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Public Montessori programs strengthen learning outcomes at lower costs: study

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Re: Public Montessori programs strengthen learning outcomes at lower costs: study

#161

Post by em-bee »

bonoboTP wrote: post #157
em-bee wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

montessori methodology and training (at least as certified by AMI) is a strong selector for teacher quality. trainees have to spend 90 hours in class just observing children and writing reports about their observations as part of their training. they learn to understand what the kids need and how to teach them. i am not aware that traditional teacher education does any of that. likewise peer quality should not be eve…

You aren't contradicting me. Teachers who pass the tests required for this probably are from the top of their teacher cohort regarding intelligence, consciousness, empathy, motivation etc and they are likely better paid, so less stressed from life stuff like bills or whatever. The peers all come from non-random families who generally have good life outcomes either way. These kids will model good behavioral norms. If…

my point is that if we give every teacher montessori training, the teacher quality would rise.

Re: Public Montessori programs strengthen learning outcomes at lower costs: study

#162

Post by karlitooo »

lz400 wrote: post #139
karlitooo wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I attended Montessori in the 80s up to high school level and was part of a "gifted" group who went on to a public school a couple of years younger than typical. I was completely unprepared for student bullying in HS and the generally harsh attitudes of teachers. Also my learning style had to completely change, and I did not adapt well. My Montessori persona was to be competitive about "finishing my weeks work first"…

Very interesting story. If I may ask, looking back, do you blame Montessori for the “lack of real world preparation” or do you think rather that it was the regular school that had a bad system and you were in a better one and should have stayed there? If you had stayed there until uni do you think you’d adapted well to higher edu?

I think my Montessori teachers did a great job. I don't have much love for the public school model but I was a special case being put up several grades and not being familiar with that teaching style.

I don't think I would recommend putting an 11 year old into high school early. Better to be an A+ student and have peers your age than take on a heavier burden to scrape through with Cs.

I have some friends who went through the entire steiner school model and they seemed fairly happy well adjusted adults. So I think yeah, if the model is working stick with it until uni.

Re: Public Montessori programs strengthen learning outcomes at lower costs: study

#163

Post by thaumasiotes »

WillAdams wrote: post #32

My children attended Montessori schools, and it really is a wonderful system. I would really like to see an extension of this learning method up through high school --- the closest thing I'm aware of was a school I attended in Mississippi for a couple of years --- classes were divided between academic and social, social classes (homeroom, phys ed, social studies, &c.) were attended at one's age, while academic classe…

> (with a limit on no more than 4 grades ahead up to 8th grade) --- after 8th grade that was removed and students were allowed to take any classes.

Unless this school had more than 12 grades, why would you describe that as "the limit being removed"?

Re: Public Montessori programs strengthen learning outcomes at lower costs: study

#164

Post by thaumasiotes »

mcv wrote: post #76
technothrasher wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it largely depends upon the child. I thrived in a Montessori environment right through sixth grade before transitioning to a standard “prep school” and found myself way ahead of the other kids in a lot of things. Alternately, my son was much the same as your kid. He struggled in a Montessori school which was very similar to the one I went to (in fact, my lower elementary teacher was the learning specialist at…

It absolutely depends on the child. I phrased it too generally. I like the idea of Montessori a lot, but it depends a lot on executive skills: being able to plan, start project, finish projects, etc. My kids both sucked at that, and I'm not great at it either. My oldest son, despite his stellar IQ, completely drowned in projects. No idea what to do, when to start, how to start, how to finish it, and even when he fini…

> My oldest son, despite his stellar IQ, completely drowned in projects. No idea what to do, when to start, how to start, how to finish it, and even when he finished it, he forgot to turn it in. He simply needs more guidance.

> He's now finally getting better at it, at 16, which is about time, because at the university, you have to be able to do all of this.

You definitely don't.

Re: Public Montessori programs strengthen learning outcomes at lower costs: study

#165

Post by Broken_Hippo »

asdff wrote: post #84
sushp wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a good impression of "Montessori" from hearing that Larry/Sergey/Bezos went to one. When I put my kid in it at 3 years old, he hated it. As I looked into it more, it seems to me that it is actually very rigid, with kids being able to play with just a small set of toys that don't really exercise their creativity, and with little opportunity for group play. We switched him to a Reggio Emilia school where the kids…

I attended one for elementary and middleschool. Early on everything we did was in groups. Take the multiplication flash cards and quiz eachother. Mess with the abacus. Look at the geological periods chart, etc. All the stuff seemed pretty fun to me. Yes, we had outdoor recess everyday, alhough we had a good setup with a big playground and some woods on the property. A lot of montessori setups I see now look really sp…

I think the idea was to get the kids who probably had ADHD to lock in and do their work more

Wow that sounds terrible. My mother used to have me sit in silence at the dining room table to try to get me to do my homework. My god, so much noise. Libraries are similar. People adjusting on a chair, pages turning, pens dropping, car doors outside, eating.... There are just so many freaking little noises. I'd rather have a wall of noise so I can't pick out the distractions and work on whatever I was working on. (Not that it always worked, but I had a chance).

