Time for Change
Out with the old, in with the new!
But what if the solution we need for education has been around for nearly 100 years? Does an idea have to be new to be innovative?
I think Montessori schools are proof that an idea that has been around for nearly 100 years can still be innovative. On the Education Innovators Podcast, I had the chance to talk with Barbara Tsui, a Montessori teach and founder of a Montessori school. I also visited her school, Rainbow Tree Children Education, here in Hong Kong to observe the Montessori principles put into action.
Montessori is the most commonly adopted alternative to traditional education, yet its impact is almost insignificant. There are an estimated 5.5m schools in the world, and only about 15,000 operate as Montessori schools.
Dr. Maria Montessori
On the podcast, I described Montessori as disruption in slow motion. From my research, those 15,000 Montessori schools are operating in 59 countries. Dr. Maria Montessori developed the approach and began teaching others to use it around 1929.? Based on experiential learning, the approach allows children to explore their own interests and learn at their own pace.
"My vision of the future is no longer of people taking exams and proceeding on that certification... but of individuals passing from one stage of independence to a higher, by means of their own activity, through their own effort of will, which constitutes the inner evolution of the individual." – Dr Maria Montessori
In my pursuit of finding innovation in education, I’ve come across some pretty radical ideas, but honestly, many are not nearly as radical as the Montessori approach and none are as time tested.
So, if the Montessori system works, why hasn’t it exploded across the globe and replaced traditional schools? Let’s take a closer look at the principles and I’ll offer my thoughts on why the disruption is so slow.
Freedom to choose
A core principle of the Montessori approach is giving children freedom of choice. Teachers don’t tell the students what to learn or when to study or how much time to spend on a topic or problem. They setup the environment with appropriate materials and allow the students to discover and learn at their own pace. A “Montessori Trained Adult” observes the students and continually adjusts the environment to keep them challenged and engaged in learning. There are no exams and no grades given.
Montessori also embraces hands-on learning, respect, and imagination as core principles. The only rules are you can’t do anything that could harm you, others, or the environment (things). To balance the emphasis on freedom of choice and independence, Maria once said,
“Freedom without boundaries is abandonment”.
Montessori is not about letting kids do whatever they want. It is about creating an environment where the children want to learn. In a controlled environment, all of their available choices are positive. Barbara Tsui believes that when we nurture children with love, respect and trust, the children will blossom beyond adults’ expectations.
I believe the freedom to discover for themselves and to learn and grow at their own pace is the “special sauce” that makes Montessori successful as a learning environment for children. At the same time, it is the lack of structured curriculum and grades that makes it hard for those outside the system to evaluate how successful it is.
Disruption in Thailand
Thailand is an interesting case study. There are over 1,000 Montessori schools in this small country. In 2004 Thailand began integrating the Montessori system into public schools. While public Montessori schools’ academic performance is not as high as private Montessori schools, they have demonstrated that public Montessori schools outperform traditional public schools. There were some compromises made in the integration with public schools in order to meet state exam requirements and regulations.
I also found a paper that went through hundreds of reports and distilled the data down to 32 reports that were considered worthy of inclusion. The authors concluded that Montessori students outperformed students from traditional schools in academics, and they also achieved better outcomes in non-academic performance including executive function, creativity, and social-emotional wellbeing.
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So, why hasn’t Montessori education replaced traditional education on a wider scale?
I suspect some factors are relatively obvious.
Some other factors that likely come into play include:
Things won’t change significantly until the pain of continuing with traditional education becomes too great to ignore. For a growing segment of the population, that threshold of pain may have already been exceeded. They are looking for alternatives. There is great concern about student wellbeing, the impact of social media and now, the impact of AI on learning. I think a perfect storm is brewing post pandemic and there’s a window of opportunity for solutions like Montessori, maybe with some high-tech enhancements, like Nolan Bushnell and Dr Leah Hanes proposed in their book “Shaping the Future of Education – The ExoDexa Manifesto”.
References:
Montessori education's impact on academic and non-academic outcomes: A systematic review
How many schools are there in the world?
Rainbow Tree Children Education
AMI – Association Montessori Internationale
“Shaping the Future of Education: The ExoDexa Manifesto” by Nolan Bushnell and Dr Leah Hanes
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