Recently, they have begun to develop iPad and iPhone applications based on Montessori materials, specifically the sandpaper letters and wooden math materials like the red rods. Called Montessorium, this idea has been met with some skepticism on the part of Montessori teachers and parents. I decided to talk to them about this new combination of Montessori and technology.

Lori: What is the main idea behind the development of the Montessorium apps?

Bobby & June: Montessorium was created by Montessori parents and an AMI-accredited Montessori teacher. The aim of this collaboration is increasing awareness of Montessori education by making the materials of Montessori available to children everywhere.

Lori: How did you conceive of the idea for Montessorium?

Bobby & June: While the Montessori community may be divided over what the next step in Montessori education should be, the world our parents, children and educators face every day is continually evolving with advancements in technology, as they drive to school, search on the internet, and communicate on blogs and forums.

We do not advocate or intend to replace the Montessori classroom; instead, we see this as a tremendous opportunity to address the convergence of technology with the tested and proven philosophy of Maria Montessori. We conceived of Montessorium as the next continuum in thinking about these complex issues.

Lori: What is the aim of the Montessorium apps – what do you hope they accomplish?

Bobby & June: Our commitment to education extends beyond the scope of any technology. It extends into an examination of the very ways in which we learn. We want to expose an entirely new generation to Montessori. We understand that our ideas are controversial, but we also see an unprecedented moment in the history of learning. Montessori education should not stop when the child leaves the classroom. It is our hope that Montessorium will education parents as well as children.

Lori: When I posted a link to your site on Facebook, many people responded negatively. They felt that “hands-on” materials can’t be translated to a screen. How do you answer this kind of objection?

Bobby & June: Anytime you combine a one hundred year old proven method of education with a ‘magical and revolutionary’ new device there is bound to be some discussion. We want to let our people know that we appreciate their comments and concerns and would like to take this opportunity to address them.

First, we do not advocate the replacement of the Montessori classroom. On the contrary, we are trying to introduce new families to the Montessori approach to early childhood education. We hope to highlight the importance of Montessori by exposing a new generation to the force of her thought. There is no substitute for the actual, physical materials or the social interactions that comprise a Montessori environment.

Second, we have carefully and thoughtfully translated the Montessori materials into iPhone and iPad applications. They are adherent to the Montessori philosophy of education. These applications are kinesthetic and proprioceptive, and use the audio, visual, and tactile senses of the child. They also address the sense of balance that Montessori found so important. Additionally, positive feedback systems are delicately put into place, and control of error offers the child an authentic Montessori experience.

Third, if Maria Montessori were alive today, we think that she would be at the Apple store, playing with an iPad, thinking hard about these complicated issues. She would be writing Steve Jobs letters, asking for advice. “What is this new gyroscope feature?” “Can we really duplicate the feel of sandpaper letters?” “Is it possible to create a positive feedback system?” In our opinion, Maria Montessori would be trying to open up and discover new ways to think about how we learn.

Lori: Something that occurred to me while thinking about this issue is that Maria Montessori would apply her scientific mind to this issue – rather than jumping to conclusions about the limits of technology, she’d observe children using the iPhone and iPad and draw conclusions based on their behavior rather than her own personal prejudices.

Bobby & June: Exactly. It is our belief that these apps will bring a new found awareness to the Montessori revolution in education. Montessorium will also allow an entirely different population to experience the brilliance of Montessori. Parents will Google Montessori and want to learn more. Existing Montessori students will return to the classroom with a renewed sense of joy and wonder. This could truly become Montessori for Everyone!

Lori: I like that idea! What will children specifically learn from your apps?

Bobby & June: Intro to Math is specifically designed to introduce children to a concrete understanding of sequence, order, and ultimately, the basic components of mathematics, such as addition. Intro to Letters is meant to help children learn the alphabet, how to write, and ultimately, how to read.

Lori: What kind of feedback are you getting from other people?

Bobby & June: A parent summed it up best, “I look forward to this app since our children are VERY adept at using our iPad and iPhone – especially during long car trips and long waits at busy restaurants, doctor’s clinics, and in airports and on airplanes…all of which we have experienced in the past weeks. Our iPad has been engaging, educational, and fun – and if Scholastic can make some apps for preschoolers, why not Montessori? Hurry up! Get it done!”

