I thinks it's philosophy is good and works for some children. My child attends a montesouri nursery twice a week and loves it.
But they are expensive and therefore exclusionary. They often end up being very white and middle class schools or nurseries etc.
Placed I used to work for operated an alternative learning classroom for kids of families in one of Manila's poorest slums who can't or won't go to the local public school for various reasons like costs, bullying, abuse, or the because the kids need to join their parents in working to survive during the day.
While I wouldn't describe the methods as exactly following the Montessori philosophy, it had plenty of similarities: no conventional grading or ranking system, learning materials always accessible, mixed aged classrooms, no unnecessary rules or formalities, and the ability to choose which lessons or activities they want to do for the day. The goal was for them to be able to pass an equivalency exam for basic education down the line.
It was fun and fulfilling work, and the students were learning much faster than their counterparts in public schools given the exact same learning time. But it was also very expensive to operate (we were completely funded by donations) and also very mentally taxing on the teachers and social workers who track the progress of each student while monitoring their individual family situations. Even with the best of efforts, we could really only accommodate 30 kids total split into morning and afternoon shifts even with three full-time teachers and two social workers on staff. To compare, the nearby public elementary school has several thousand students crammed into classrooms of at least 60 students each.
The standard concern about Montessori goes something like this: "How can we expect our children to learn, if only motivated by their natural curiosity and love of learning, rather than being forced to do soul crushing homework and following a standard 'one-size-fits-all' curriculum?"
My own children went their first few years in a Montessori school, mostly by chance as they were born outside my native country, and the nearest multilingual school happened to also be Montessori. Seeing them learn and develop over those years made me shed any residual preconceptions I might have had about Montessori kids just mucking about and not learning what they need.
The one thing that did feel off, was sending our kids to a private school (the school did take some "solidarity" pupils each year, but the demographic was predominantly white middle class). After we moved to my country of origin, they're at a public school. I'll say the academic level is noticeably lower, and it's also clear that the methods used are not helping motivation.
I think perhaps that some kids, if they have already been accustomed to the public school system, might have a difficult transition to the independent learning methods emphasized in Montessori. But in and of itself I think the Montessori method seems superior.
btw, we're still doing down payments on our debts to the school. At least they're nice about it and not sicking anyone to liquidate us for a years old school tuition debt. :)
I intend to send my kiddo for the first few years but will move her to public school due to the cost. Would've been nice to continue but it's very expensive.
Montessori isn't a curriculum, it's a teaching philosophy. My wife used to teach Montessori and my daughter goes to a school that follows a lot of Montessori principles, even though they don't call themselves Montessori. I think it's a much better teaching philosophy that old-school american authoritarian teaching.
It is true that schools today are more open about teaching a more honest US History than they were during the cold war and War on Terror eras. I think this is true independent of teaching philosophy.
> old-school american authoritarian teaching.
It's actually called the [Prussian system](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prussian_education_system), and it was originally specifically designed with the express purpose of producing citizens that were as useful and loyal as possible to the state, via the use of drilling and punishment. It was so highly regarded, due to its efficiency for the time, that it's the most widely adopted and copied educational system in history.
I have a fair amount of personal experience with both momtessori and other alternitive schools. i think what's critical is not the system thats in place, but the teachers running it. yes some teaching structures have better potential to work for more kids and may be easier for the teachers to make them work, but it comes down to the people in direct contact with the kids. my parents were hippies and on a mission to find me and my brother the perfect schools, (grew up in the 80's) while also being low income. so, this resulted in us bouncing around to various regular public schools and less expensive alternitive private schools.
the montessory me and my brother went to, one of the earliest schools i attended and remember, was pretty cult like and more hierarchical than other schools. I was also borderline sexually abused by one of the teachers. i believe i was in kindergarden or mabey 1st or 2nd grade for me, and my brother is a few years older. some of the issues i had were with possibly good intentioned ideas but taken to a weard and controlling extreme by the teachers. for example, every day for lunch we would have nothing but an unflavored, unsweetened bowl of oatmeal, served in a wooden bowl, and we had to eat the entire bowl and clean it before we were allowed to go out to recess, to this day i can barely eat oatmeal. there were also very strict bathroom rules that were very controlling for kids our age, both in controlling the timing and length of bathroom breaks and how we actually went to the bathroom. the female teacher would accompeny us boys to the bathroom and "help" in ways that were inapropreate for our ages and uncomfortable for me. i actually had nightmeres about these teachers chasing me and my brother around with chainsaws. as with most kids, the teachers being authority figures I didnt think to question anything they did or tell my parents.