Re: Public Montessori programs strengthen learning outcomes at lower costs: study

#166

Post by pharrington »

sgarland wrote: post #103
zzleeper wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here. My three-year old loved maps and we always played with them (making map of her room, etc etc) We enrolled her at the local Montessori and she rushed to the map section but was told she is forbidden from using it until she takes the lesson on that or whatever is called. That lesson was 2-3 months away, and meanwhile all other kids were able to play with the maps. This, combined with other rigidities and a c…

I’m by far not an expert on it (my wife is, she teaches Montessori), but AFAIK what you observed was because it isn’t viewed as play, but as work - as in school work. All of the activities are called “works,” and they’re taken very seriously. Part of this is, I think, to teach responsibility; for example, if a student gets a work out, they’re expected to put it back exactly how they found it. Montessori classrooms ar…

Can you share where your wife learned the Montessori method from?

Re: Public Montessori programs strengthen learning outcomes at lower costs: study

#167

Post by vanviegen »

kqr wrote: post #144
sushp wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a good impression of "Montessori" from hearing that Larry/Sergey/Bezos went to one. When I put my kid in it at 3 years old, he hated it. As I looked into it more, it seems to me that it is actually very rigid, with kids being able to play with just a small set of toys that don't really exercise their creativity, and with little opportunity for group play. We switched him to a Reggio Emilia school where the kids…

We will soon be picking a school for our oldest. (Not in the US.) We're choosing between a Montessori school and a couple others. I see a lot of sentiment along the line of "quality over philosophy" -- how can we evaluate quality? There is limited data available[1]. What do we ask the school when we visit them?[2] [1]: Unsure if standardised test scores really matter at a young age, so we're grasping for straws with…

If you can, observe the school yards while the kids are playing outside. What's the atmosphere like? How do the kids interact? How do the supervising teachers interact with the children? Would you want your kid to be a part of that? Bonus points if a teacher steps up to kindly ask you what the hell you're doing there! :-)

Re: Public Montessori programs strengthen learning outcomes at lower costs: study

#168

Post by brightball »

WillAdams wrote: post #32

My children attended Montessori schools, and it really is a wonderful system. I would really like to see an extension of this learning method up through high school --- the closest thing I'm aware of was a school I attended in Mississippi for a couple of years --- classes were divided between academic and social, social classes (homeroom, phys ed, social studies, &c.) were attended at one's age, while academic classe…

I’ve been advocating for this for years so I’m glad to hear you had such a good experience.

At the elementary level, up until about 3rd or 4th grade it always made more sense to me to have lots of smaller “neighborhood” level Montessori schools rather than a few large schools from Kindergarten - 6th.

Re: Public Montessori programs strengthen learning outcomes at lower costs: study

#169

Post by sersi »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #160
objektif wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We visited multiple Montessori schools for both my kids and I can confidently say that I met some of the saddest and coldest teachers I have ever seen in my life. I am not sure that is really best environment for small kids. I myself went to shitty public schools and became an exceptional student later on. I am doubtful about the impact of early education on future success.

I went to one near me just to check it out. They started to moan about public education system and seemed want to be alternative for the sake of it. Some parents I know there are definitely on a woo-woo spectrum. School system in NZ is already a lot like montessori with heaps of fluidity. p.s. I’ve been joking that soon you won’t be able to take your kid anywhere without a montessori/waldorf/reggio franchise.

The thing is Montessori doesn't mean anything. Any school can call themselves Montessori. So it all depends on actual accreditation. Some accreditations are also not worth the paper they're printed on (like NAMC). AMI and AMS are considered to be the two most serious accreditation

My son's school is AMI accredited and at least there's not much woo-woo here. Children have to be up to date with vaccination (or they're not admitted), only thing slightly woo-woo (from the local point of view) is that the parents who chose this school chose it because they want their kid to have more of a play-based, child directed education and don't want them to have homework and tuition in kindergarten. This is in HK where a lot of children going to public schools will have homework and will get tuition in order to prepare for the primary school entrance exam (and later to the middle school entrance exam).

On the other hand, Waldorf is fully woo-woo. They claim that children should not be taught to read before they get their first adult teeth and have a bunch of very weird racist myth about reincarnation (read up on anthroposophy)

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