I felt like talking to Andrea could help us, as parents and teachers, better understand how Montessori shapes a child’s mind, and what kind of adults our Montessori children will turn out to be.

Lori: Hi, Andrea! Thanks for taking some time to answer my questions.

Andrea: You are very welcome!

Lori: Let’s start at the beginning. Where did you attend Montessori school and for how long?

Andrea: I attended Westside Montessori Center in Toledo, OH from the age of 3 1/2 through 6th grade.

Lori: Wow, so you were in Montessori for a long time! Why did your parents choose Montessori for you?

Andrea: I learned how to read on my own by the age of 2. My parents were running their own business, and my younger sister had just been born. They realized I needed stimulation. A family friend recommended Montessori to them. My father says that as soon as he walked in, he knew it was right for me.

Lori: What are some favorite memories from being in Montessori school?

Andrea: I loved the feeling of independence and following what I wanted to learn. I loved the close relationships and mutual respect I had with my teachers. I always got my work done so that I could also sit and read in the book corner. The owner of the school had a golden retriever who came to school every day and served as a surrogate pet for years.

For French class we got to go to both Canada and France for true cultural experiences. In 6th grade, I wrote a play and we put it on for our parents. I still have the videotape somewhere.

Lori: That sounds amazing, like you truly had the freedom to study what appealed to you. I know you love all the Montessori materials, but what was your favorite?

Andrea: I was a total math nerd, and I loved the spindle boxes when I was little and the test tube division in Elementary. As an educator, I love the moveable alphabet and the golden bead material.

Lori: Now for the nitty-gritty. How do you feel that Montessori impacted you – academically, emotionally, psychologically?

Andrea: For both my sister and me, Montessori taught us to be independent studiers and thinkers. If we want to know about something, we dive into learning as much about it as we can. We can question authority when appropriate, yet are respectful of rules and boundaries. I don’t want to sound like a rebel, but I’m not a conformist, either.

We both have been able to do whatever we set our minds to and be successful. I also learned how to be an observer of people, which as a Montessori educator is essential.

Lori: Would you choose Montessori for your own kids and why?

Andrea: Yes, I definitely would! Having grown up in Montessori, it is just the most natural route for me to go. Plus, the home I grew up in was naturally Montessori, even if my parents didn’t realize it at the time. For me, there is no other option.

Lori: What’s something helpful that Montessori parents and teachers should know about what it’s like for a child to be in a Montessori program?

Andrea: I find that parents often worry that children will have too much trouble adapting when they leave Montessori. While there is a period of adjustment, it’s no different than any time you change schools, churches, or move to a different neighborhood.

Usually, we Montessori children have been given tools to help us adapt well to different circumstances, or at least how to cope with change. It’s often the parents who have trouble adjusting.

Lori: That’s a great point – we sometimes project our own fears about change on our kids, don’t we?

Andrea: Yes, we do. It helps to realize that.

Lori: Someone on my Montessori Facebook page asked a great question. They wondered if children with a Montessori education have a hard time adjusting to life in the workplace.

In other words, is it hard to follow a schedule, deadlines, etc. when you’ve had so much freedom to pursue learning on your own timetable?

Andrea: I think we become used to thinking outside of the box, and it can be frustrating if and when we end up working for more rigid people. Just like with any job, it’s important to find the job within the career that best suits your personality. There is usually someone out there who respects and appreciates your unique way of thinking.

Often we are able to bring more to the table because we have learned how to work with other people, negotiate, plan, and bring out our creative sides. My sister and I were both taught how to be leaders in our own rights, and have gone on to do so in our respective careers.

As deadlines are a part of the natural world, we are used to following and meeting them. Schedules can provide an outline of what we need to do with our time. I personally function best with having a routine, and the freedom to do what I want within those parameters.

I think each individual in general will have their own issues, but not necessarily because they are Montessori children. We just get singled out because we are a subset of society.

Lori: Andrea, thank you so much for your time. This has been awesome, and for me, it’s only confirmed that I am doing the right thing by promoting Montessori and by having my own children in Montessori education.

Andrea: Thank you for having me at your blog!

Just a note: I’m pretty sure Andrea will come by to check on comments, so if you have any other thoughts or questions for her, please go ahead and leave a comment!

Seth Godin is the author of several very highly acclaimed books on marketing, as well as a thought-provoking blog. I enjoy reading Mr. Godin’s blog every day; his posts take an unusual point of view and dispel myths commonly held in the advertising and marketing world.

That’s why I was surprised one day when his post was entitled, What is school for?

Hmm, I thought. Why would Seth Godin be writing about school? I quickly started reading. He had compiled a list of possible purposes for school, hoping to start a discussion about the topic. They include things like “Become an informed citizen”, “Be able to read for pleasure”, and “Do well on standardized tests”.

