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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)?

#161

Post by ranbato »

We put our 2 oldest kids in Montessori.

The oldest one loved it and thrived in Montessori and stayed in it until we started a Charter school to avoid the local Middle School.

The second one HATED Montessori and we had to move him out to the local elementary school.

In the end it came down to personality. The second kid had a personality that just wouldn't work in a Montessori environment. He would do what he wanted to when he wanted to and would refuse to be redirected in any way, shape or form. Same school, mostly the same teachers, but totally opposite outcomes.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone go through Montessori education until age 12 (end of grade 6)?

#162

Post by dhosek »

insightcheck wrote: post #155
marcus_holmes wrote: post #5

I 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…

I sometimes wonder about whether personalised teaching as a young student is overall good or bad, for students who then move on to a university with very large, impersonal classes (e.g. with more than 1000 students per class). On the one hand, I think students in small classes can really become more confident and enthusiastic about learning in the long-term. But on the other, a shift to larger classes can be alienati…

The graduates from my kids’s school which does a lot of personalized stuff, do disproportionately well at high school (not sure about college as there’s less data there). I think some of it is inculcating a sense of joy about learning so that even when there are obstacles (like institutional schooling), the kids will be motivated to learn anyway. (I’ve seen the Premack principle at work with my son where reading went from something that would be rewarded to something that served as a reward.)

Re: Ask HN: Anyone go through Montessori education until age 12 (end of grade 6)?

#163

Post by Enginerrrd »

satellite2 wrote: post #139
marcus_holmes wrote: post #5

I 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.

When they start having to spend 80% of their attention on one kid, it's a problem that needs to be addressed.

I say this as the parent of a kid who is right on the verge of being kicked out of preschool over that issue. I totally get it. I wish I knew how to help him. He has some great qualities, but he also requires constant attention and mentally draining correction from everyone that's involved in his life.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone go through Montessori education until age 12 (end of grade 6)?

#164

Post by _dain_ »

whimsicalism wrote: post #158
_dain_ wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There's a lot of the petty BS that you learn from in school that transposes to adult life. No, you learn maladaptive patterns. Your options are artificially constrained. Most of the ways a grown adult would deal with e.g. bullies are just not available to you. Take physical violence for example. As an adult, if you're threatened with physical violence you have the options to: - Get out of there. But kids can't do th…

I'm honestly confused by many of the comments I find in this thread re: bullying. I went to a pretty rough school (repeated fights, people I went to school with murdering people, etc.) and I basically was never even once threatened with violence. All the bullying is through words and making fun of people, etc. Is physical bullying of this sort actually that common or more media depiction?

Parent commenter, for me there wasn't much violent bullying in my school. I just used those examples because they're likely to resonate with more people. It isn't that uncommon. But my overall point applies to other things as well.

- work-life balance. we expect kids to do "homework", but we don't expect adults to do work outside of actual working hours. we call those places "toxic working environments" and avoid them if we have any sense. I actually have more time to myself as an adult than I did as a kid.

- doing things only so that they can be graded for the approval of some authority figure, rather than because they are intrinsically worthwhile or enjoyable

- a peer group artificially constrained to be only of kids within a year of your age. interacting with kids a few years older or younger is out of the norm, friendships between year groups are rare. that's not how adult life works. I have a pet theory that so much bad behavior in schools is caused by this age stratification.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone go through Montessori education until age 12 (end of grade 6)?

#165

Post by agentgumshoe »

dhosek wrote: post #162
insightcheck wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I sometimes wonder about whether personalised teaching as a young student is overall good or bad, for students who then move on to a university with very large, impersonal classes (e.g. with more than 1000 students per class). On the one hand, I think students in small classes can really become more confident and enthusiastic about learning in the long-term. But on the other, a shift to larger classes can be alienati…

The graduates from my kids’s school which does a lot of personalized stuff, do disproportionately well at high school (not sure about college as there’s less data there). I think some of it is inculcating a sense of joy about learning so that even when there are obstacles (like institutional schooling), the kids will be motivated to learn anyway. (I’ve seen the Premack principle at work with my son where reading went…

I think it is also a greater level of self-confidence and trust through knowing what they are all about (and hence enjoy what they learn more).