As you can imagine, comments have ranged from one end of the spectrum to the other.

Lori: I’ve faced similar challenges when it comes to updating the Montessori materials. Sometimes people have a hard time with that.

Bobby & June: In our estimations, the relevance of Montessori no longer rests with Maria Montessori. It rests with us. Are we willing to engage in serious and complicated discussions? Are we willing to reassess the very ways in which children learn? What is the future of Montessori?

Lori: I can see that this goes beyond the development of Montessori-based apps and touches on the future of Montessori and technology. I think it deserves more discussion so maybe in the future we can talk again. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me about the thought process behind your new apps.

Bobby & June: You are very welcome!

Please visit Montessorium if you’re interested in learning more about this project. From their website you can follow and fan them on Twitter and Facebook.

The Math App is now available at the iTunes store: Montessorium Math App for iPhones.

It seems like Montessori-for-the-iPhone is becoming very popular; here are two other sites that are developing apps using Montessori (I don’t have any information about the availability or quality of these apps; please email the site owners if you have questions):

Montessori Tech
Montessori Apps

Pretty much all I can think of when I see this picture of us is how young we look:

As we celebrated our anniversary, I was reminded of a friend of mine who always takes notice of milestones. She’s really good at noticing them, and not just the birthday and anniversary kind – she’ll point out things I wouldn’t have noticed, like how I’ve grown as a mom or a new realization I’ve had about myself.

I appreciate her noticing things like that, because it’s easy to skip over them if you’re not paying attention. It helps me to say, “Yes, I am growing and changing” when sometimes I feel like I’m stuck in one place.

One of my son’s last projects this school year was a book report, and he worked on it for several weeks before he was satisfied with it. When finished, he proudly read it aloud to our family and one of my first thoughts was, “He couldn’t have written a report like that at the beginning of the year”. It’s neat to see how far students come from autumn to spring.

Heading into summer, it’s nice to look back on the year and think of where we’ve been. You might have a milestone of your own to celebrate – a college degree or Montessori certification, or the successful completion of your first year of teaching at a school or homeschooling (or your 20th!)

Whatever it is, take a minute to think about where you’ve been and how far you’ve come. Chances are you will be pleasantly surprised when you compare the current you with the you of the past.

The child’s progress can be evaluated in many ways (observation, checklists, portfolios, self-assessment) but the easiest and most common ones have always been grades and tests. The debate rages on as to whether grades and test scores are an accurate picture of the child’s true understanding, but they produce data that can analyzed and categorized and because so many policy decisions rely on data, they continue to be the holy grail of student evaluation.

In the years since the No Child Left Behind act was passed, grades and test scores are routinely used to determine funding, bonuses for teachers, and even whether or not teachers keep their jobs and schools remain open.

In Montessori, we’ve generally rejected the traditional notion of evaluation, seeing grades as generally subjective and often unhelpful, and tests as being no more than a way to test how well the child can take a test. We’d rather have a child work repeatedly on a certain skill or concept until it’s mastered without having to worry about having their progress graded or tested.

Paying for Grades

In the public school realm, the need for high grades and test scores has produced sense of desperation among teachers and administrators, who are finding that children are not responding well to the traditional method of top-down education: the teacher at the front of the class, telling the children what to learn and when.

Rather than address the actual problems of top-down education – and seek out alternatives like Montessori, where education is child-led and individualized – many school districts have resorted to paying children cold hard cash to try and motivate them to do better in school.

While this has already been done for years informally, Harvard economist, Roland Fryer, Jr., recently decided to formalize it and conduct a scientific study on the results of paying children for improving their test scores.

The results of his experiment have been written up in a recent article in Time Magazine called Should Kids Be Bribed to Do Well in School? (A better title I could not have chosen myself; kudos to the writer who did away with the less-offense “reward” and went straight to the very accurate “bribe”.)

The Economics of Education

Fryer and his team of researchers faced an uphill battle. Many schools that they approached about trying this program resisted. He received quite a bit of criticism from teachers, and from psychologists who’ve studied the negative effects of offering rewards for learning. Still, he persisted and was able to get 143 schools to participate.

The results of the year-long study were very interesting. Generally, offering children money for higher test scores did not cause a noticeable increase in higher test scores. Children were interested in the money, absolutely, but it didn’t lead to them being able to figure out how to do better on tests.