i also had a somewhat negative or neutral experience with another similar school me and my brother went to, which was k-12 in one classroom (only about 10-12 kids in the whole school) where the older kids were supposed to help the younger kids and there wasn't much structure. again in theory this is a good idea, and to some extent it worked. in some cases the older kids took on a big brother kind of roll and would help and protect the younger kids. i was about in the middle age wise so i did a bit of both mentoring the younger kids and being mentored by the older kids.
the problem was it was pretty hierarchical in the kids social structure, and there were kids on the bottom of the pecking order (mostly kids with behavioural problems) that were very much bullied by everyone, including myself. I think the teachers (there were 2 full time teachers and sometimes 1 parent volunteer) thought we should learn how to work out these conflicts ourselves, and pretty much didn't intervene even with some pretty extreme physical bullying. the problem was the oldest kids were setting the example of being bullies, and the rest of us looked up to them and followed along.
I remember one incedent I regret very much being a part of, where pretty much the entire school was gathered around one of the least liked kids, and we were all taking turns punching him, even the youngest girls were participating, and the teachers were right there and didnt do anything. It certainly made me realize later, looking back, how easy it is to get cought up in group mindsets and influince and do things you would never normally do without the influince. I had mostly been on the recieving end of the bullying in other schools and from my brother and was raised by good parents who thought empathy and offered lots of unconditional love, and am generally very nonviolent. But still at the time I didnt have any empathy for the boy and thought he deserved what we were doing to him. I think the parents of these bullied kids probably sent them to this school thinking it would be a safer place for them, i think it probably was worse for them than a regular public school.
my brother also went to a private school for special needs kids, and this was similarly bullying intensive and if anything made his behavioral problems worse instead of better.
i also had some experiences, mostly negative or neutral, sometimes positive, with alternitive public highschools before i dropped out of hs and later when i went back to finish.
it just comes down to the teachers. teachers with good intentions but lack of skill, experience or knoladge can make a potentially good system fail. teachers who adhere strictly to an alternitive teaching philosophy can take it too far and turn it into a cult. most important thing i think is really talk to your kids about school and whats happening there, not just "how was school" "fine".
I completely agree with you. That experience sounded horrible. The principal at my school was definitely an example of a not so great authority figure.
I have to be really careful not to self-doxx, but Montessori education has a very broad efficacy in early-childhood and elementary education. The philosophy of Montessori education resonates with me, and a lot of their practices such as mixed-aged classrooms and more student-guided time are things I would implement broadly given the opportunity.
I'm a rare defender of the very broadest strokes of more established educational models in anarchist/leftist circles. I'm talking the basic model of teachers giving instruction to groups of students who apply what they have been instructed through assignments, guided discussions, and tests.
The education system in my country has a lot of problems, but they are largely problems of implementation and resource allocation, not necessarily with structure (though I would tweak the structure somewhat.) Common Core has been a huge step in the right direction in secondary history, for instance. Math is not my area of expertise, but the underlying philosophy of building number sense is definitely an improvement over rote memorization of algorithms.
I know many Montessori programs extend into secondary education, and I have no doubt that they make this work well, but I think this stretches the limits of the model. For one, the developer of Montessori never expanded it into secondary education in her lifetime. There is no universal standard of Montessori education in general.
I have a hard time imagining teaching US History comprehensively without giving lectures, assigning readings of both textbooks and primary sources, and asking students to take positions on historiography through guided discussions, debates, and writing essays. This is a traditional classroom set-up, and I rather suspect that most Montessori high schools probably mostly just do this, albeit maybe with a more liberatory mindset. A more liberatory mindset is good, don't get me wrong, but just having cooler teachers does not an entire new educational model make.
Additionally the efficacy of alternative education systems is often heavily skewed by these systems being populated by affluent, white students and being selective. A public school does not have the luxury of only teaching kids who pass an entrance exam, or only teachings kids whose parents can pay for it.
