Thank you for all the positive comments on Stardust! I’m finding distinct advantages to writing up things my friends already know. Moving on, I’ve been fascinated by Waldorf education recently, despite the fact that my son attends a Montessori school and I myself went to Montessori for preschool. So I thought I’d read a little about it.

Montessori: The Science behind the Genius by Angeline Stoll Lillard I have this feeling, which other people might share, that the American educational system is broken and dysfunctional. There are whole books about this, which you could also read. Even though not everyone may be interested in Montessori in particular, this book has the advantage of being somewhat less depressing than a book focused only on mainstream education because it contains a positive solution to the problem. This is a dream nonfiction book for me (and I feel so librarianish talking about a dream nonfiction book) because Lillard is down with her research. The basic structure is looking at an issue in education or parenting, seeing what the research says about it, and comparing the research to standard education and Montessori education. She is quite explicit about pointing out potential flaws in the studies, even when doing so is not in favor of Montessori. Lillard also explains areas where traditional educators often disagree with the Montessori method (which is not quite the same as how the system is broken, as educators often agree that it is.) I’ve put lots of details behind the cut, but I had a hard time putting the book down, and am now sold on a Montessori education. Using the expertise of a highly intelligent woman who spent 50 years observing children and fine-tuning an system of education seems like a fine alternative to either trying to develop one myself by home-schooling, or relying on the aforementioned broken system.

Crisis in Education We knew that, right? Lillard goes into the history of American education, which took hold in its current form in the 20s, when we were obsessed with factories and efficiency. Schools were modeled deliberately and precisely after factories, assuming that children were empty vessels into which knowledge could be poured. One prominent early educator, Thorndike, also believed that children learned best without context, and so emphasized memorizing blank facts. Dr. Montessori, working in Italy, was a physician and scholar who left her post at the university to study children. She spent the next 50 years developing the Montessori system and its curriculum and materials.

Impact of Movement Dr. Montessori believed that especially children under six learn with their bodies. All of the 3-6 (Primary) curriculum uses physical objects, not books or talking, to teach. Gestures research indicates that children are able to identify the correct answer by gesture before they are able to articulate it, which seems to support Montessori. Research with infants and animals also shows that learning is hindered when subjects are not moving themselves. Learning is less hands-on in older years, but still based primarily on self-discovery, not books and lectures. A controversy: Montessori didn’t believe in scheduled recess, because this would break the child’s concentration. Children are free to move and go outside whenever they wish, however.

Choice and Perceived Control Many studies have shown that when people can choose what they will learn (for example, which set of paired words to memorize,) they will learn better and enjoy it more. In traditional education, the child and even the teacher may have very little choice. Even in traditional schools which emphasize choice more, children’s sense of confidence and self-worth increases. In Montessori, children choose when and what of the available materials they will use. In Elementary, we should note that their teacher reviews their progress weekly and lets them set goals for covering material that is missing.

Interest in Human Learning Children and adults learn better when they are interested in what they are learning. They have longer attention spans and more positive temperaments, as well. Montessori is geared both towards picking up on the natural periods of interest in children – language and order in early childhood, for example – and towards letting children research topics of interest, especially in older children. Education in Elementary starts with seven Great Stories, such as the Beginning of the Universe and the Invention of Numbers. These stories are the starting point for children to begin their own investigations. Everything is deliberately interconnected, both to real life and previous learning.

Extrinsic Rewards and Motivation Modern schools are founded on a psychological principle called behaviorism. The theory is that you can’t know what people are thinking. If you want to get someone to do something, you reward them if they do it and punish them or remove privileges if they don’t. Grades, candy, money, gold stars, verbal praise are all rewards commonly used in schools and by parents at home. Three classic studies done in the 1970s brought an end to behaviorism in psychological circles, but sadly not in schools or popular discipline books. The studies showed that not only did rewards significantly and drastically reduce the motivation to do activities that were previously enjoyed, but also reduced creativity, learning and enjoyment. The results were replicated with ages from preschool to college. Verbal praise appears to be particularly damaging at the preschool age.

There are a few cases where rewards have been found to be helpful, notably if the task is a defined, short-term with a set solution. If there was no motivation to begin with, rewards may help create a small amount.

More recent studies have found additional drawbacks in the use of grades, evaluations and rewards. Using one activity as a reward to complete another will reduce interest in the first, even if both activities were initially high interest. Students will choose less difficult tasks if they know their performance will be evaluated. Overall thinking ability also goes down if children know they will be tested. They understand and recall less for a shorter period of time, while still enjoying the same tasks less than children who were not told they would be tested. Surface-level learning of the bubble-test type may be just fine, but the ability to understand reading passages or solve more complex problems drops significantly. What psychologists call prosocial behavior and parents typically call “being good” also drops dramatically if children are rewarded for this behavior. No response resulted in the most prosocial behavior; acknowledgement such as “Thanks” resulted in somewhat less, and praise such as “What a good helper you are!” resulted in the least prosocial acts of all. (Depressing news indeed for parents trying to encourage prosocial behavior in our children.) Grades also reduce prosocial behavior by encouraging competetiveness.

