Public Montessori programs strengthen learning outcomes at lower costs: study • Hacker News Board

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

#171

Post by sgarland » Sat, Oct 25, 2025, 12:31 PM UTC

pharrington wrote: post #166

sgarland wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Center for Montessori Teacher Education/North Carolina. They don’t have the greatest website, but they’re MACTE-accredited, and AMS-affiliated.

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

#172

Post by spicyusername » Sat, Oct 25, 2025, 12:40 PM UTC

em-bee wrote: post #72

spicyusername wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or even more basic, if the parents don't have the time or temperament to properly participate in parenting, then the teachers or the school aren't really going to matter either.

i believe some countries have a different experience. in a report about participating on online classes from home during covid in germany it was observed that kids with worse conditions at home were disadvantaged the most, which leads to the reverse conclusion that for these kids going to school did matter.

I think that anecdote leads to the same conclusion, no? Children with worse parents have worse outcomes?

All the kids with engaged parents who participated in online classes from home probably did just fine.

I'm not saying going to school doesn't matter, I'm saying that what kind of school you go to is going to matter a lot less if your parents can't do a good job. Or put another way, what kind of parents you have is the dominant influence in your educational outcome.

This matters because when thinking about what kind of policies are needed to influence educational outcomes, they may not need to directly have to do with school.

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

#173

Post by em-bee » Sat, Oct 25, 2025, 1:01 PM UTC

thaumasiotes wrote: post #164

mcv wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

you may be comparing different countries. not needing to be able to do all of this sounds like a very school like university. the universities i know are not like that, and you most certainly need those skills.

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

#174

Post by em-bee » Sat, Oct 25, 2025, 1:03 PM UTC

antasvara wrote: post #141

Having been through Montessori, I think it's fantastic for kids that are naturally self-driven. I had a great time when it came to learning science and English (the two subjects I cared the most about). Howrver, I was also pretty far behind in math for reasons unrelated to ability (standardized testing and secondary educational success indicate that I'm actually pretty good at math). I also left with very underdevelo…

I was also pretty far behind in math for reasons unrelated to ability. I also left with very underdeveloped time management and study skills.

if that is the case you didn't experience a good montessori program, because that should have taken care of that.

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

#175

Post by rkomorn » Sat, Oct 25, 2025, 1:05 PM UTC

em-bee wrote: post #174

antasvara wrote: post #141

Having been through Montessori, I think it's fantastic for kids that are naturally self-driven. I had a great time when it came to learning science and English (the two subjects I cared the most about). Howrver, I was also pretty far behind in math for reasons unrelated to ability (standardized testing and secondary educational success indicate that I'm actually pretty good at math). I also left with very underdevelo…

I was also pretty far behind in math for reasons unrelated to ability. I also left with very underdeveloped time management and study skills. if that is the case you didn't experience a good montessori program, because that should have taken care of that.

Sounds like a no true Scotsman: "If it didn't work, it wasn't good Montessori."

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

#176

Post by em-bee » Sat, Oct 25, 2025, 1:09 PM UTC

lz400 wrote: post #132

I want to offer a different data point. I took my daughter to a Montessori-adjacent school for 3 years. It's not Montessori exactly and they didn't advertise as such but they had a different European name attached to it that is downstream from Montessori. They had multi-age education, stressed in children directed learning and individual growth, they didn't have exams, etc. I changed my daughter this year and overall…

No exams, only individual growth meant there's no guarantee the kid is learning at a good pace.

that's not true. it is possible to notice if a kid is learning at a good pace without exams. that is part of what the montessori method is about.

it sounds like this school just picked the things they liked but did not understand the point. the core of the montessori method is intensive observation, to understand what the children need and how they can thrive. it looks like this didn't happen in your daugthers school.

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

#177

Post by em-bee » Sat, Oct 25, 2025, 1:11 PM UTC

spoon404 wrote: post #149

I went to a Montessori school in the Netherlands and feel like it failed me. Just one data point and maybe it was just a bad school. I have autism and nobody noticed or did anything about it until it was time to start preparing for high school in seventh grade. I had read all the books in the school library but was not able to spell and write. It was just way to easy for me to escape work I did not want to do. We mov…

you definitely had a bad school. a trained montessori teacher would have noticed your challenges.

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

#178

Post by em-bee » Sat, Oct 25, 2025, 1:13 PM UTC

diordiderot wrote: post #151

didibus wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This means the students in class 1 get undisrupted classes, learning more and raising their grades. That's pure hypothetical, and some disruptive kids are also good and could make it to the top class and still be a class clown. Unless you propose more splitting kids up by "disruptiveness". I don't think any of this tells us of the quality of the method for actually teaching. It's like schools that have really hard…

It isn't hypothetical, lower disruptive peer-behaviour in a class is associated with better outcomes for the class, across the world.

and the montessori method is effective in lowering disruptive peer-behaviour. it's part of the point. it teaches children to not be disruptive by letting them focus on their activities.

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

#179

Post by em-bee » Sat, Oct 25, 2025, 1:16 PM UTC

7thaccount wrote: post #136

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 never went to Montessori, but did cub scouts at one and those were some odd kids and parents. I felt like I was on an alien planet. Not bad people or anything, just certainly different. Like they took a class on how to act human, but lost something in translation. I do recall there being a lot of toys and stuff. There was an old Texas Instruments computer that caught my interest as we had computers with Windows 95…

the best school for your kids is one where they're safe and one with curious and motivated kids and enthusiastic teachers that can help inspire and unlock talent

the montessori method is designed to achieve exactly that. so the method matters because it enables children to become like that.

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

#180

Post by sersi » Sat, Oct 25, 2025, 1:17 PM UTC

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…

One factor that has been studied has having a major impact on quality especially in younger years is teacher to student ratio, the less student per teacher, the better the quality. It usually also helps with retention :). I do think that retention is a good element, when looking for my son's school, I read the reviews on Glassdoor and on https://www.internationalschoolsreview.com (paid site) to get a better idea of what teachers thought of the school.

If looking at Montessori, check for certifications. Are they AMI or AMS certified? Those are the two most serious qualifications. If they are not certified, then I think you should be sceptical. Not being certified doesn't mean that the school is necessarily bad but there's a lot of school that trade on Montessori just for marketing purposes and it doesn't bode well for the quality of education when the owner is willing to mislead parents by claiming they're Montessori when they don't try to become certified.

Within alternative schools, Regio Emilia can be good but, from my experience, it's even more dependent on the teacher since there's less structure and it falls on the teacher to take children's input and guide the class toward interesting discussion and group projects. My son went to a Regio Emilia pre-nursery (2 to 3 years old, 2 hours a day) and didn't like it as much as he likes his current Montessori kindergarten. He complains anytime there's a public holiday because he would like to go to school.

I recommend against Waldorf because even though they have some aspects that look good (nature, play based), the underlying philosophy is bat-shit crazy.

Resources if you're interested: - Montessori: The Science behind the Genius by Angeline S. Lillard. Rather academic discussion on the different elements of Montessori education and what studies and research supports it. It's interesting if you're interested in education. I do think that sometimes the author is a bit biased and tries to stretch the meaning of studies to fit her preconceived notion that everything Montessori related is the best thing since sliced bread. In particular, within Montessori there's a weird belief that fantasy elements (like stories with talking animals, etc) are not suitable for children below 6 because they can't reliably distinguish between fantasy and reality. It's something I personally disagree with and the studies that she tries to use to support that point are not really that convincing. - Cribsheet by Emily Oster has a chapter on picking pre-schools that can be useful (and I think applies well to Kindergarten). (I don't always agree with that writer but I do feel that she sometimes has useful points of view)