyone go through Montessori education until age 12 (end of grade 6)?
#148I did Montessori from kindergarten until grade 6 (age 12), in Mexico. I really, really like it. I think it reinforces the kids natural curiosity. In middle school, my first year out of Montessori, I was shocked at how little other kids cared about learning. I remember the teacher discussing something about astronomy, and I raised my hand to comment on some fact I had read, and what followed was mockery by my peers an…
Damn, that part about being excited to learn and share knowledge with your peers only to be shouted down dredged up some memories. Most American schools are so regimented that any exploration of knowledge is actually sneered down. How did our communities let it get so bad...
In my public and private school experience it was both the other kids in the class who didn't like to be outshined as well as (some, not all) of the teachers who couldn't be bothered with anything outside of the textbook and did not like to be questioned.
I recall once in 6th grade we were talking about marine sponges and the teacher had brought in one of those loofah sponges, passed it around and said that it was a sponge from the ocean. I raised my hand and said "no, that's a loofah. It's from a plant that's in the cucumber family. I know because my grandmother grows them." And he was like "No, this is a sponge from the ocean. Your grandmother can't grow these." There was no changing his mind and he didn't appreciate being contradicted.
Re: Ask HN: Anyone go through Montessori education until age 12 (end of grade 6)?
#149I did Montessori from kindergarten until grade 6 (age 12), in Mexico. I really, really like it. I think it reinforces the kids natural curiosity. In middle school, my first year out of Montessori, I was shocked at how little other kids cared about learning. I remember the teacher discussing something about astronomy, and I raised my hand to comment on some fact I had read, and what followed was mockery by my peers an…
> I was shocked at how little other kids cared about learning.
One of my children started public from 1-5 in Montessori and found the same (and at a somewhat selective public school).
Re: Ask HN: Anyone go through Montessori education until age 12 (end of grade 6)?
#150Just an FYI, most schools I see that label themselves as Montessori aren't actually Montessori, they're just high performance schooling environments for young kids. In our neck of the woods it's the hip thing and well off parents will pay lots of money for it.
Are they really not using montessori methods?
Or is your critique more along the lines of the bigger driver for montessori outcomes isn't the montessori methods, but the affluence of the families?