Another problem with grades is how it affects students’ self-image. A study found that there are two basic theories of intelligence. One is that intelligence is a fixed quantity and the other is that intelligence depends on how hard you work. While there is no difference in the actual intelligence of people holding either theory, they behave very differently. The first group of people strive for performance goals – grades or praise. They are crushed if they fail, tend to regard themselves as stupid, and withdraw from the activity in which they failed. The second group strives for mastery of the problem and strives for improvement. They tend to think that they need to work harder when they fail. Surprise, surprise, grades tend to encourage children to adopt fixed intelligence theories about themselves. Even telling children that they are really smart as opposed to telling them that they must have worked hard can negatively change the way they think about themselves. A small bright point is that teachers who have been trained to encourage a mastery attitude can have a significant effect on their students.

Montessori does not use grades, as Dr. Montessori’s observations led her to similar conclusions. Instead, materials are designed to show children their own mistakes, and children can and do repeat the activity until they master it. In the older grades, they also obtain factual feedback from teachers on projects, and from their peers on group projects. Grace and Courtesy is a subject, applied both in the classroom and as elementary children ask their parents to take them on Going Out trips (more on this later.)

This chapter also includes a discussion of Dr. Montessori’s views on fantasy and play, which are also unconventional, but, as I didn’t find them terribly applicable to regular life, I will say only that she based her theories on what she observed children wanting to do.

Learning from Peers In traditional schools, children work mostly in groups at the preschool level, and mostly individually at older levels. They are also separated by age and, as they get older, by ability, so that they are kept with people of roughly the same ability. Research shows that children learn best from children slightly older and slightly more advanced than they are. Montessori allows this by grouping children in three-year age ranges. Children also choose when to work together and when to work alone. At the preschool level, they tend to want to work alone more often, while elementary children are usually intensely social. Research has also shown that children learn better in group situations when they are working with friends, contrary to what I remember my teachers doing when I was in school.

Meaningful Contexts for Learning People learn best in situations where they understand the relevance of what they are learning to their life and when they can connect it to things they already know. Have you ever seen that scholarly description of laundry sorting where laundry is never mentioned? Also, children taught math in school often fail to apply the same skills outside of class, while street children who perform complicated problems on their own are unable to solve the artificial school math problems. In Montessori, relevance is found by making things as hands-on and applicable as possible to begin with, and also allowing children to see how older children use the skills they are learning now in more advanced tasks. The whole twelve-year curriculum was also developed by a single person, so there isn’t the patchwork of books and methods that can happen in traditional schools. Elementary students are also encouraged to arrange their own field trips or Going Out trips to explore areas of personal interest. High school students run a farm and are encouraged to start their own businesses.

Adult Interaction Styles According to the literature on attachment, how parents and teachers act has lasting effects on children. No kidding, right? Adults need to be sensitive to children’s needs and respond promptly. Both ignoring and being overly interfering have negative results. Parenting styles studies have classified four types of parents. These can be arranged into a grid, with control on one axis and warmth on the other. High control, low warmth is called authoritarian parenting, the “Do it because I said so” type. Children do poorly both socially and academically. Low control and high warmth is permissive parenting. Children seem immature and are prone to drug problems as they get older. Low control, low warmth is neglecting parenting. Children tend towards antisocial behaviors and depression. Finally – tada – the perfect balance is authoritative. These parents have high expectations, but explain their reasons. They are warmly affectionate and sensitive to their children’s needs. Limits are firm, but children are given freedom within the limits, and freedom increases with age. These children turn out well all around. Dr. Montessori’s teachings align very well with this, calling for teachers to be warm and affectionate, being sensitive to when they are ready for materials, and having clearly explained and consistently enforced behavior guidelines. Teachers undergo extensive training, and teacher trainers at least ten years of training.

Order The Literature finds that order is extremely important to children. Schedules and an orderly and quiet physical environment have been repeatedly shown to have strong benefits for children. (This is where I guiltily decide to be stricter about daily clean-ups and my own house cleaning.) Montessori is very different from traditional education in that it is not scheduled hour by hour; instead, children have three hour blocks before and after lunch in which they should be free to choose their own activities. The classroom itself is much more ordered than a typical classroom, however. Everything is laid out neatly on the assigned shelves. Dr. Montessori had clear guidelines about having some well-chosen art, but not plastering the walls with posters; having plants for the children to take care of, and having either quiet or playing soft classical music. Regimented, but following sound principles. Many people are horrified by Montessori preschool classrooms, where children tend to be working quietly and individually. They expect chaos and assume that the quiet is forced, but it is not. Dr. Montessori believed that structuring the environment just right would allow children to enter deep concentration, which she believed to be essential. She also believed that learning new things was stressful, and that caring for the environment is restorative. Therefore, children are taught to sweep floors, wash tables, and polish things. Many Montessori materials often involve putting things into the right order.

Education for Children This chapter summarizes the benefits of a Montessori education and answers frequently asked questions, such as “Don’t elementary children need traditional schools?” and “You’ve said not all Montessori classrooms practice Montessori in the ways you describe here. Why?” She also addresses finding a good school and learning more about Montessori.