However, in one school district, offering the children money did work. In that school district, children were given money for reading books, not for getting better grades or higher test scores. However, children paid to read were able to get substantially higher grades.

“If you pay a kid to read books, their grades go up higher than if you actually pay a kid for grades,” Fryer says. “Isn’t that cool?” Yes, it is cool, and it is also a truth so basic that it’s shocking they needed a team of researchers and several million dollars to discover something teachers have known for decades: children who read more generally do better in school.

The mentality behind this kind of study generally assumes that the fact that children are getting low grades and low test scores because they lack motivation. If they’re more motivated, they’ll do better. What the study didn’t address at all was why American children are so unmotivated (if that is indeed the reason for poor grades and test scores). If the monetary compensation had worked better than it did, it would still be a band-aid over a much larger problem.

Can Kids Love Learning?

Fryer is aware that the problem goes deeper: “Kids should learn for the love of learning,” he says. “But they’re not. So what shall we do?” I found this quote fascinating, because it’s a great question but ultimately led him in the wrong direction to try and answer it.

What if the money used in the study as bribes had been used to turn traditional public school classrooms into Montessori classrooms? Classrooms where learning is “the lighting of a fire and not the filling of a bucket”, as the famous quote goes. Classrooms where the process is valued more than the product, where children learn because they love to do it and not because they are paid.

My experience as a Montessori teacher and homeschooler is that children absolutely can love learning without being bribed or paid. Shouldn’t researchers be looking at what does work and trying to emulate it?

The Real Lessons of School

John Taylor Gatto, former Teacher of the Year in the New York State school system, pondered the lessons he was forced to teach children in a monumental essay called The Six-Lesson Schoolteacher. These are some of the lessons he discovered children were being taught; no wonder they don’t love to learn:

“Only I [the teacher] determine what curriculum you will study. (Rather, I enforce decisions transmitted by the people who pay me). This power lets me separate good kids from bad kids instantly. Good kids do the tasks I appoint with a minimum of conflict and a decent show of enthusiasm.

Of the millions of things of value to learn, I decide what few we have time for. The choices are mine. Curiosity has no important place in my work, only conformity.

Bad kids fight against this, of course, trying openly or covertly to make decisions for themselves about what they will learn. How can we allow that and survive as schoolteachers? Fortunately there are procedures to break the will of those who resist.

This is another way I teach the lesson of dependency. Good people wait for a teacher to tell them what to do. This is the most important lesson of all: that we must wait for other people, better trained than ourselves, to make the meanings of our lives.”

Looking Beyond Bribes

You can pay children to stay in school, to get good grades, to get better test scores, to read more books. What you can’t pay them to do is love to learn for learning’s sake, which of course is so much more important than test scores (as Gatto rightly observes in his essay, test scores are almost meaningless in the real world anyway).

After reading about this study I felt a sense of despair. It seems that after all these years, after the failures of the public schools and the successes of alternative methods of education like Montessori and homeschooling, that traditional education and alternative education are moving further apart, not closer together.

I can only hope that the negative results of this study lead educators in a different direction when it comes to improving the public system of education in the United States.

As the discussion continued (with some positive comments added to the negative), I realized that I don’t know very much about how online training works, and maybe others don’t either. I decided to find out more.

I sent an email with a list of questions to John and Trudy Shepard (left) of the United Montessori Association (UMA) and Dale Gausman (below) of the North American Montessori Center (NAMC). They were kind enough to respond, and answered my questions with detail and care. I think this information is very helpful, especially if you are considering online training – and based on the emails I get, many of you are.

Montessori Online Training Q & A

Lori: What, if anything, makes online training appropriate for people seeking a Montessori career?

Dale Gausman of NAMC: Not only was Maria Montessori part of a movement to reform traditional ways of educating children, she understood the importance of educating teachers in new ways to support this transformation. “Teachers must be trained and schools transformed at the same time” – Maria Montessori, The Discovery of the Child

Online/distance training is a wonderful option for anyone who wishes to begin or enrich their Montessori career and cannot afford either the time or financial commitment that on site training requires. Since our inception in 1996, distance training has become an increasingly popular choice because it offers the benefits of flexibility and customization to meet the unique scheduling and educational needs of students.