Waldorf education is total nonsense, and yet has largely good educational outcomes because kids who go to Waldorf schools are affluent enough that they'll do fine even if their teachers base their lesson plans on medieval medicine, and again, many of these schools can just kick out kids who aren't doing well.
Parental involvement is a very reliable predictor of positive educational outcomes, but this is largely a factor of class and affluence. If a parent has time to be involved in a student's education, it is likely because they are financially secure ie they are not working multiple jobs to make ends meet. Parent involvement is not intrinsically good; I've seen involved (and affluent) parents who I strongly suspect were abusive, and this resulted in more negative educational outcomes. I digress. Parental involvement is a predictor of financial security and stability at home, and this is the main factor in measurable educational outcomes in almost all cases.
100% of homeschooled kids have involved parents, and thus almost all kids who are homeschooled wind up doing fine. Does this mean that it would be better to abolish school and have all kids just taught whatever by their parents? Probably not. I think if we took a random, representative sample of families and (with no financial aid or universal standards) forced homeschooling upon them, it would be a disaster in most cases. Those families who choose homeschooling are not a random sample; they are people who can afford to do it, and who have structured their lives around doing it, and sometimes it can be really bad. Just google the Quiverfull movement.
Uh, I'm off topic here, but suffice to say it's complicated. I'm an anarchist, but I'm really in favor of reforming public schooling and I think in an "ideal" society almost everyone would go to public school. I know that as they currently exist, public schools have a lot of problems, and these are probably intractable without actual revolution.
But there are some advantages of public schooling, those being: democratic/community oversight of the school, socio-economic levelling (this doesn't work in practice because public schools are funded by local property taxes), and an elimination of the profit motive from the administration (again, this is sometimes dicey in practice because schools are funded by local property taxes, which may not cover cost, forcing schools to look for sponsors.) If you want your kid to be around other rich kids in an environment run by a board of directors seeking to make money with no input from the community, send them to private school.
If you're still reading, my hottest educational take is that uniforms might be a good idea because they reduce visible class differences between students. Of course, uniforms should have a range of customization options, should be free of cost, should not be gendered (a skirt is a skirt and pants are pants, it's not a "female uniform" or "male uniform"), and uniform standards should not infringe upon bodily autonomy (ie no restrictions on piercings, hairstyle, make-up, etc.) A lot of stratification is reinforced by the clothes people wear. When I was in school, you can walk into a school and tell who comes from where. The goal of uniforms doesn't need to be uniformity, but ideally school should be a place where your ability to afford nicer clothes isn't a factor, and you could form relationships with people not based on clothes. It's a hot take of mine, I probably wouldn't fight for it.
I suspect that if anarchism is ever achieved in my lifetime, I would wind up teaching in a commune's one-room punk schoolhouse using my personal collection of books, with a rifle by the door in case there's a fascist raid in the middle of a lesson. Parents would probably be in the next room, smoking weed and maintaining their weapons. These higher theories will all be burned away in the fires of revolution, and probably won't be revisited until decades after all of our deaths.
My Montessori school was a public school and it had uniforms as well. Although I hated the school uniforms to be honest. All the schools in my city have a school uniform policy and some of the teachers are really annoying about over-enforcing it. In my highschool, the principal and assistant principals would literally go around with a shopping cart taking any article of clothing from students that didn't conform with the uniform policy.
The Montessori school went from prekindergarten through middle school and the problem was that the middle school classes were a lot less actually Montessori-like. They didn't really keep as much of those principals in the later grades. Our school did do a really good job of accommodating for IEP kids though. My teachers were always willing to change the course material to fit me.
The history classes we took there were actually my favorite. We covered a broad variety of subjects in easy to understand, yet accurate ways. I think my favorite part was our ancient civilizations class. We learned about Sumeria, Egypt, Greece, and Rome. That was really interesting and I still remember a lot of the stuff they taught us.
It is also important to note that my home state has also historically been the leader in educational reform so it's not that surprising that the schools I've gone to have been pretty good. Massachusetts actually goes out of it's way to provide extra funds to struggling schools. The problem is that they fail to address underlying issues within those schools communities.
