Montessori Resources

“Montessori is a holistic form of education. The physical, social, emotional, and spiritual growth of the child are valued as much as academic progress. A quality Montessori program creates an environment that encourages the development of all these areas. … Learning how to learn is a lifelong skill far more powerful than regurgitating facts that may be forgotten after a test. The greatest gift that a Montessori education gives to children is the joy of learning.”

“Why is Montessori so effective? We know there is an indisputable link between movement and cognition, with the former actually enhancing the latter. We know that people of all ages need to feel a sense of control over their lives and that lack of control leads to depression and learned helplessness, which inhibits learning. We know from a huge body of research that extrinsic rewards and punishments don’t work and can actually adversely affect intrinsic motivation. Research tells us all of these things, yet students at conventional schools are still confined to their desks, with rigidly scheduled days, receiving grades for every aspect of their learning and behavior. Is it any wonder that the public school district needs therapists?”

“Within a structure created by the materials and teacher oversight, children are free to make constructive choices among activities that they have been taught, to explore personal interests (with the caveat that they also engage broadly), and to decide whether to work alone or with peers in the multi-age classrooms. There are no grades or extrinsic rewards, and learning is situated in real or simulative contexts. Montessori education is aimed at development of the whole child, integrating social and cognitive growth for healthy independent functioning.”

“If you look at what happened with low-income control children in non-Montessori schools, relative to the other children, they start low and get lower, doing worse over time,” she said. “If you look at the low-income Montessori children, they are on the upswing, so that by the fourth evaluation, they are not significantly different from the control high-income sample or the Montessori high-income sample.”

“In fact, the future of education was invented in 1906. That’s the year Maria Montessori, who was the first female medical doctor in Italy, opened her revolutionary school. People who talk about Montessori education often talk about some of the specifics–no grades, child-size objects, students choose their own activities, the same set of materials in every classroom, etc. but that’s missing the point. Montessori education was so groundbreaking because it was the first (and, to my knowledge), scientific education method. By which I mean the following: every other education method is based on an abstract model of the child and then derives education methods from that. Maria Montessori, a doctor and a researcher, went the other way around: she  experimented with methods and, based on the results, built up a theory of the child, which she then tested and refined through experiment.”

“With over 4,000 Montessori schools in the US now, “Montessori” is becoming a household word. But while it’s pretty well known as an alternative form of education, there is often still an air of mystery around it. It can be hard to describe, even for those whose children attend a Montessori school.”