I’d like to take a look at a few of the things he listed and talk about why traditional schools can’t make them happen. A whole other post could be written on the things on Mr. Godin’s list that no school should ever try to do, including “teach future citizens how to conform” and “teach future consumers how to desire” but for now, I’d rather focus on the things he mentioned that school should do, but can’t.

Since I believe he was referring to traditional education (especially because of his comments at the end about school boards and taxes), that’s how I’m viewing each of the purposes listed. Analyzing these items in the light of non-traditional schooling or homeschooling would produce very different results.

Things that Traditional Schooling Should Be Able to Do, But Can’t

1. Teach creativity and problem solving

If you do any kind of research into the beginnings of traditional public school education, you will find its roots in the German school system. The founders of traditional education were not shy about sharing the German reasons for mandatory schooling, including the goal of obliterating creativity and creative thinking.

Mandatory schooling, as envisioned by its founders, was meant to create a class of people that willingly accepts anything they are told without question. Creativity of any kind is anathema to traditional school; rather, children are taught from the earliest ages that there is a “right” and “wrong” answer to every question.

Not only are things like math tests graded (where there is usually a provable right or wrong), but creative pursuits like writing and art are also graded, regardless of the inherent contradiction in trying to objectively grade something that is completely subjective.

Traditional schooling is set up so that children are given stultifying textbooks and workbooks that are completed in lock-step fashion, regardless of varying abilities and interests.

Problem-solving, when it does occur, is done within the strict parameters of the classroom. Rarely are children given freedom to actually engage in problem solving without worrying about grades, evaluations, time constraints, and the teacher’s expectations.

2. Increase emotional intelligence

Traditional schooling is set up thusly: the teacher is the ultimate authority, and children are grouped by birthday, not ability. Children, in the traditional school model, are locked in a room with 30 of their peers day in and day out.

While this has come to be accepted by most people in society as “socialization”, that’s not actually what the word means. Traditional schooling decreases emotional intelligence by giving teachers ultimate authority, ignoring the wants and needs of individuals, and creating a cauldron of negative peer pressure, bullying, and insensitivity.

3. Value learning for the sake of learning

I had to laugh at this one. From the moment a child steps foot in a traditional classroom, it is drilled into them that learning takes place because the teacher and the textbook say so.

Choice in what to study is rarely allowed; everything is evaluated and graded, curriculums are followed regardless of how ridiculous or misleading, every minute of class time is measured and grudgingly dispensed.

Never, in all my years of traditional school, was I encouraged to learn for the sake of learning; rather, as a frustrated gifted student in regular programs, I was often discouraged from reaching out on my own to learn just for learning’s sake. It was too much extra work for the teacher and too threatening to the equilibrium of the class.

I would be reluctant to use my own experiences as an illustration were it not for the fact that I have been told similar stories by so many other people. In traditional schooling, learning is never just for the sake of learning.

Traditional Schooling Has Built-in Limits

The very structure of traditional school, with its authoritative hierarchy, its layers of bureaucracy, its reliance on tests and grades, and the grouping of children by age and not ability, mean that in traditional school, creativity will never be valued, gifted students will never be celebrated, a love of reading and learning will never be fostered, and children will not develop into interesting and productive human beings.

A helpful list of a different kind comes from the always irreverent John Taylor Gatto. Mr. Gatto’s own list, The Six-Lesson Schoolteacher, offers startling insight into why traditional school can never accomplish most of the things Mr. Godin listed. Mr. Gatto was an award-winning public school teacher, and his insight into the underlying purposes of traditional schooling is chilling and thought-provoking.

Not All Educational Methods Are Created Equal

Whether you’re a teacher or a parent (or both), I think it’s beneficial to spend a few minutes pondering the purpose of school, or of education in general. What do we hope the children in our care gain from their years spent studying and learning? What is the end goal?

Many of the things Mr. Godin listed are worthy goals, but a deeper problem is how can they can best be accomplished.

If we hope to be successful, than the method we choose should be one that can actually deliver the end results we want.

While we don’t necessarily need to involve our children in the trendy issues of our day, the fact is that an understanding of how to preserve and protect our environment is a priceless gift to give our children. Because children learn through action, here are some tactile ideas for celebrating our earth on Earth Day and every day.

1. Plant a mini garden in containers in your home or classroom. Choose hearty vegetables and/or herbs. Allow children to learn to care for the plants, making sure they receive adequate water, light, and food. If you have the space, create a compost bin and use the compost to fertilize plants.

2. Have children use a chart to track the amount of trash thrown away each day. Begin to use cloth napkins and reusable containers and chart the difference in the amount of trash.

3. Try to walk, not drive. Not only will children benefit from the fresh air and exercise, they will help reduce the greenhouse gas emissions created by driving. Kids can be encouraged to walk to school, or families can walk to the store or a park.

4. Complete an energy audit. Look around your home or classroom to determine avoidable waste. Choose one way you can conserve energy for the remainder of the school year (turn out lights, seal drafty areas around windows, etc.).