John and Trudy Shepard of UMA: People who have commitments to family and work, or who live on a very limited income and/or live in a remote region of the world are being given the opportunity for a Montessori education. They are not simply exposed to it, but receive excellent training in the philosophy and materials presentations!

Besides the lives of children they influence, we see how they themselves change, having gone through an inner transformation of mind and spirit due to this marvelous (and often considered radical) way of looking at life and how one learns.

Lori: How does online training work?

NAMC: As many of your readers know, Montessori is taught in three-year age groups, which is why we offer our diploma programs for ages 0-3, 3-6, 6-9 and 9-12. New students are welcome to enroll online, via fax, or mail. We process enrollments on a daily basis, so students may enroll anytime and begin their studies right away. As soon as an enrollment is received, it is processed and study materials are shipped directly via UPS courier expedited.

A typical NAMC student is a working parent – a very busy person! We realized from the beginning that distance education must be uniquely designed for student achievement and success. To that end, our diploma programs deliver manageable work schedules, quality training materials, effective and interactive communication between students and mentors, and straightforward, quantitative evaluation mechanisms.

UMA: Each student’s lesson plans center on unlimited one-to-one counsel from a senior staff evaluator – a seasoned, Master Montessorian. This personalized guidance helps students feel deeply connected with his/her course of study, and fully prepared for his/her career in Montessori education.

The student is assigned one primary and one co-evaluator. This provides consistency, a balanced perspective, and allows the student to establish a personal rapport. UMA evaluators are committed to each student’s success by offering individual encouragement and guidance. Students may also chose to have a UMA graduate as a mentor. They use Skype for face-to-face dialogue with their evaluators and mentors.

Lori: What kind of curriculum does your training center use?

NAMC: One unique feature to our programs compared to other Montessori training programs is the inclusion of full-color, professionally developed and designed curriculum albums. These manuals are excellent study guides for our students to learn the concepts and activities, and they become valuable lifelong classroom resources. NAMC now publishes more comprehensive, full-color Montessori albums than any other Montessori organization in the world. Each of our programs also includes a CD-ROM of printable items for classroom use and teacher record-keeping purposes.

UMA: Each student is provided a well-balanced core curriculum, based upon the original tenets of Dr. Montessori’s philosophy. The didactic material presentations are in-depth and involve hands-on participation.

All students receive UMA Teaching Manuals and unlimited viewing of the UMA Video Library as tutorials. Combined, the manuals and videos provide hundreds of Montessori material demonstrations, covering all the areas of the curriculum. The UMA Teacher’s Manuals also provide a liberal amount of master sheets for classroom use, booklets for classified nomenclature, and theme outlines for curriculum planning.

Lori: What process do the students go through to complete their work?

NAMC: NAMC diploma program schedules are designed for a student time commitment of between one-half hour and one hour per day, five days per week. Each program is divided into three components, and each component has a series of written homework assignments generated from the course material we provide.

For the NAMC Infant/Toddler (0-3) and Preschool/Kindergarten (3-6) diploma programs, each component is 10 weeks long for a total of seven months. For the Lower Elementary (6-9) and Upper Elementary (9-12) diploma programs, each component is 3 months long, for a total of nine months. In keeping with Montessori philosophy, NAMC students who have more time to devote to study are allowed to work at an accelerated pace. Those who need to set up customized schedules for a longer duration are also accommodated and supported by the NAMC team.

UMA: Lessons are emailed in the form of Microsoft Word attachments and may be downloaded and printed up as hard copies for use in each student’s personal albums. Lessons include detailed essay notes, charts, and assignment templates for easy submission.

Each assignment is comprehensively evaluated for effort in research and thorough understanding of the Montessori philosophy, method, and application. Unsatisfactory work will be addressed and resubmitted. The “final” is an open-book review. (No exams.)

The most significant difference of the UMA Teacher Training curriculum is our focus on the inner preparation of the adult, along with a thorough understanding of the Montessori philosophy. Our training is comprehensive, requiring a serious commitment on the part of the student…and staff!

Lori: Do you require a practicum as part of the training requirements?

NAMC: We always encourage those students who do not already have an affiliation with a Montessori center to seek a volunteer internship. However, there are two reasons why we do not require a practicum at NAMC:

1. Many of our students earn income to support themselves and their families, and simply cannot stop working to student-teach on a volunteer basis.
2. We are very aware that few if any schools hire newly-graduated teachers to act as lead teachers in a Montessori classroom.

