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

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

#231

Post by em-bee » Sat, Oct 25, 2025, 9:49 PM UTC

antasvara wrote: post #225

em-bee wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the method struggles with students that can't find that internal motivation it was my impression that this should not be a problem, but i have to admit that my knowledge and experience with montessori is not enough to understand why this would or would not be the case. if this is really a problem, it needs to be addressed, and i would find it surprising if it hasn't already been solved in the meantime. i don't believ…

I don't doubt that it's a solvable problem. Basically any educational method claims to work for every kid, and in theory they all do. I just think that any method of education is a series of tradeoffs. Time management and difficulty working on thing you don't like (and a lot of this is personal experience, both my own and in discussions with others) seems to be the largest tradeoff. Bottom line is that almost no syst…

any educational method claims to work for every kid

it's not about the claim. we can't afford it not to. at least not for a system that we would like to apply nationwide (which is what i would like to do with montessori) because we don't always have the luxury of multiple schools in one region where kids can switch. maybe not even the luxury of multiple streams in one school, esp. in rural areas where there barely enough students for a single class. (at least by putting multiple years into one class, you need less students from each age group to fill a class, which makes smaller schools possible)

as a specialized school, not being able to handle very kind of student is fine. as a general school that would be a problem.

Time management and difficulty working on thing you don't like

what bothers me is that montessori is supposed to teach exactly that because you have more freedom to manage you time. so i can't accept that this is montessori's failure point. because it should not be. this is to vital a skill to miss out on. i don't know the answer for this. i am not nearly familiar enough with how he montessori method is supposed to work here.

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

#232

Post by em-bee » Sat, Oct 25, 2025, 9:53 PM UTC

bonoboTP wrote: post #214

em-bee wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if montessori is adopted as part of a national or state curriculum then there would not be a filter anymore. and i do not think may people would fail the training. from what i saw it is rigorous and intensive, but it is not difficult. certainly not more difficult that traditional teacher education. the only teachers that would struggle would be lazy ones that enter the training with a preconceived idea of what teachi…

Ok, and I'm saying that in that case you wouldn't see an effect, precisely because there would be no filtering.

but there should be an effect, namely better teachers, because they receive better training.

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

#233

Post by phatfish » Sat, Oct 25, 2025, 10:11 PM UTC

sersi wrote: post #217

phatfish wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a book "The Montessori Toddler". We read a lot with our son who is almost 3 now. In the book it is recommended not to introduce fantasy in books until 6 (when apparently children suddenly understand the difference between fantasy and reality). I assume this is an original Montessori teaching. Anyone who knows childrens books knows they are around 95% fantasy stories containing anthropomorphized animals (and so…

That's actually my biggest pet peeve with Montessori and I say that as a father whose son goes to a Montessori school. Is it true that younger children have a harder time making the distinction than older children? Yes that's true. There's research that shows it. But does that necessarily mean that removing exposure to fantasy in stories is beneficial? And would a child exposed to fantasy not learn to distinguish bet…

Thanks for the recommendations.

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

#234

Post by bonoboTP » Sat, Oct 25, 2025, 10:26 PM UTC

em-bee wrote: post #232

bonoboTP wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, and I'm saying that in that case you wouldn't see an effect, precisely because there would be no filtering.

but there should be an effect, namely better teachers, because they receive better training.

I doubt that you need any of that or it has any use for dealing with kids ages 3-6. Every granny and auntie knew how to do it since time immemorial. Just let them play, go out in the yard, chase the ants, dig some holes in the mud, run around, play with a ball. Eat and take a nap, look at picture books, have the teacher tell a story while the kids sit around her etc.

What matters is to have low-stress, motivated teachers with good personalities, empathy and intelligence. And similarly a filtered peer group. All the rest is window dressing.

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

#235

Post by diordiderot » Sun, Oct 26, 2025, 6:01 AM UTC

didibus wrote: post #229

diordiderot wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That's not what was proposed though, what was proposed was to have kids move up as their ability develops. It's pure hypothesis that this would coincide with less disruption in classes, even more that it would be causative. I also find it purely hypothetical that it does anything to make kids better. You said lack of disruptiveness is associated with better outcomes, have any research or data about it? Otherwise it t…

> Otherwise it too is pure hypothetical.

You could spend 2 minutes googling to see it's a well known / understood phenomenon. I would also argue it's common sense. Ask a teacher.

https://docs.iza.org/dp17539.pdf

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S02727...

https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/33186/...

https://anjalipverma.github.io/files/Disruptive%20Interactio...

https://ideas.repec.org/r/wil/wilehe/52.html

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

#236

Post by em-bee » Sun, Oct 26, 2025, 10:41 AM UTC

bonoboTP wrote: post #234

em-bee wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but there should be an effect, namely better teachers, because they receive better training.