5. Walk to a local park to pick up trash, or pick up trash around your neighborhood or school building. Not only will you make it more beautiful, you’ll eliminate harmful waste. My kids and I walked around our neighborhood the other day collecting trash, and discovered that most of it was cans, bottles, and paper so we could throw it straight into the recycle bin.

6. Change light bulbs in lamps to compact fluorescent light bulbs, which use 75% less energy. Encourage children to spread the word about fluorescent bulbs to friends, family, and neighbors!

7. Choose a nice day to experience an outdoor classroom. Take advantage of children’s curiosity and enthusiasm to experience nature through all the senses. Listen for musical sounds in nature, smell the flowers, or try to count the blades of grass. Bring sketch pads and draw an outdoor scene. Pull up a weed and examine the parts of the plant.

8. Begin to recycle if you don’t already. Or, find a new type of material or container to recycle. Have children learn to identify and sort different types of recycling and, if possible, take a field trip to a local recycling center to see where the goods are taken.

9. Have children choose and learn about one environmental issue that specifically affects the area in which you live. Make a plan about the steps that can be taken to address the issue, and have children write a letter to their state representative explaining the issue and possible solutions.

10. Celebrate Earth Day to bring awareness to ways that children can change the environment for the positive. Allow children to choose tangible ways to celebrate, such as using solar power to make sun tea, planting a tree, making posters and decorations from recycled goods, or having a recycling carnival.

This year’s Earth Day begins a year of celebrating The Green Generation Campaign. Our children are truly in a unique position to become a green generation, and we are entrusted with giving them the tools to understand the social, political, and industrial consequences of how they treat the earth.

For more information on this year’s Earth Day and how you can involve your students, visit the following resources online:

Earth Day Network
Earth Day for Classrooms
Earth Day Guide

Check out some other posts on this topic:

Getting Ready for Earth Day, Montessori-style from the Montessori for Everyone blog

Celebrating Earth Day in the Montessori Community from the North American Montessori Center Blog

Earth Day 2009: Celebrating Peace and Environmental Awareness in the Montessori Classroom from the North American Montessori Center Blog

Any other Earth Day traditions or suggestions? Please share!

As I try to remedy that with my children, I am presenting them with Spanish materials at a very young age. And, rather than using dull textbooks, we are using mostly interactive materials: computer games, DVDs, and vocabulary cards.

In my earlier post about foreign language study, I took a look at two different sides: some people feel that kids should always learn another language, others don’t. Regardless of where you stand on that issue, most likely, the children in your care will end up studying a foreign language sometime during their schooling years.

I absolutely feel that studying a foreign language can have positive benefits, but one of those benefits is usually not being able to speak the other language fluently. However, learning another language can expand vocabulary and increase cultural awareness, so for those reasons alone I think it’s worthwhile.

Since many people have emailed me and asked for foreign language resources in a Montessori style, I thought I’d put together some helpful links.

Keep in mind that even if the material isn’t inherently Montessori, it certainly can be used in the Montessori classroom or home. I like using a variety of materials when studying a language so that different kinds of learning styles are covered.

Computer Games & Software:

Jumpstart Spanish and Jumpstart Languages (French, Japanese, Spanish, and English)

Rosetta Stone – software available for learning more than 30 languages

CDs & DVDs

Rock n Learn – Spanish and French CDs and DVDs teach through music and video

Muzzy – this highly-regarded language course from the BBC is available for Spanish, Mandarin Chinese, French, German, Italian, and English (ESL). Includes workbooks, DVDs, and computer games

Cedarmont Kids – Action Bible Songs in Spanish

LinguaFun – card games with CDs in Spanish, German, Italian, and French

Books & Curriculums:

French & Spanish Guides – written by Heidi Spietz, these books cover teaching languages in a Montessori style

TPRS – workshops and curriculums for teaching French, Spanish, German, Japanese, and Russian. Used successfully in Montessori classrooms. Emphasizes reading and story-telling as a way to successfully learn foreign language

Children’s Books

There are literally thousands of popular children’s books available in Spanish and other languages. You can go to places like amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com, and ebay.com and search for “spanish books kids” or “french books kids”, for example, to find titles.

Many of those can be purchased secondhand at low prices, and you can also check books out of your local library. Scholastic Books usually offers foreign language books in their monthly order forms.

Montessori Materials:

Montessori for Everyone – Spanish nomenclature and grammar cards

My Montessori House – Chinese materials, including printable cards, books, and interactive lessons

Montessori Print Shop – printable French nomenclature cards

Alison’s Montessori – Arabic, Hebrew, and Spanish materials

Maitri Learning – 3-part cards and booklets for French and Spanish

Miscellaneous:

Spanish Post-it notes – easy to put around the classroom or home to help kids learn words for everyday objects

Usborne Spanish Resources and Usborne French Resources – workbooks, flashcards, books, and sticker books

Enchanted Learning – free and paid printables for German, French, Dutch, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, and Swedish. Do a search of the site or use the categories on the left

Anything I left out? Please share!