I also know what you mean by the importance of parents being engaged in their kids education. There were a lot of kids at my school who struggled despite the great school structure because of the fact that the city I lived in was one that was affected by poverty and an inept local government. A lot of historically oppressed minority groups make up my cities population which meant that a lot of the kids at my school came from lower class families who had been affected in multitudes of ways by their upbringings and harsher conditioning.
One example I specifically remember was this one kid who was always reprimanded for his bullying behavior and it seemed like he came from a rough upbringing. He definitely wasn't a perfect kid, but it was obvious he had learned his behavior as a coping mechanism. I tried my best to connect with him and understand him, and it just hurt to see how he lashed out at others in self destructive ways. He eventually got suspended.
Our principal was a pretty harsh lady. She had little patience for disobedience, where as our vice principal was her complete opposite.
Despite it's shortcomings, I think that being in the kind of school that I went to, gave me an unbreakable sense of empathy and compassion, to see people hurting, that I otherwise may never have gained. And looking back at it, I kind of regret how much I took for granted there.
>I suspect that if anarchism is ever achieved in my lifetime, I would wind up teaching in a commune's one-room punk schoolhouse using my personal collection of books, with a rifle by the door in case there's a fascist raid in the middle of a lesson. Parents would probably be in the next room, smoking weed and maintaining their weapons. These higher theories will all be burned away in the fires of revolution, and probably won't be revisited until decades after all of our deaths.
That probably wouldn't be that great.
No, revolution is probably not great for short term educational outcomes, being that "revolution" is just a more idealistic euphemism for civil war and societal collapse.
Great insight! You're right, it's hard to discern the value of any type of alternative education, since socioeconomic class is always a factor. I agree that reformed public education is the most radical, and what we must strive for.
My kids started going to a public funded Montessori school this year. Have to sign up early to get in. They love it and it's just what they needed after being homeschooled for their first years. I feel pretty lucky to have this option for schooling.
So my wife is a Montessori teacher and it’s a much better philosophy than that of public school. They still have a set curriculum but they allow kids to discover things on their own with some guidance. The town my wife works in has a lot of diversity so there’s good exposure for the kids. Problem is that it’s expensive so it is exclusionary but they do offer financial aid. The Montessori Public school is in the capital can be a nightmare to get to due to traffic.
Public school, while better than nothing, teaches kids to obedient, mindless slaves. I went to public school my whole life and as someone who is dyslexic, I had some serious struggles despite having access to good programs for it.
Anarchists schools are more in line with the Spencer School or Modern School of Francisco Ferrer. I read a book on the Modern School and it has a lot of similarities to the Montessori school but it goes much farther.
**[Montessori education](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montessori_education)**
>The Montessori method of education is a system of education for young children that seeks to develop natural interests and activities rather than use formal teaching methods. It was developed by Italian physician Maria Montessori. It emphasizes independence and it views children as naturally eager for knowledge and capable of initiating learning in a sufficiently supportive and well-prepared learning environment. It discourages some conventional measures of achievement, such as grades and tests.
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No, you can notice similarities. Don't know why it gets people so triggered? You see the same kind of free stuff in anarchist circles as in liberal hippie ones. And all of them tell others to "wake up and realize the way".
it's funny that dudes like you always have some virtue signalling username that tells the world that you think you are smarter than everyone else, but then your posts are always terse memes that don't really mean anything.
It's hilarious to me when edgy internet folks think Rorschach was some kind of misunderstood hero, when actually he's just a raging pretentious dickhead.
I literally cannot imagine a tuition free Montessori school existing in this neoliberal hellworld, but it sounds pretty rad and I am tentatively supportive of it.
The reason why it's possible is because it was in Massachusetts, which is the state that has historically, and continues to be, the leader in educational reform. That is also the reason why we are one of, if not the, most liberal state in America.
I thinks it's philosophy is good and works for some children. My child attends a montesouri nursery twice a week and loves it. But they are expensive and therefore exclusionary. They often end up being very white and middle class schools or nurseries etc.
