It's good for something like preschool, to get that initial curiosity going. After that it's good to have a structured environment with extracurriculars.
Montessori Education
11–13 of 13 posts
Re: Montessori Education
#12Genuinely curious if other HN users can share their experiences at Montessori. Considering options for my young son.
I was in a Montessori program before going to a more "traditional" school. In short, I loved the Montessori method.. and it was pretty much the last time I truly enjoyed being at school. I attribute much of my love of the sciences to the teachers that fostered my natural curiosity in the area.
For me, who needed structure, I most enjoyed the Saxon method of learning. It was heavy on problem sets and homework, but you retained what you learned because a part of each problem set was always designed to revisit past lessons. By the time it was test time, you could be fairly confident that you understood all of the material without additional studying.
Second favorite was in 6th grade where we were handed a bunch of color coded workbooks and told to go at it. I finished the entire grade's assignments by the end of the first 9 weeks, and I hated math. I was just competitive. In hindsight, it's probably why I was placed in the advanced clas when we were promoted to the next grade level. Because I finished all of that content before the end of 6th grade, too. I understood pre-algebra concepts because I had started writing programs on my dad's Ti 99/4a.
Re: Montessori Education
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
A friend of mine went to a secondary montessori, he said he didn't learn much of the conventional stuff but did learn how to knit a chicken.
Are you sure you're not mixing up Montessori and Steiner schooling? The latter is more focused on self-expression and seems kinda "artsy".
My kid's Steiner school has them outside playing for two hours plus every morning, rain or shine. I hope this will save him from having myopia as deeply awful as my own.