Indeed, Montessori described experience toward the perfection of the educator in a scientific way – with continual experimentation, observation and analysis being necessary parts of the process. The initial training of the Montessori educator provides an important foundation, but the perfection of any educator is not in the initial training, it is in the years following.

Almost every Montessori teacher starts her/his career working with an experienced Montessori guide. It is our opinion that this first year of employment under an experienced Montessori teacher will be the most profound learning experience a Montessori teacher enjoys. Such an arrangement is also of great benefit to the employer, as new Montessori teachers can be mentored in accordance with the unique values and mission of the Montessori school.

When you consider how many wonderful Montessori educators may potentially be excluded from the profession based on completing an unpaid practicum, we simply consider the price too high. Fortunately, many Montessori schools hold a similar view. This allows people to pursue their dream of becoming qualified Montessori educators by taking the training online and then working under a lead teacher for a year or years to come.

UMA: The reality is, there are not enough Montessori schools in the world for every student’s training, and therefore internship for everyone is not a possibility.

We offer distance learning to a significant segment of the world population that:

1. Have no access to a classroom site
2. Have family commitments that require time at home
3. Live on a limited income and need to work to provide for their families
4. Live in a remote region of the world

If a practicum was required:

1. It would be impossible to validate the quality of all schools offering a practicum site
2. Training center visits by UMA would be cost prohibitive.
3. A fee for licensing would be required in every state where a physical training site was established. Passing on that expense would make tuition no longer be affordable for our students.

Lori: What kind of certification does someone receive after they complete their training? Is it recognized by any official Montessori organizations or other educational boards or institutions?

NAMC: NAMC graduates receive a Montessori teaching diploma, which is recognized around the world by qualified Montessori educators. NAMC is a member in good standing with the National Association of Career Colleges, the Canadian Association of Young Children, and the International Association of Montessori Educators.

UMA: UMA is licensed by the State of Washington to provide Montessori Teacher Training and Certification, in the USA and worldwide, since 1988. Our graduates have had excellent success in securing employment, due to the global demand for well-trained Montessori educators.

UMA is also an approved educational institution by the US Department of Defense for the Military Spouse Career Advancement, and an approved provider for Independent and Public School Districts in the US, to train teachers for teacher certification in the Montessori method at the primary level.

Lori: As I mentioned at the beginning, some of the comments on Facebook were negative. Do you have any response to someone who might hold a negative view of online training, especially concerning the need for a practicum?

John Shepard from UMA: Let me respond to the concern of the need for a practicum or internship for students. There is no question that one cannot fully grasp the use of the hands-on, didactic materials outside of a properly prepared environment. We go to great length in emphasizing this to our students. That is why we encourage our students to find a nearby Montessori school or set up a Montessori environment in their home where they can apply what they are learning.

Regretfully, because of constraints like distance, time, and money, an internship is not a possibility for some. It is for these individuals that we provide a thorough on-line certification in Montessori education.

Think of the positive results to this. People who have commitments to family and work, who perhaps live on a very limited income and/or live in a remote region of the world are being given the opportunity for an excellent Montessori education.

Therefore, let us in the Montessori community not criticize or dismiss a program simply by our own self-centered biases or uninformed judgments. Rather, we should be discussing how we can help each other with the same goal in mind: to train adults who provide the child with opportunities for proper educational growth and awareness of the world.

Are we not making a clear statement to the rest of the world when we confine a Montessori education to adults who happen to live within a certain locale near a Montessori school or training center? And when schools or centers are located in predominately middle to upper middle class/wealthy neighborhoods, are we not saying something loud and clear to the rest of the world’s population?

The answers to these questions are clear and, in effect, we speak volumes when we don’t offer more affordable and useful alternatives to centrally located centers for learning. I don’t think that is the kind of narrow, inaccessible Montessori community we envision both here in the United States as well as abroad.

Lori: Strong words, John, and I can sense the strong feeling behind them. I haven’t ever considered how outsiders might view Montessori based on the limitations of physical training centers and schools. But more importantly, if some of us decide, after thorough investigation, that online training is not an option we would personally promote, how important it is to allow others the freedom to make their own decisions based on their circumstances rather than insisting on a “one size fits all” Montessori education.