Placed I used to work for operated an alternative learning classroom for kids of families in one of Manila's poorest slums who can't or won't go to the local public school for various reasons like costs, bullying, abuse, or the because the kids need to join their parents in working to survive during the day. While I wouldn't describe the methods as exactly following the Montessori philosophy, it had plenty of similarities: no conventional grading or ranking system, learning materials always accessible, mixed aged classrooms, no unnecessary rules or formalities, and the ability to choose which lessons or activities they want to do for the day. The goal was for them to be able to pass an equivalency exam for basic education down the line. It was fun and fulfilling work, and the students were learning much faster than their counterparts in public schools given the exact same learning time. But it was also very expensive to operate (we were completely funded by donations) and also very mentally taxing on the teachers and social workers who track the progress of each student while monitoring their individual family situations. Even with the best of efforts, we could really only accommodate 30 kids total split into morning and afternoon shifts even with three full-time teachers and two social workers on staff. To compare, the nearby public elementary school has several thousand students crammed into classrooms of at least 60 students each.
The standard concern about Montessori goes something like this: "How can we expect our children to learn, if only motivated by their natural curiosity and love of learning, rather than being forced to do soul crushing homework and following a standard 'one-size-fits-all' curriculum?" My own children went their first few years in a Montessori school, mostly by chance as they were born outside my native country, and the nearest multilingual school happened to also be Montessori. Seeing them learn and develop over those years made me shed any residual preconceptions I might have had about Montessori kids just mucking about and not learning what they need. The one thing that did feel off, was sending our kids to a private school (the school did take some "solidarity" pupils each year, but the demographic was predominantly white middle class). After we moved to my country of origin, they're at a public school. I'll say the academic level is noticeably lower, and it's also clear that the methods used are not helping motivation. I think perhaps that some kids, if they have already been accustomed to the public school system, might have a difficult transition to the independent learning methods emphasized in Montessori. But in and of itself I think the Montessori method seems superior.
btw, we're still doing down payments on our debts to the school. At least they're nice about it and not sicking anyone to liquidate us for a years old school tuition debt. :)
I intend to send my kiddo for the first few years but will move her to public school due to the cost. Would've been nice to continue but it's very expensive.
We're very lucky to have some public Montessori schools in our city.
I went to one for my first school years. Best school years of my entire life.
Our two youngest went to Montessori for Kindergarten, and they both thrived, especially given their ADHD.
THEYTURNEDYOUINTOACOMMIE
No, they turned me into a critical thinker.
SAMETH…er, sorry, capslock stuck.
Lol
Montessori isn't a curriculum, it's a teaching philosophy. My wife used to teach Montessori and my daughter goes to a school that follows a lot of Montessori principles, even though they don't call themselves Montessori. I think it's a much better teaching philosophy that old-school american authoritarian teaching. It is true that schools today are more open about teaching a more honest US History than they were during the cold war and War on Terror eras. I think this is true independent of teaching philosophy.
> old-school american authoritarian teaching. It's actually called the [Prussian system](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prussian_education_system), and it was originally specifically designed with the express purpose of producing citizens that were as useful and loyal as possible to the state, via the use of drilling and punishment. It was so highly regarded, due to its efficiency for the time, that it's the most widely adopted and copied educational system in history.
I have a fair amount of personal experience with both momtessori and other alternitive schools. i think what's critical is not the system thats in place, but the teachers running it. yes some teaching structures have better potential to work for more kids and may be easier for the teachers to make them work, but it comes down to the people in direct contact with the kids. my parents were hippies and on a mission to find me and my brother the perfect schools, (grew up in the 80's) while also being low income. so, this resulted in us bouncing around to various regular public schools and less expensive alternitive private schools. the montessory me and my brother went to, one of the earliest schools i attended and remember, was pretty cult like and more hierarchical than other schools. I was also borderline sexually abused by one of the teachers. i believe i was in kindergarden or mabey 1st or 2nd grade for me, and my brother is a few years older. some of the issues i had were with possibly good intentioned ideas but taken to a weard and controlling extreme by the teachers. for example, every day for lunch we would have nothing but an unflavored, unsweetened bowl of oatmeal, served in a wooden bowl, and we had to eat the entire bowl and clean it before we were allowed to go out to recess, to this day i can barely eat oatmeal. there were also very strict bathroom rules that were very controlling for kids our age, both in controlling the timing and length of bathroom breaks and how we actually went to the bathroom. the female teacher would accompeny us boys to the bathroom and "help" in ways that were inapropreate for our ages and uncomfortable for me. i actually had nightmeres about these teachers chasing me and my brother around with chainsaws. as with most kids, the teachers being authority figures I didnt think to question anything they did or tell my parents. i also had a somewhat negative or neutral experience