Great post! Do you think a full Montessori-style education from K-12 or a hybrid (eg. early on or later in childhood) would be more effective for kids versus traditional schooling?
Great question. Anecdotally, most students coming out of this middle school are performing above grade average in traditional high schools. Across longitudinal studies, Montessori alumni are found to have higher well being as adults, strong self-operating characteristics and sense of control over their lives, allowing them to be quite successful in a variety of settings whether that be more structured or not.
Both my kids went to Montessori through some/all of elementary, but we moved them to a more teacher-led environment for middle school, even though their Montessori school continued through middle school, and other Montessori middle school options existed.
I think doing Montessori well beyond 6th grade gets harder, especially in today’s world. And it really depends on the child, too!
1. The skills and experience of the guide matter much more. In the earlier years, the structure of the lessons and materials mean that Montessori teaching is a learnable skill, and the AMI/AMS apprentice-like programs do a good job of creating good teachers. By upper elementary and especially middle school, though, there is much less structured material available. Students’ interests and abilities diverge more. It’s harder to see at a glance what they are doing/if they are being productive. As someone involved in running schools, I’ve seen many more mediocre upper elementary/middle school classrooms for this reason, especially with less-experienced guides who didn’t benefit from apprenticing under a highly skilled old-timer.
2. Who the kid is matters more. I think most kids would benefit from Montessori through 3rd grade, and most kids if started in Montessori at age 3 can be integrated into the Montessori classroom (even if home life isn’t ideal, even if there are some learning disabilities, and even if the lead Montessori teacher is pretty new to his game. By upper elementary, though, it’s easy for kids to fall through the cracks. I saw this with both my kids, who were very different students and who both didn’t have an ideal upper elementary experience. My conscientious daughter did most of the expected work—but never found her passion and thus didn’t have the drive to exhaust everything Montessori had to offer. She did ok on the basics—but I knew she could be challenged more! My dyslexic, high-agency, opinionated son managed, somehow, to spend a half year not doing any math or English; instead doing several year’s worth of science and history. That’s great—but his handwriting was illegible, he couldn’t spell to safe his life, and he never mastered multiplication tables or any step-by-step math problems.
3. The social environment matters more and more. Most Montessori schools become very small by upper elementary or middle school—right at the time when kids need a bigger pool to find “their people.” Now, if parents put in a lot of effort, they can create that bigger group outside of school, but just having 15 kids in a three-year mixed age classroom really limits who a tween can work with. It’s not ideal if you spend 6+ hours a day and you don’t find your people as a tween or young teen! Obviously, if Montessori was a thing, and the schools were bigger, this wouldn’t be an issue, but today it is, at least for many kids. (Some lucky ones find close friendships in these small classrooms, and that’s great for them!)
So my advice to parents is it aim for a good Montessori school through at least 3rd grade—and really think about what type of schooling and social environment your individual child will thrive in after that. It may be Montessori, or it may be something else entirely.
Wow, thanks for sharing this Heike! I'd love to learn more about your experiences working in education. It sounds like we'd have plenty to talk about.
I completely agree that so much of this depends on the individual kid and what they need. A "good" school is only good insofar as it's actually meeting the needs of your child and their potential. And while the Montessori philosophy has its merits, you're right to point out that not all Montessori schools are created equal and depend so heavily on the teachers.
Montessori's research mainly focused on early childhood, where there is a clear structure and set of materials to train teachers on. It seems the variability in quality at the middle and high school levels is partly due to how open-ended the approach becomes, combined with the increasing pressure to conform to traditional education benchmarks (e.g., does this map back to standardized curricula and college admission requirements?).
I have mixed feelings about the small classroom social dynamic. On one hand, a class of 15 can be very small and might not offer enough social opportunities without supplementary extracurriculars. Personally, I would've been fine with this in high school because I was a competitive athlete and had plenty of friendships outside of school. The idea of a microschool would've appealed to me as a calmer, more intentional environment. But again, this all depends on the kid, what they value, and their life outside of school. The head of this Montessori middle school made a great point that the small environment forces students to learn how to get along. In a large school, it's much easier to form cliques and avoid confronting disagreements.
As an aside, I'm a big fan of Michael Strong's The Socratic Experience school (I'm sure you're familiar!) which takes inspiration from Montessori philosophy. It's online but has more structured focus on intellectual debate and communication, and providing value via entrepreneurship e.g. ongoing mentorship around "What do you love? What are you good at? What does the world need?" Speaking with recent alumni of TSE, there's a clear sense of why they signed up for this and where they want to go following graduation.
Great post! Do you think a full Montessori-style education from K-12 or a hybrid (eg. early on or later in childhood) would be more effective for kids versus traditional schooling?
Thanks! It depends on your kid and the environment they thrive in, but generally I’d argue full Montessori K-12 would be ideal for continuity.
If you had to choose one, I’d say early formative years are best for setting good foundations and habits from the start.