As I see it, offering Montessori programs in the public school environment takes the teachings back in the direction of their origin; after all, the first Children’s House was set up in the slums of Rome for any child who wanted to attend. According to the
Washington Post, there are currently 250-300 public Montessori schools in the U.S., attempting to put the groundbreaking ideas of Dr. Montessori within reach of some of society’s most marginalized young people.

This effort hasn’t been an easy one. Here are some pros and cons:

5 Benefits of Montessori Public Schools

1) Nullifying NCLB: Ask a government official whether No Child Left Behind has been a success and he or she is likely to say yes, pointing to documented higher test scores. Ask a teacher and you hear a different response:

“The consequences especially for minority students are more and more tragic,
and you see it in the data,” says Sylvia Bruni, assistant superintendent of the Laredo, Texas, Independent School District. “We have enormous dropout rates in my community – as many 30 percent of all students. Statewide there’s a marked decline in the number of students who are prepared for higher education.”

NCLB has had disastrous consequences for countless young people, and the Montessori method, with its non-competitive, confidence-building environment, could be the perfect antidote to this.

2) New Respect And Less Stress For Teachers: As one of you commented on a recent post about standardized testing, the environment in the public school around testing time is extremely stressful. Teachers are obliged to attend endless meetings devoted to extracting higher test scores from their students. Faculty know the consequence of a poor school rating will be public shaming and funding cuts. What a peculiar environment!

Prizes and punishments shift the whole purpose of education in a poor direction and can leave teachers feeling trapped instead of valued and respected. If Montessori public schools were able to go the whole nine yards and break ties with teaching to the test, instead developing other opportunities for students to display their growth, our schools might be calmer, pleasanter places.

3) Being True To Dr. Montessori’s Vision: The Washington Post article, cited earlier, points to the enrollment fees of a Massachusetts Montessori private school: tuition is $9,190 through sixth grade and $12,160 for seventh and eighth. These costs are going to deprive most of America’s children of the benefits of a Montessori education. It isn’t that the program isn’t worth the investment. The simple fact is that most people can’t afford it.

Making Montessori education a public school standard means that more children can benefit from the Montessori method.

4) Benefits For the Child: It is difficult to briefly sum up the revolution that could take place in the minds of children who discover that, suddenly, the teacher is no longer the main player in those long school days they put in, week after week, month after month, year after year. Suddenly, they have become the reason their school exists!

Imagine the difference you would experience if one day, going to work at an unpleasant job was no longer about serving a boss, but rather, exploring everything you love in order to make a positive contribution to society. How might this affect the way you feel about yourself, your life and your world?

5) Healing Society: Children are extremely fortunate if they have been a part of a quality Montessori program. But when they grow up and go out into the world, they will be meeting with all of the children who have been done a disservice by current traditional educational methods. They will be meeting scarred people who didn’t do very well when they were run through the competition mill. These people may be bitter, angry, violent.

How much better and safer might our world be if all children were given the gift of a Montessori education? Montessori public schools are a powerful first step in that very right direction.

5 Montessori Public School Challenges

1) Lack of qualified teachers: In the U.S., Montessori public elementary school teachers are required to attain both state certification as well as Montessori teacher training. This requires a major investment of both time and money on the part of the teacher. The result is a shortage.

2) Lack of funding: Montessori schools have to buy very specific, special equipment and classroom materials. Again, this requires an investment, and in poorly funded schools, it can be hard enough to get traditional textbooks or supplies of paper and pencils. Finding the budget for all of the Montessori materials can be difficult.

3) Student Adaptation: Public school children accustomed to teacher-focused education can have a difficult time transitioning to the child-focused environment of a Montessori classroom. Montessori students are expected to work on their own, with minimal adult direction. Public school students who come into a Montessori program mid-way in their school career may feel frustrated by what is being asked of them and may take up a problematic amount of the instructor’s time simply because they are unskilled at self-directed work.

4) Clash of Ideologies: Maria Montessori believed that children learn everything they need to know at their own pace, provided that a conducive learning environment is created for them by a respectful adult. The majority of today’s parents were raised in a school system that taught them to believe the point of education is to see where one ranks amongst one’s same-age peers.

There is an evident clash between educators striving to foster intelligent, happy children and parents who are mainly concerned with test scores, school rankings and national averages. A Montessori public school is unlikely to remain true to the method if community and government-level pressure demand that premium focus be put on teaching to the test.

5) Lack of Public Support: Critics of the Montessori Method often cite the fact that typical Montessori private school students (Caucasian, middle class, of educated parents) are likely to do well in life no matter what type of education they receive. At present, there is a lack of concrete data concerning how public school Montessori students from diverse backgrounds are faring in comparison to their peers. The public has yet to be given a highly-publicized reason to widely adopt Montessori public school programs.