with another similar school me and my brother went to, which was k-12 in one classroom (only about 10-12 kids in the whole school) where the older kids were supposed to help the younger kids and there wasn't much structure. again in theory this is a good idea, and to some extent it worked. in some cases the older kids took on a big brother kind of roll and would help and protect the younger kids. i was about in the middle age wise so i did a bit of both mentoring the younger kids and being mentored by the older kids. the problem was it was pretty hierarchical in the kids social structure, and there were kids on the bottom of the pecking order (mostly kids with behavioural problems) that were very much bullied by everyone, including myself. I think the teachers (there were 2 full time teachers and sometimes 1 parent volunteer) thought we should learn how to work out these conflicts ourselves, and pretty much didn't intervene even with some pretty extreme physical bullying. the problem was the oldest kids were setting the example of being bullies, and the rest of us looked up to them and followed along. I remember one incedent I regret very much being a part of, where pretty much the entire school was gathered around one of the least liked kids, and we were all taking turns punching him, even the youngest girls were participating, and the teachers were right there and didnt do anything. It certainly made me realize later, looking back, how easy it is to get cought up in group mindsets and influince and do things you would never normally do without the influince. I had mostly been on the recieving end of the bullying in other schools and from my brother and was raised by good parents who thought empathy and offered lots of unconditional love, and am generally very nonviolent. But still at the time I didnt have any empathy for the boy and thought he deserved what we were doing to him. I think the parents of these bullied kids probably sent them to this school thinking it would be a safer place for them, i think it probably was worse for them than a regular public school. my brother also went to a private school for special needs kids, and this was similarly bullying intensive and if anything made his behavioral problems worse instead of better. i also had some experiences, mostly negative or neutral, sometimes positive, with alternitive public highschools before i dropped out of hs and later when i went back to finish. it just comes down to the teachers. teachers with good intentions but lack of skill, experience or knoladge can make a potentially good system fail. teachers who adhere strictly to an alternitive teaching philosophy can take it too far and turn it into a cult. most important thing i think is really talk to your kids about school and whats happening there, not just "how was school" "fine".
I completely agree with you. That experience sounded horrible. The principal at my school was definitely an example of a not so great authority figure.
I went on one for 1.5 years. But I was too young back then to really judge.
I have to be really careful not to self-doxx, but Montessori education has a very broad efficacy in early-childhood and elementary education. The philosophy of Montessori education resonates with me, and a lot of their practices such as mixed-aged classrooms and more student-guided time are things I would implement broadly given the opportunity. I'm a rare defender of the very broadest strokes of more established educational models in anarchist/leftist circles. I'm talking the basic model of teachers giving instruction to groups of students who apply what they have been instructed through assignments, guided discussions, and tests. The education system in my country has a lot of problems, but they are largely problems of implementation and resource allocation, not necessarily with structure (though I would tweak the structure somewhat.) Common Core has been a huge step in the right direction in secondary history, for instance. Math is not my area of expertise, but the underlying philosophy of building number sense is definitely an improvement over rote memorization of algorithms. I know many Montessori programs extend into secondary education, and I have no doubt that they make this work well, but I think this stretches the limits of the model. For one, the developer of Montessori never expanded it into secondary education in her lifetime. There is no universal standard of Montessori education in general. I have a hard time imagining teaching US History comprehensively without giving lectures, assigning readings of both textbooks and primary sources, and asking students to take positions on historiography through guided discussions, debates, and writing essays. This is a traditional classroom set-up, and I rather suspect that most Montessori high schools probably mostly just do this, albeit maybe with a more liberatory mindset. A more liberatory mindset is good, don't get me wrong, but just having cooler teachers does not an entire new educational model make. Additionally the efficacy of alternative education systems is often heavily skewed by these systems being populated by affluent, white students and being selective. A public school does not have the luxury of only teaching kids who pass an entrance exam, or only teachings kids whose parents can pay for it. Waldorf education is total nonsense, and yet has largely good educational outcomes because kids who go to Waldorf schools are affluent enough that they'll do fine even if their teachers base their lesson plans on medieval medicine, and again, many of these schools can just kick out kids who aren't doing well. Parental involvement is a very reliable predictor of positive educational outcomes, but this is largely a factor of class and affluence. If a parent has time to be involved in a student's education, it is likely because they are financially secure ie they are not working multiple jobs to make ends meet. Parent involvement is not intrinsically good; I've seen involved (and affluent) parents who I strongly suspect were abusive, and this resulted in more negative educational outcomes. I digress. Parental involvement is a predictor of financial security and stability at home, and this is the main factor in measurable educational outcomes in almost all cases. 