This is super interesting. Didn't know this was a thing. (wish I went here)
Where do these middle schoolers go/ how do they perform when they get placed in (still rather rigid) corporate structures?
Great question. Anecdotally, most students coming out of this middle school are performing above grade average in traditional high schools. Across longitudinal studies, Montessori alumni are found to have higher well being as adults, strong self-operating characteristics and sense of control over their lives, allowing them to be quite successful in a variety of settings whether that be more structured or not.
Wow. Perhaps I should reconsider for my family. Thanks Sam!
Both my kids went to Montessori through some/all of elementary, but we moved them to a more teacher-led environment for middle school, even though their Montessori school continued through middle school, and other Montessori middle school options existed.
I think doing Montessori well beyond 6th grade gets harder, especially in today’s world. And it really depends on the child, too!
1. The skills and experience of the guide matter much more. In the earlier years, the structure of the lessons and materials mean that Montessori teaching is a learnable skill, and the AMI/AMS apprentice-like programs do a good job of creating good teachers. By upper elementary and especially middle school, though, there is much less structured material available. Students’ interests and abilities diverge more. It’s harder to see at a glance what they are doing/if they are being productive. As someone involved in running schools, I’ve seen many more mediocre upper elementary/middle school classrooms for this reason, especially with less-experienced guides who didn’t benefit from apprenticing under a highly skilled old-timer.
2. Who the kid is matters more. I think most kids would benefit from Montessori through 3rd grade, and most kids if started in Montessori at age 3 can be integrated into the Montessori classroom (even if home life isn’t ideal, even if there are some learning disabilities, and even if the lead Montessori teacher is pretty new to his game. By upper elementary, though, it’s easy for kids to fall through the cracks. I saw this with both my kids, who were very different students and who both didn’t have an ideal upper elementary experience. My conscientious daughter did most of the expected work—but never found her passion and thus didn’t have the drive to exhaust everything Montessori had to offer. She did ok on the basics—but I knew she could be challenged more! My dyslexic, high-agency, opinionated son managed, somehow, to spend a half year not doing any math or English; instead doing several year’s worth of science and history. That’s great—but his handwriting was illegible, he couldn’t spell to safe his life, and he never mastered multiplication tables or any step-by-step math problems.
3. The social environment matters more and more. Most Montessori schools become very small by upper elementary or middle school—right at the time when kids need a bigger pool to find “their people.” Now, if parents put in a lot of effort, they can create that bigger group outside of school, but just having 15 kids in a three-year mixed age classroom really limits who a tween can work with. It’s not ideal if you spend 6+ hours a day and you don’t find your people as a tween or young teen! Obviously, if Montessori was a thing, and the schools were bigger, this wouldn’t be an issue, but today it is, at least for many kids. (Some lucky ones find close friendships in these small classrooms, and that’s great for them!)
So my advice to parents is it aim for a good Montessori school through at least 3rd grade—and really think about what type of schooling and social environment your individual child will thrive in after that. It may be Montessori, or it may be something else entirely.
Wow, thanks for sharing this Heike! I'd love to learn more about your experiences working in education. It sounds like we'd have plenty to talk about.
I completely agree that so much of this depends on the individual kid and what they need. A "good" school is only good insofar as it's actually meeting the needs of your child and their potential. And while the Montessori philosophy has its merits, you're right to point out that not all Montessori schools are created equal and depend so heavily on the teachers.
Montessori's research mainly focused on early childhood, where there is a clear structure and set of materials to train teachers on. It seems the variability in quality at the middle and high school levels is partly due to how open-ended the approach becomes, combined with the increasing pressure to conform to traditional education benchmarks (e.g., does this map back to standardized curricula and college admission requirements?).
I have mixed feelings about the small classroom social dynamic. On one hand, a class of 15 can be very small and might not offer enough social opportunities without supplementary extracurriculars. Personally, I would've been fine with this in high school because I was a competitive athlete and had plenty of friendships outside of school. The idea of a microschool would've appealed to me as a calmer, more intentional environment. But again, this all depends on the kid, what they value, and their life outside of school. The head of this Montessori middle school made a great point that the small environment forces students to learn how to get along. In a large school, it's much easier to form cliques and avoid confronting disagreements.
As an aside, I'm a big fan of Michael Strong's The Socratic Experience school (I'm sure you're familiar!) which takes inspiration from Montessori philosophy. It's online but has more structured focus on intellectual debate and communication, and providing value via entrepreneurship e.g. ongoing mentorship around "What do you love? What are you good at? What does the world need?" Speaking with recent alumni of TSE, there's a clear sense of why they signed up for this and where they want to go following graduation.
Yes--let's talk! I'll send you a DM with my Calendly & email :)
I do know about Michael Strong--in fact, I talked to him a couple of months ago for a project I'm working on related to education.
Excited to talk soon, Sam!