So many kids (myself included) hit university not knowing what they should be doing (or what they've been learning actually requires at the 'next leve') because you're guided to broad and narrow learning curriculum and not following their specific interests intensely.

We see the chaotic, political, competitive and ranked corporate world as 'normal' instead of a terrible, poorly organised and dysfunctional system. It's not 'the real world,' it's a bubble that reinforces itself because we train kids to fit into it throughout their education.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone go through Montessori education until age 12 (end of grade 6)?

#166

Post by whimsicalism »

speeder wrote: post #127
_dain_ wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There's a lot of the petty BS that you learn from in school that transposes to adult life. No, you learn maladaptive patterns. Your options are artificially constrained. Most of the ways a grown adult would deal with e.g. bullies are just not available to you. Take physical violence for example. As an adult, if you're threatened with physical violence you have the options to: - Get out of there. But kids can't do th…

I never had the opportunity to go to more "not normal" school like Montessori, and I ended learning rather quickly, that at least in normal private schools, the solution to any problem, is violence. If that is not working, then even more violence. At some point I had to defend myself from a bully (that probably had a awful home life, since that guy managed to come home to school 7:00 in the morning already drunk, mul…

What the hell? When & where were you guys going to school?

I went to a rough inner-city school and there was literally nothing like this. The fights were all between people who were already involved.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone go through Montessori education until age 12 (end of grade 6)?

#167

Post by _dain_ »

whimsicalism wrote: post #166
speeder wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never had the opportunity to go to more "not normal" school like Montessori, and I ended learning rather quickly, that at least in normal private schools, the solution to any problem, is violence. If that is not working, then even more violence. At some point I had to defend myself from a bully (that probably had a awful home life, since that guy managed to come home to school 7:00 in the morning already drunk, mul…

What the hell? When & where were you guys going to school? I went to a rough inner-city school and there was literally nothing like this. The fights were all between people who were already involved.

in what country

Re: Ask HN: Anyone go through Montessori education until age 12 (end of grade 6)?

#168

Post by whimsicalism »

_dain_ wrote: post #167
whimsicalism wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What the hell? When & where were you guys going to school? I went to a rough inner-city school and there was literally nothing like this. The fights were all between people who were already involved.

in what country

US

Re: Ask HN: Anyone go through Montessori education until age 12 (end of grade 6)?

#169

Post by KerrAvon »

matthewowen wrote: post #118
sedeki wrote: post #54

Earlier 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…

Gotta put your kids through the damage of school social dynamics so that as adults they'll be equipped to interact with other people who were also damaged by it.

This is not how it works, though. Your damage compounds with the damage of others, it doesn't negate it.

Kids who go through Montessori, Waldorf, etc, have a much better foundation for dealing with damaged people. If you start from a place of self-respect and expect the same of others, you can recognize when others aren't going to reciprocate and you can cope with that.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone go through Montessori education until age 12 (end of grade 6)?

#170

Post by hosh »

tobyjsullivan wrote: post #111
SQueeeeeL wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

I'll note that this comment assumes standardized education was somehow better in the past. We all have specific memories of being inspired by a teacher or something but that seems like a happy accident more than anything intentional. The universal education system we have today was never meant to "inspire learning" or anything similar. It was designed as a vaccine for illiteracy across a handful of subjects. I would…

There’s a lot that could be say about it, but I think John Taylor Gatto said much of it. The current system does not really do the literacy thing well either.

There are also some exciting things happening in the unschooled and regenerative education space. The main thing though, is kids who develop into adults with intrinsic motivation and capable of determining the wise choices for themselves, their children, and community.

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