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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)?

#211

Post by vorpalhex »

Enginerrrd wrote: post #163
satellite2 wrote: post #139

Earlier 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.

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.

When a system misbehaves consistently, you stop attempting to force the system to behave and instead sit back and examine why it is misbehaving. If your wheel doesn't like to roll downhill and keeps veering off to the side, no matter how even the wheel is.. sometimes it's the hill.

One of the Montessori practices I'm a big fan of is observation. Quiet almost secret observation of the child. Ideally the child isn't aware you're there and you merely observe them act freely (in a safe environment for the child).

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

#213

Post by fideloper »

ojame wrote: post #208
fideloper wrote: post #202

Montessori was bad for me. At least the Montessori I was placed in. I need to find out where it was (and how old I was - I would guess 5 or 6), but the situation is that I was not ready (or perhaps not the right type of kid) for Montessori. I was painfully shy, and I'd avoid attention. The teachers (there were 2 I believe) must have been happy to ignore me. How else do you spend an entire year not paying attention to…

> She helped me learn what I needed to know at home Assuming this _wasn't_ the case when you were at Montessori - which goes against one of the core principles of "school is an extension of home". It's understandable, of course (you said it yourself, especially with the 'hands off' nature of that time), but kids generally thrive when education is a life thing, and not a 'school' thing. > You think they would know tha…

I love the description of an observer, I think that’s apt! “not engaged with himself” resonates for me.

I do think my parents must have been checked out for a spell there - overworked and under payed. As kids you don’t necessarily notice but looking back I’ll bet that was the case.

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

#214

Post by vorpalhex »

SoftTalker wrote: post #146
ramtatatam wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_education_movement

I believe the confusion is merely your own. The context is clear here.

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

#215

Post by silisili »

dionidium wrote: post #207
huevosabio wrote: post #55

I 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…

In middle school, my first year out of Montessori, I was shocked at how little other kids cared about learning. ... I kept tabs more or less my classmates that came out of the Montessori, and I think they overall overperformed the non Montessori people in middle school and high school. Harder to gauge adulthood success. Isn't this just as likely to be a selection effect? The kids who go to Montessori schools are not…

Statistically, there would be some 'Montessori' level(whatever that means) kids in the random student population. It's just they'd been beaten down by the public education system long before OP arrived.

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

#216

Post by huevosabio »

dionidium wrote: post #207
huevosabio wrote: post #55

I 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…

In middle school, my first year out of Montessori, I was shocked at how little other kids cared about learning. ... I kept tabs more or less my classmates that came out of the Montessori, and I think they overall overperformed the non Montessori people in middle school and high school. Harder to gauge adulthood success. Isn't this just as likely to be a selection effect? The kids who go to Montessori schools are not…

That's totally plausible, I would just add that I attended private middle and high school.

But still I can see that parents that place kids in Montessori schools are a different population than those that place them in private schools.

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

#217

Post by slt2021 »

smeej wrote: post #197
UncleOxidant wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I had a teacher who insisted to my heterochromic classmate, looking him straight in the eyes, that it's not possible to have one brown eye and one half blue/half brown eye, because that's not how genetics work. I don't understand why teachers are so often threatened by thoughtful children, but it's awfully sad.

Just look at their salaries [oublic school system]. Their pay weeds out quite a lot of good people

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

#218

Post by slt2021 »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #192
gautamdivgi wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It all comes down to money. If professors make the subject hard, they don’t get students. No students is less money for the University and less opportunity for the professor to scope out potential thesis candidates. There are some professors who make it hard. Generally those who have tenure don’t care and put down a shitload of work on students. Also, if you have a well funded lab that pays well you will have a lot m…

In Europe it's no different, except we mostly only pay with time. Even without the "motivator" of student loans, most people enter university to party, pass tests and get out with paper that grants them access to better-paying or more interesting jobs. Learning is incidental. I think that despite it being less obvious these days, it's still true: actually learning for the sake of knowing and understanding is a nerd t…

Why learn complex stuff when you can zip thru coursework and party with friends, and get laid every week with different chicks, away from parents’ watching eye?

For a teenager with bursting hormones this becomes a trivial choice

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

#219

Post by andirk »

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…

I needed tutors for my college Computer Science and Math classes because the classroom setting wasn't enough for me. Add then add in study groups. I needed all of it, from big class to individual.

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

#220

Post by Spooky23 »

dionidium wrote: post #207
huevosabio wrote: post #55

I 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…

In middle school, my first year out of Montessori, I was shocked at how little other kids cared about learning. ... I kept tabs more or less my classmates that came out of the Montessori, and I think they overall overperformed the non Montessori people in middle school and high school. Harder to gauge adulthood success. Isn't this just as likely to be a selection effect? The kids who go to Montessori schools are not…

This topic is really controversial and people usually have an axe to grind. I agree to an extent.

As a former parent and former board president of a small catholic PK-8 school, I'd say that parental involvement is the key differentiator, uniforms/behavior, faith teaching and teacher motivation are other big drivers there. The Montessori methods are a different path that works well as well. End of the day, we're all clever apes and will learn in a supportive environment.

Our kids in that school had access to fewer educational/enrichment resources, but tended to outperform their peers when they transitioned (mostly) to public high school. about 40% of the kids were scholarship funded, and those scholarships did not require religious affiliation. These were kids who would have significantly worse outcomes in public school, but they had parents committed to their success.

There are several key disadvantages.

- Parental involvement can transition into meddling.

- A kid who needs an IEP and services may not get it because the school doesn't offer the services and won't tell the family to leave OR the parent is in denial and the school isn't prepared to deal with it.

- Kids may be boxed out of sports as suburban schools usually have (corrupt) pay-to-play feeder programs.

As a parent, my goal is to get my child the best education that I have the ability to provide. Montessori and other private schools are a great way to do that. However, I don't think taxpayers should be paying for those options beyond core services (school nurses, etc)

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