My concern is that this circumstance is unlikely to change. So long as test scores rather than the emotional and intellectual development and happiness of children remain the grounds for comparison, I am dubious about what Montessori educators could prove that would be of genuine value. Even data demonstrating that Montessori students test higher doesn’t really tell us what kind of lives the students go on to live.

It’s an Uphill Climb, But It’s Worth It

Many of my customers are public school teachers and administrators. This lets me know that lots of different school districts are committed to implementing Montessori. Hopefully, these programs will be successful and lead to an explosion of Montessori public schools.

I can’t help but feel that if Dr. Montessori were with us today, she would be continuing to inspire people to take the method where it is needed most. The thirstiest plants in the garden often show the most remarkable, astounding response when given a little water. Should educators continue to work to overcome the difficulties inherent in offering Montessori in the public schools? My answer is a resounding YES! The potential benefits strike me as worth every effort.

What do you think?

Alternatives to Standardized Testing

A key effort undertaken in the first Children’s Houses involved keeping a portfolio for each child that recorded their work in the classroom. This record was kept for the use of the instructor, the attendant physician and the parents who could turn to it at any time to keep tabs on how a child was growing, both intellectually and physically.

One of the alternatives to standardized testing being advocated in public schools is for each child to have a portfolio much like the one used by Maria Montessori. For more info on recording work and building portfolios, please see the recent post The Secret of Successfully Recording a Child’s Work.

In today’s public school system, it often seems as if neither the child nor the parent, the teacher nor the administration, seems to be able to get a clear picture of how each child is progressing throughout his or her school career. Rather than publicly grading whole schools, the portfolio method attempts to follow the specific path of each child and see whether he or she is keeping up with an agreed upon rate of academic growth.

Optimally, this data could be used to alter the curriculum to better meet the needs of the individual student. Some of the criticisms of this method include the difficulties of storing all this data, and also, the hardship of getting the portfolio sent to appropriate parties if the child moves or changes schools. It seems to me that Internet technology could lighten the load significantly here.

If a portfolio is used in conjunction with regular parent-teacher conferences and opportunities for students to display their skills through the medium of performances of work such as science fairs, written essays, and other physical proofs of proficiency, at least the focus is moving more in the direction of the child and away from public standards. However, some schools may choose to incorporate some of the above methods along with report cards and proficiency exams and this brings us back to public grading and the potential for shame-based teaching.

What Can Teachers Do?

If you teach in a Montessori program in a public school, chances are the children are taking standardized tests because the law requires it. If you are required to give students a standardized test, you can use the information in a way that isn’t demeaning to the children. Rather than looking at an isolated picture of each child, you can look at the overall test scores to decide where the “gaps” are – concepts or information that you may not have presented to the children yet. In this way, the test is a guide for you, rather than being a reflection on the children and what they may or may not know.

While I do not believe that you should spend a lot of time teaching for the test, it can be helpful to go over the basic ideas with the children – how to fill in a bubble testing form, why it helps to mark an answer for each question, even if you have to guess, and how to use the process of elimination to enable better choices. A few years ago, I was asked to help train volunteers who tutor inner-city kids. They were looking for some ways to help the children better prepare for standardized tests. I came up with some general guidelines and put them in a PDF; you can find it here.

If your private Montessori school is attempting to decide whether or not standardized testing will be useful, the matter should be the decision of the parents, teachers, and administrators. Organize a meeting to discuss the issue, and in the spirit of Maria Montessori, why not let the children have a say? At the meeting, bring up the various alternatives, such as portfolios, self-assessments, and record keeping that are being used in place of standardized testing.

What Can Parents Do?

Concerned parents have held rallies, met with legislators and had their children boycott school on standardized testing days. Parents who would prefer their child not take standardized tests can research the various laws and regulations in their state or county – it’s possible that there’s a loophole that would allow a child not to take a standardized test.

If your child is tested, take the test results with a grain of salt. Many people would say that all the test results show is how well your child can take a test. Look at the results within the context of a bigger picture, including your child’s day to day work, interests, and extracurricular activities. Keep in mind that Montessori children are developing character traits that no test could measure: independence, self-sufficiency, respect for others, and curiosity among them. No child should ever feel shamed or embarrassed because of testing results.

Some parents may decide that they prefer their children not be tested at all. In this case, homeschooling becomes a very attractive option. The obvious benefits of this are that you don’t need a test to tell you how the children are progressing, and you can choose a pace of learning that fits your child’s needs and interests.

The Harmful Side Effects of Testing

In my own research of the standardized testing controversy, I have come to consider that it isn’t so much the testing itself that is a problem, but really, the whole system of the traditional schooling model where the child is neglected and overlooked while the adults deal with financial concerns, professional punishments and rewards.

