Employees of Kraft Foods Inc. may refer to this thread by its alternate title, Drinking the Montessori FlaVor-Aid.
Our eldest son will be beginning preschool in the fall. After looking around a bit, Mrs. Anvil and I have settled on a nearby Montessori school. I was quite enthused about the program, as a number of its core practices (e.g., exploiting children’s natural urge to learn, multi-age classrooms, lack of unidirectional teacher lecturing/hectoring) felt right to me.
Looking ahead to kindergarten and elementary school, however, it occurs to me that the boy’s formal education should probably be based upon something a little more substantial than “feeling right,” so I’ve started doing some research on the topic.
I’m about halfway through Maria Montessori’s The Absorbent Mind, and am, frankly, fairly depressed by it. Popular depictions of Montessori as a rigorous investigator are really not borne out by this book. It’s scientific foundations are nebulous, and the entire thing is saturated with coy references to some greater teleological end that the method is designed to serve.
Additionally, works by the AMI/AMS/etc. seem to regard the method with a devotion bordering on the cultish: only Montessori materials must be used, and they may be used only in a rigidly prescribed manned; Maria Montessori was a towering genius who discovered “universal truths” about the way children learn.
Now, I understand that most of Montessori’s theory was built up after the fact, as a way for her to describe and explain her successes to a wider audience. As such, I suppose it’s quite possible that the theory can be safely ignored, and the basic method embraced if it is successful in its primary aim (educating children). And I also understand that the presence of unquestioning adherents does not in itself reflect negatively on the method.
The question, then, is: is there a good reason to drink the Montessori Kool-Aid? Is there good, rigorous, data-intensive research out there that supports its claims of greater long-term educational competence?
So far, all I’ve found is:
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This study, which makes some fairly questionable design decisions, and appears to overstate its conclusions (not terribly surprising, given the admitted desire on the part of the study sponsors to reach a positive outcome).
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This ERIC digest, which cites a pair of studies showing some possible long-term benefit for very young Montessori students (though I have not read the actual studies yet).
And that’s really about it.
Can anyone supply pointers/leads to more?