Thank you, Dale, John, and Trudy for your insightful, helpful information! If you have any questions for them I’m sure they’d be glad to answer. You can also visit their websites for more information:

North American Montessori Center
United Montessori Association

The featured speaker this year was John Taylor Gatto, a former New York state public school teacher who now speaks out against traditional schooling. The values he espouses are very much in line with Montessori philosophy; you can read my take on the Montessori/ Gatto connection in my previous post If John Taylor Gatto and Maria Montessori Could Meet.

Mr. Gatto is a hero of mine, and I was thrilled to hear him speak. I got to shake his hand and talk to him briefly afterward, which was very exciting. The topic of his talk was “How to Get an Education in Spite of School”, which immediately tells you where he’s at when it comes to education.

Mr. Gatto’s thoughts are radical and he makes no apology for that fact. I most appreciate that he calls us to question our long-held assumptions about education and learning. He finds interesting information from unlikely sources.

What’s Really Important for College?

Gatto has spent some time talking to the admissions directors for both Harvard and Princeton. They told him that every year they turn away hundreds of students who have perfect SAT scores and perfect GPAs. What are they looking for, then? The answer might surprise you.

At both schools, they are looking for evidence that the student in question made a difference to society (as one of the admissions directors put it, “Special people usually distinguish themselves before the age of 18”). They look at hobbies and special interests, because that’s where children make their own choices about what they do with their free time.

How can someone under the age of 18 make a meaningful contribution to society? Some ways include:

• starting and running a successful business
• serving in the community
• founding an organization that serves others (especially those in need)
• completing an apprenticeship

Mr. Gatto repeatedly says that there is no significant correlation between grades, test scores, and real life achievement. He listed many extremely successful people who dropped out of school at some point and didn’t attend college, including Bill Gates and his partner Paul Allen, co-founders of Microsoft; Michael Dell (founder of Dell Computers); and Mark Zuckerberg (founder of Facebook).

Life Skills that Really Matter

He also suggests that we re-think what we teach children based on our own life experiences. He asked us to take a week or two to reflect on the skills that have served us best in life, and then make sure we are introducing children to those skills and giving them a chance to exercise them.

Some of his top life skills include:

1. Being able to successfully convey yourself through the written and (publicly) spoken word
2. Being able to spend time in solitude without feeling uncomfortable
3. Finding ways to be useful to others
4. Developing connections with other people that can be used for their benefit and your own
5. Being able to read at a high level (not just the skill of reading but being able to understand what you’re reading and internalize it)

As he points out, the things that serve us best in life are often not taught in school. Children often graduate without these life-skills, having instead spent dreary hours memorizing dates and filling in workbook pages.

Real Life Lessons

He also shared some remarkable examples of how he gave students a chance to really “stand out from the crowd” even within the confines of the New York public school system. For example, one girl in his class dropped a glass bottle with a note inside into the water off of Coney Island. The bottle was found by a New York police chief who read the note and contacted the girl.

With help from Mr. Gatto, the girl met with the police chief to discuss environmental issues like littering. Seeing where her bottle ended up was a practical lesson for her, and her meeting with the police chief was covered by a local newspaper which led to a meeting with the head of an environmental action group.

He had children running up and down New York state completing internships with politicians, businesspeople, newscasters, and all sorts of other accomplished people. Children in his classes influenced legislation, mobilized public opinion, wrote newspaper columns, and volunteered in their communities.

What Makes a Person Educated?

Mr. Gatto ended his presentation by talking about traits that a truly educated person possesses; they bear little resemblance to traditional school curriculums:

• An educated person writes his/her own script in life; destiny is self-determined
• An educated person is never at a loss for what to do with his/her time
• An educated person has a blueprint for personal values, a philosophy
• An educated person understands his/her own mortality and learns throughout life, right until the end
• An educated person has the capacity to create new things, new experiences, and new ideas

Even as a Montessorian, I was inspired to re-think how I approach education. I never want my focus to be on “achievement” in things that are easily measurable. Real life skills are harder to measure, harder to pin down, but so much more beneficial.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on Mr. Gatto’s ideas and how they might be compatible (or contradict) the Montessori method.

Helpful links:

The Six-Lesson Schoolteacher
Things You Really Need to Learn
The College (and High School) Dropouts Hall of Fame

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?