What a contrast this picture presents to the Casa dei Bambini where the family, the instructor, the physician and the child lived together in a natural setting, sharing the lessons of becoming fully human. Maria Montessori believed that the purpose of education was to establish lasting peace. The political and institutional battles raging around public school methods of testing and teaching are anything but peaceful, and I’m sure the children are absorbing this. What do you think?

Sources cited in this series:

Rethinking Schools

Interview with John Taylor Gatto

University of Rochester – Psychology

Gang violence, complicated family situations, a language barrier and serious poverty are the daily challenges being met by these elementary school children. They come to school in winter without coats on, their hand-me-down pants often tied shut with lengths of rope, their shoes falling apart as they run across the playground. Their teachers, predominantly middle class Caucasians who don’t speak Spanish, are upset about the epidemic of head lice in the school, but funding for a school nurse was cut years ago. There is no school counselor, either.

Music and art programs are distantly remembered luxuries of the past. Most of all, the teachers of this school are tired of being scorned and punished by the state government for the school’s history of poor performance in standardized testing. Every one of them puts in a hard day’s grind, year after year, and it would be great, just for once, to get those rewards held out as an incentive for high performing schools.

The teachers know their students are hungry. They fight over the few leftover school lunches that the monitor passes out at the end of lunchtime. It’s hard to keep the children from taking home spoiled food to share with their families. So, on test days, the school makes an unusual effort to try to extract higher test scores from the student body. They feed the children a snack in the morning. Maybe, just maybe, if the kids aren’t hungry, they’ll be able to meet those multiple choice questions with clearer heads and win praise from the state government and perks for the staff.

The above anecdote, if shocking, is 100% true. Dr. Maria Montessori devoted herself to children from strikingly similar circumstances in her first Casa dei Bambini in the slums of 20th century Italy. Her students were the poorest of the poor, and far from determining that it was in their best interests to be categorized and graded, she decided that the children needed to be cared for, respected and observed as they made efforts to discover themselves and their own abilities. Dr. Montessori believed that the natural human drive to absorb was enough to make learning happen and that rewards and punishments were not only unnecessary, but actually harmful to the development of the human intellect.

Ironically, today’s public school teachers find themselves in exactly the position from which Montessori worked to protect her students. If the school does well in one of the many standardized tests given all over the world, teachers are given rewards such as monetary prizes and extracurricular programs. If the school ranks low, funding is cut and the reputation of the school is a shameful one in the public eye. The intense competitiveness of this atmosphere creates a situation that puts the goals of politicians and education committees first and the needs of the children last.

What Is The True Purpose of Standardized Testing?

According to author and New York State Teacher of the Year, John Taylor Gatto, “Standardized tests measure the degree of obedience obtained by individual students. They pretty much rank every kid in the nation from first to last.” Gatto asserts that the purpose of public school education and standardized testing is to turn out standardized minds that are useful in their ability to follow orders in a kind of pyramid scheme where everyone at the bottom is dependent upon the expertise of the few at the top rather than on their own judgment and process of analysis – a system seen in miniature in the focus of traditional classrooms being on the ‘expert’ teacher rather than the students. As Gatto puts it,

“Schools don’t teach the way children learn. Children learn by observation, experience, trial and error and involvement, not by confinement and thin abstractions.”

If the words observation, experience, trial and error, involvement have a familiar ring to them, it is because these are some of the most basic principles of the Montessori method. Unsurprisingly, many Montessori instructors find standardized testing to be completely antithetical to Montessori philosophy, yet concerned parents may want and insist upon some proof that the child is meeting goals that are on par with a norm. Additionally, a Montessori program may be legally required to administer standardized testing, particularly if it is being held in a public or charter school. The problem these needs present is that, too often, the important questions that should precede any type of academic assessment aren’t being asked.

“What is the purpose of the assessment?” asks Bob Peterson of Rethinking Schools. “Is this purpose worthy or meaningful? Answering these questions means addressing what is important for students to learn, how we help them learn, and how we know what they have learned.”

A worthy purpose might be to help students and teachers understand and improve the way they are spending their time in the classroom, but if the purpose is simply to assign numbers and offer proofs to taxpayers that funds are being wisely spent, it is little wonder that child-oriented educators see small value in standardized testing. One of the main criticisms of standardized testing is that no meaningful feedback is given to the teacher, the parent or the child once a test is over. The data collected is not assessed or utilized to make improvements in school methodology or curriculum.

In point of fact, the RAND Corporation, an independent think tank, have failed to prove that pressuring students to achieve higher test scores correlates to any measurable improvement in their general habits of learning or skill acquisition. In other words, standardized testing is happening in a vacuum, and one that is expensive, time consuming for the schools and potentially damaging to the spirit of the child who has been assigned an arbitrary grade. The fact that newspapers run headlines to the tune of 4th Graders Fail To Meet Math Standards, continues to promote a public belief that poorly-understood standards must be met or something wrong must be happening.