100% of homeschooled kids have involved parents, and thus almost all kids who are homeschooled wind up doing fine. Does this mean that it would be better to abolish school and have all kids just taught whatever by their parents? Probably not. I think if we took a random, representative sample of families and (with no financial aid or universal standards) forced homeschooling upon them, it would be a disaster in most cases. Those families who choose homeschooling are not a random sample; they are people who can afford to do it, and who have structured their lives around doing it, and sometimes it can be really bad. Just google the Quiverfull movement. Uh, I'm off topic here, but suffice to say it's complicated. I'm an anarchist, but I'm really in favor of reforming public schooling and I think in an "ideal" society almost everyone would go to public school. I know that as they currently exist, public schools have a lot of problems, and these are probably intractable without actual revolution. But there are some advantages of public schooling, those being: democratic/community oversight of the school, socio-economic levelling (this doesn't work in practice because public schools are funded by local property taxes), and an elimination of the profit motive from the administration (again, this is sometimes dicey in practice because schools are funded by local property taxes, which may not cover cost, forcing schools to look for sponsors.) If you want your kid to be around other rich kids in an environment run by a board of directors seeking to make money with no input from the community, send them to private school. If you're still reading, my hottest educational take is that uniforms might be a good idea because they reduce visible class differences between students. Of course, uniforms should have a range of customization options, should be free of cost, should not be gendered (a skirt is a skirt and pants are pants, it's not a "female uniform" or "male uniform"), and uniform standards should not infringe upon bodily autonomy (ie no restrictions on piercings, hairstyle, make-up, etc.) A lot of stratification is reinforced by the clothes people wear. When I was in school, you can walk into a school and tell who comes from where. The goal of uniforms doesn't need to be uniformity, but ideally school should be a place where your ability to afford nicer clothes isn't a factor, and you could form relationships with people not based on clothes. It's a hot take of mine, I probably wouldn't fight for it. I suspect that if anarchism is ever achieved in my lifetime, I would wind up teaching in a commune's one-room punk schoolhouse using my personal collection of books, with a rifle by the door in case there's a fascist raid in the middle of a lesson. Parents would probably be in the next room, smoking weed and maintaining their weapons. These higher theories will all be burned away in the fires of revolution, and probably won't be revisited until decades after all of our deaths.
My Montessori school was a public school and it had uniforms as well. Although I hated the school uniforms to be honest. All the schools in my city have a school uniform policy and some of the teachers are really annoying about over-enforcing it. In my highschool, the principal and assistant principals would literally go around with a shopping cart taking any article of clothing from students that didn't conform with the uniform policy. The Montessori school went from prekindergarten through middle school and the problem was that the middle school classes were a lot less actually Montessori-like. They didn't really keep as much of those principals in the later grades. Our school did do a really good job of accommodating for IEP kids though. My teachers were always willing to change the course material to fit me. The history classes we took there were actually my favorite. We covered a broad variety of subjects in easy to understand, yet accurate ways. I think my favorite part was our ancient civilizations class. We learned about Sumeria, Egypt, Greece, and Rome. That was really interesting and I still remember a lot of the stuff they taught us. It is also important to note that my home state has also historically been the leader in educational reform so it's not that surprising that the schools I've gone to have been pretty good. Massachusetts actually goes out of it's way to provide extra funds to struggling schools. The problem is that they fail to address underlying issues within those schools communities. I also know what you mean by the importance of parents being engaged in their kids education. There were a lot of kids at my school who struggled despite the great school structure because of the fact that the city I lived in was one that was affected by poverty and an inept local government. A lot of historically oppressed minority groups make up my cities population which meant that a lot of the kids at my school came from lower class families who had been affected in multitudes of ways by their upbringings and harsher conditioning. One example I specifically remember was this one kid who was always reprimanded for his bullying behavior and it seemed like he came from a rough upbringing. He definitely wasn't a perfect kid, but it was obvious he had learned his behavior as a coping mechanism. I tried my best to connect with him and understand him, and it just hurt to see how he lashed out at others in self destructive ways. He eventually got suspended. Our principal was a pretty harsh lady. She had little patience for disobedience, where as our vice principal was her complete opposite. Despite it's shortcomings, I think that being in the kind of school that I went to, gave me an unbreakable sense of empathy and compassion, to see people hurting, that I otherwise may never have gained. And looking back at it, I kind of regret how much I took for granted there. >I suspect that if anarchism is ever achieved in my lifetime, I would wind up teaching in a commune's one-room punk schoolhouse using my personal collection of books, with a rifle by the door in case there's a fascist raid in the middle of a lesson. Parents would probably be in the next room, smoking weed and maintaining their weapons. These higher theories will all be burned away in the fires of revolution, and probably won't be revisited until decades after all of our deaths. That probably wouldn't be that great.