I doubt that you need any of that or it has any use for dealing with kids ages 3-6. Every granny and auntie knew how to do it since time immemorial. Just let them play, go out in the yard, chase the ants, dig some holes in the mud, run around, play with a ball. Eat and take a nap, look at picture books, have the teacher tell a story while the kids sit around her etc. What matters is to have low-stress, motivated teac…

no grandma or auntie can do that with 30 kids. seriously, you have to observe a montessori kindergarten in person to get what is going on there. and do some reading on how it works. the difference to regular kindergartens even with good teachers is massive.

you are underestimating how much effort it is to calm down a large group of kids. motivation alone is not enough for that. it does require training. if it didn't, then we would not require trained teachers to run a kindergarten group. it's not window dressing at all. and the montessori training and method is simply better and more effective than regular methods and training. and it doesn't need a filtered peer group either.

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

#237

Post by ryukoposting » Sun, Oct 26, 2025, 2:14 PM UTC

em-bee wrote: post #118

ryukoposting wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In OLPC's case, the remedy was a retroactive, panicked attempt at teaching teachers how to use the laptops, an effort that largely failed. You're exactly right, though. OLPC failed mostly because it didn't think to teach the teachers how to use the laptops as classroom tools (not that they would have succeeded otherwise). Countries that had the infrastructure to do the onboarding themselves were relatively well-set u…

i think the constructivist idealism got in the way here. i believe the expectation was that they wouldn't need to train the teachers because the students should figure out the laptops on their own. seems they missed that figuring out the laptop and integrating it into the curriculum are two different things. i read your post btw, one thing i am wondering about is that you wrote that countries didn't improve electrici…

> i think the constructivist idealism got in the way here.

Oh yeah, they had their heads miles up their own asses. That's absolutely a major part of the story. Idealism led to hubris.

The hand crank is a big part of the story, though its role is more complicated than you might expect. It wasn't a silver bullet. Some developing nations, like Paraguay, had decent electrical infrastructure, but their OLPC deployments still went poorly due to lack of training and lack of maintenance/repair programs.

Also, it takes very basic physics to prove that the hand crank could never have been the silver bullet in the first place. My math in the essay agrees that no child-operated hand crank was ever going to be sensible.

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

#238

Post by schainks » Sun, Oct 26, 2025, 2:49 PM UTC

dfxm12 wrote: post #12

schainks wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are two actual standards around this (AMI and AMS), but therm "Montessori" is mainly fungible in the day care market. The difference between these two, from my experience, is HUGE. Certified AMI schools, while a little more rigid in terms of teaching fine motor skills, generally have been better at making my kid more independent at doing things he likes to do. AMS schools are kind of wishy washy by comparison,…

How many schools of each standard has your kid been to? For how many years?

One of each.

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

#239

Post by 7thaccount » Sun, Oct 26, 2025, 5:55 PM UTC

em-bee wrote: post #179

7thaccount wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It may be designed to do that, but I'm highly skeptical it does a better job than a typical well-run school. I've heard plenty of horror stories too.

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

#240

Post by didibus » Sun, Oct 26, 2025, 8:09 PM UTC

diordiderot wrote: post #235

didibus wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not what was proposed though, what was proposed was to have kids move up as their ability develops. It's pure hypothesis that this would coincide with less disruption in classes, even more that it would be causative. I also find it purely hypothetical that it does anything to make kids better. You said lack of disruptiveness is associated with better outcomes, have any research or data about it? Otherwise it t…

> Otherwise it too is pure hypothetical. You could spend 2 minutes googling to see it's a well known / understood phenomenon. I would also argue it's common sense. Ask a teacher. https://docs.iza.org/dp17539.pdf https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S02727... https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/33186/... https://anjalipverma.github.io/files/Disruptive%20Interactio... https://ideas.re…

These type of studies trot the line of cargo cult though. Incredibly small effects, weak causation, full of possible confounders.

I'm not going to say being in a class where you are trying to pay attention and others are being very disruptive, and interrupt the lesson is enjoyable, it's annoying, but if you take even the studies you link, say the second link, it finds a 2% correlated effect, that is peers had scores 0.02 times lower than the standard deviation.

So if we were to change and group kids based on disruptiveness, instead of a 80% test core, your kid would have a 79.7% test score...

Now before you respond to this, I want to reiterate the point of my argument, that none of these ideas focus on actual teaching method improvements. How do you take a child at any level, and more effectively teach them so they learn faster and improve their intelligence and knowledge.

These alternatives, grouped by disruptiveness, grouped by current abilities, etc. they don't really change the pedagogy, just the environment. It seems their known effects are really small, and the effect on the average are not known.

So I'm not against them, as just from a pure setup they seem more appropriate, but it seems unlilely to result in much improvement learning wise, the kind that I'd be interested in.