In a recently conducted study, the Regents Board of New York administered standardized testing with the following components:

1) The State gave out study guides for an exam in an effort to show students how to score more highly on the exam.

2) Schools were warned that rewards and punishments would be given based on school performance in the exam.

3) Schools were informed that the grade given to each school would be made publicly known.

The study found the following results from this experiment:

1) Test scores were higher.

2) Enrichment-oriented and exam-irrelevant programs were driven out of the curriculum, no matter how successful such programs were. Teachers reported a loss of enthusiasm in the classroom.

3) School dropout rates escalated. (Emphasis mine).

This data would indicate that, while it is possible to elicit ever higher test scores from students, it is being done at the expense of the very things that the children are interested in learning.

There’s a lot more to say about this fascinating subject, but I just couldn’t fit it all into one post. Check out the second part of this series: How To Find Your Way Through the Standardized Testing Dilemma.

Studies show that infants can visualize corporate logos and that by the age of three, the average American child can identify as many as 100 logos and is capable of developing brand loyalty. While this may be great news to a marketer, many parents feel differently. When research revealed that youngsters under the age of 8 cannot distinguish between the bias of advertising and a presentation of facts, many people began to think twice about the fairness of exposing children to commercial content.

Additionally, parents who want to protect their young children from developing an online identity should consider the wisdom of allowing their child to register his or her name and email in order to access free online games. These pieces of data will be entered into a database for the benefit of the site owner, not the benefit of your child.

Happily, my searching eventually turned up two sources for ad-free, registration-free online games for kids. I thought you’d like to know about these:

1. Starfall

The aim of the Starfall program is to promote confidence in children as they learn to read. This pleasant little website offers a nice selection of language-based games. Check out the Gingerbread Man game, where language cues ask your child to decorate a little cookie man with shapes. Montessori teachers and parents will especially appreciate the globally-conscious message behind the Earth Day game, which allows children to clean up a polluted stream by recycling paper, cans and plastic in the right bins.

I really loved the Learn to Read section, too. A stack of alphabet blocks appears on the screen, and when the child clicks one of the letters, a short cartoon featuring that letter and its spoken sound plays. The presentation is creative and entertaining and would certainly build a child’s confidence in learning to recognize and speak the ABCs. I believe you and your children will have fun exploring Starfall, and I want to give this group a round of applause for providing ad-free, registration-free learning games for all of us.

2. PBS Kids

In the games section of the PBS Kids’ website, children can make a snowman based on answering simple questions, just for fun. Older children will get a kick out of the choose-your-own-adventure style Cyberchase game. I found myself chasing a bunch of birds around trying to measure them, believe it or not, and I think children would enjoy following the plot and getting to interact with all the wacky creatures in this game. Good focus and reading skills are required. The PBS Kids site also features interactive music and coloring pages, as well as individual pages for favorite programs like Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood and Reading Rainbow.

In the course of my search, I came across several articles from parenting magazines expressing a strong wish for more sites to provide a safe playing environment for kids. So far, our choices seem to be few, and I would really appreciate parents and teachers commenting if they can add further options to my list of approved game sites.

Computer skills are likely to form a necessary part of most kids’ lives as they grow, and may well form a vital part of their future work lives. If you’d like your child to learn about using computers, simple, fun games like these are a good option. Your child will improve gross and fine motor skills using the mouse and keyboard while enjoying playing an entertaining or educational game. As always, I do advocate consistent parental supervision during all child computer use. It’s too easy for the child to click off-site accidentally and wind up someplace inappropriate unless you are sitting nearby. Enjoy the computer with your child. It’s a great learning tool!

Edited to add: I’ve thought of two other free, appropriate game sites for kids, so you might want to check these out too:

Noggin Games
Playhouse Disney Games

And two great ones recommended by Tracy (not really game sites, but helpful educational sites):

American Museum of Natural History: Ology
National Geographic Xpeditions

Who is John Taylor Gatto and what does he believe?

John Taylor Gatto (see picture) spent 26 years teaching in a variety of public schools in New York. In 1991, after winning the New York State Teacher of the Year Award, Gatto left his job, stating that he was “no longer willing to hurt children.” Disheartened and concerned by the very fundamentals upon which the system of public education is based, Gatto went on to become a celebrated public speaker and author. His books include A Different Kind of Teacher, The Exhausted School, Dumbing Us Down, and The Underground History of American Education.

Gatto’s basic premise, outlined in The Six-Lesson Schoolteacher, is that the American public school system is largely responsible for a national humanitarian crisis. As Gatto points out, this system:

• Teaches children that their worth is determined by other people
• Causes children to be dependent on teachers/experts rather than on themselves
• Praises total conformity and condemns individuality as a threat to the system
• Teaches that schedule, not interesting work, is what has value
• Teaches that value is only possible under conditions of competition
• Leaves children with almost no private time

Gatto asserts that the public school system is expertly designed to produce dependent human beings who cannot think for themselves or take care of themselves. He proposes that the cruelty, materialism, and aimlessness one sees in a major portion of the U.S. population are the result of the combination of absent parents, television, and the institutionalization of public education.