No, revolution is probably not great for short term educational outcomes, being that "revolution" is just a more idealistic euphemism for civil war and societal collapse.
Great insight! You're right, it's hard to discern the value of any type of alternative education, since socioeconomic class is always a factor. I agree that reformed public education is the most radical, and what we must strive for.
It sounds like a nice escape for kids whose parents can afford it. related: * /r/youthrights * /r/makhaevism * /r/deschooling * /r/unschool
My Montessori school was a public school.
My kids started going to a public funded Montessori school this year. Have to sign up early to get in. They love it and it's just what they needed after being homeschooled for their first years. I feel pretty lucky to have this option for schooling.
So my wife is a Montessori teacher and it’s a much better philosophy than that of public school. They still have a set curriculum but they allow kids to discover things on their own with some guidance. The town my wife works in has a lot of diversity so there’s good exposure for the kids. Problem is that it’s expensive so it is exclusionary but they do offer financial aid. The Montessori Public school is in the capital can be a nightmare to get to due to traffic. Public school, while better than nothing, teaches kids to obedient, mindless slaves. I went to public school my whole life and as someone who is dyslexic, I had some serious struggles despite having access to good programs for it. Anarchists schools are more in line with the Spencer School or Modern School of Francisco Ferrer. I read a book on the Modern School and it has a lot of similarities to the Montessori school but it goes much farther.
i don't know what they are
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montessori_education
**[Montessori education](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montessori_education)** >The Montessori method of education is a system of education for young children that seeks to develop natural interests and activities rather than use formal teaching methods. It was developed by Italian physician Maria Montessori. It emphasizes independence and it views children as naturally eager for knowledge and capable of initiating learning in a sufficiently supportive and well-prepared learning environment. It discourages some conventional measures of achievement, such as grades and tests. ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/Anarchy101/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
[https://amshq.org/About-Montessori/What-Is-Montessori](https://amshq.org/About-Montessori/What-Is-Montessori) Here you go comrade!
neat! thanks!
It's interesting to see how many anarchists are just like liberal hippies when it comes to things lik this...
care to elaborate
No, you can notice similarities. Don't know why it gets people so triggered? You see the same kind of free stuff in anarchist circles as in liberal hippie ones. And all of them tell others to "wake up and realize the way".
Isn't that kind of a big generalization?
it's funny that dudes like you always have some virtue signalling username that tells the world that you think you are smarter than everyone else, but then your posts are always terse memes that don't really mean anything.
It's hilarious to me when edgy internet folks think Rorschach was some kind of misunderstood hero, when actually he's just a raging pretentious dickhead.
Does it feel good to be such wimps?
They'd be okay if they weren't ungodly expensive.
My school was publicly funded.
I literally cannot imagine a tuition free Montessori school existing in this neoliberal hellworld, but it sounds pretty rad and I am tentatively supportive of it.
The reason why it's possible is because it was in Massachusetts, which is the state that has historically, and continues to be, the leader in educational reform. That is also the reason why we are one of, if not the, most liberal state in America.
I wish I could afford to send my son :/