Mr. Gatto urges parents to cut ties with the belief that going to public school enables mastery of a curriculum. Rather, he says that the public school experience enables mastery of mindless obedience to authority figures, and lifelong habits of dependency. This system is unlikely to produce brilliant, unconventional thinkers such as Benjamin Franklin or Abraham Lincoln – who were themselves almost completely the product of self-education.

How Dr. Montessori and John Taylor Gatto see eye to eye

One of Gatto’s chief indictments of the public school system is that it forces children to believe they must wait for the instruction of the teacher in order for learning to take place. Good kids do what Teacher says; only bad kids don’t conform. The Montessori classroom or homeschool presents a startlingly different atmosphere in which each child works independently, at his own pace, teaching himself. The child learns to be a learner. Maria Montessori advocated respect for the mind of the child, within the prepared environment, as the way to stimulate curiosity, inquisitiveness, and life-long learning.

I wish that time travel would make it possible for Maria Montessori and John Taylor Gatto to sit down together in conversation. I can almost imagine how passionately they would agree with one another about the fact that the purpose of education is to produce a self-sufficient adult, not an eternally dependent consumer. Both educators would eschew homework as an invasion of the child’s limited time for privacy and home life. Both educators would agree that non-violent conflict resolution is an essential life skill. Both would agree that concern for the community and the world must be learned at an early age if we are ever to experience world peace.

Compare the following quotations (emphases mine):

John Taylor Gatto:

“Wherever I go in the United States these days I hear of something called the crisis of discipline, how children are not motivated, how they resist learning. That is nonsense, of course. Children resist teaching, as they should, but nobody resists learning.”

Maria Montessori:

“And so we discovered that education is not something which the teacher does, but that it is a natural process which develops spontaneously in the human being.”

We Montessorians wonder, sometimes, whether or not the Montessori method is truly valid. How refreshing to receive validation that we are on the right track – from someone with years of experience in traditional education, no less. Clearly, choosing Montessori is more than just embracing hands-on materials or mixed-age classrooms. It’s a choice for the development of children as intelligent, capable, self-aware human beings and not automatons who depend on teachers, textbooks, and rules to govern their decisions.

For more information:

John Taylor Gatto’s website
Books by John Taylor Gatto at Amazon

Curious about what a Montessori classroom for young children looks like? This in-depth video is a perfect place to start. Produced by the American Montessori Society, this short film will serve as an excellent introduction to the Montessori method and how it is put into action in the classroom.

2. Montessori Elementary

As with the #1 video, this one was produced by the American Montessori Society. The focus is on older children. Two public schools and a private school are featured – all of them Montessori method schools. If you are considering Montessori for your child, this video will jumpstart your understanding of this system of education.

3. Maria Montessori, Her Life And Legacy

Produced by Davidson Films, this 4 minute snippet provides a brief introduction to Maria Montessori, including photographs of her. It also gives an overview of the Montessori method. This high quality video is the opening segment of a longer biographical film, narrated by Dr. Annette Haines, an experienced Montessori teacher.

4. Infant Toddler Montessori

Video #4, produced by the American Montessori Society, explains how the method addresses the developmental needs of infants and toddlers. Two schools are visited in this high quality video.

5. Montessori Education

Montessori schools thrive around the world. This lovely video, set to classical music, features footage from a Montessori classroom in Phuket, Thailand, interspersed with inspiring quotes from Dr. Montessori.

6. Montessori House: “Better Than Phonics”

The number of views this clip from Montessori House’s Sounds & Words DVD program has received attests to the super popularity of this series. If you’d like to see what this program looks like, this video gives you a nice preview.

7. Educating for Peace: The Essence of Montessori

This interesting video is a preview of the American Montessori Society’s film on the Montessori Peace curriculum. Learn how the lessons of courtesy learned in early childhood truly have community and global implications.

8. MontessoRi!

Just for fun, you may enjoy this video created by Montessori graduates, remembering their good times at their school. Set to a hiphop version of Pachelbel’s Canon, I think this film demonstrates the pride so many Montessori students feel in their schools.

9. Montessori Language Demonstrations

This well-made video demonstrates exactly how the Montessori language curriculum works and what it looks like. This is very helpful for both teachers and parents to watch.

10. Foundation for Montessori Education

At Montessori For Everyone, I advocate that all parents carefully investigate any Montessori school in which they are considering enrolling their child. This Canadian TV news story features some important information for you to consider in choosing the right Montessori school for your child.

Know of another great Montessori-themed video? I’d like to hear about it!