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Montessori vs. The Conventional Model Anyone who has seen a Montessori school understands that it is fundamentally, startlingly different from a conventional education. While students complete their experience at a Montessori school with similar academic abilities as their counterparts in conventional schools, they go about these acquisitions in a completely different way. A Montessori education is, at its core, a child-centered education. This does not mean that children do whatever they want while they are at school. It means that the approach assumes that the child is an active agent in their educational experience, and that they will construct themselves, given the right structure, guidance, and materials in their environment. The formal schooling that is familiar to American culture today originated hundreds of years ago in monasteries. It further solidified its methodology in the late 1800s and early 1900s when industrialization was introduced to the United States, and schools began to depend upon the “factory model” to produce good workers en masse. Since then, study after study in the field of child development has confirmed that this is not the ideal way for children to learn. Yet, when universities, schools, and lawmakers propose improvements to the educational system, they simply add on to a system that is already not working well, by (for example) increasing testing, making rewards even more compelling, and dividing children into even more pronounced groups by ability and age. Where Do We Go From Here? In Dr. Angeline Lillard’s new article, Why the time is ripe for an education revolution , which was published in Frontiers in Developmental Psychology, she argues that this is a cultural moment when the educational system ready for a paradigm shift - one that would move away from a fundamentally teacher-text-centered (TTC) base and towards child-environment-interplay (CEI), which recognizes that “A child develops into an adult by constructing an elaborate representation of self and world, and learning to interact with and exercise agency in that world. This development occurs in a dynamical, non-linear fashion across childhood” (Lillard, 2). The CEI model is supported by modern research and is an ideal fit with Montessori. Lillard supports her argument by comparing today’s cultural climate to the factors at play in the 1500s when astronomers moved away from an earth-centered view of the universe to a helio-centered view of the universe. While there were recognized flaws in the previous understanding of the universe, it wasn’t until certain cultural elements were present in the 1500s that civilization as a whole was ready to transition to the realization that the sun was at the center of the universe. Just as in education, simply knowing that something isn’t working often isn’t enough. Human nature is compelled to continue to make adjustments and explanations for what already exists rather than leaping to a brand new perspective. As it was 500 years ago, Lillard believes that the world is ready to make the leap to a new approach to schools. The time is ripe for an education revolution. And Montessori is ready for it.

In a previous blog post, A Montessori Guide to Technology and Teens , we explored how we can help our adolescents begin to use technology responsibly, as part of adapting to the adult world. Here we will discuss a Montessori perspective on the role of technology and screen time for younger children, under age twelve. What’s the Big Deal? These days, messages from marketers are strongly pro-technology for children, and even some educators are strongly pro-technology. Everyone has their own experiences to base their judgments on; if you’ve seen negative results in your own family, you might look to the current research to validate your sense that technology is not a good fit for childhood. Conversely, if you’ve had positive or neutral experiences with your children using technology, then you probably think people are going bananas over something minor. Either way, most parents don’t have the time to conduct a thorough Ph.D.-level investigation before deciding whether their child can have that video game or the latest digital device they just opened under their grandparent’s Christmas tree this year. So, what are we to think about this debate over technology for children, and what do we want to steer our children towards in our own homes? When we look at this issue from the perspective of a Montessori approach, we consider: what children need for optimal development, the importance for a child of building their foundation for life, preparing your home environment, basing your decisions on observations, and keeping your long-term goals in mind. What Children Need for Optimal Development Dr. Montessori pointed out that under the age of six, children need reality so that they can form their understanding of it. They need to touch, feel, taste, smell, move and experience the real world. Human beings are sensorial learners when young. From their sensorial explorations, young children learn things about physics, textures, and qualities of the world. Consider that no screen can provide this information in a natural or full-sensory way. Children need to discover for themselves what kind of structures collapse under pressure and which ones don’t, and to figure out why by exploring and experimenting. To be effective, this has to happen in reality, not virtually.

As devices such as laptops, smartphones, and tablets become more prevalent in our lives, parents can look to Montessori for guidance on how to handle technology and teens.

Learning Emotional Balance Through Montessori: How We Steel Our Children Against the “Superkid” Perils When I read the New York Times Article in July, 2015 by Frank Bruni, “ Today’s Exhausted Superkids ,” and “ The Silicon Valley Suicides: Why Are So Many Kids Killing Themselves in Palo Alto? ” by Hanna Rosin in The Atlantic in December, 2015, I was deeply saddened that more parents don’t know about the benefits of taking a Montessori approach to learning emotional balance at school and at home. You may have read these or other articles about teens struggling to balance themselves when pushed to excel. Too many have tried to escape what feels like suffocating pressure from their parents and high-achieving communities with drugs and even suicide. Although the issues in each case are complicated, such articles remind us to keep what is most important in the forefront of our minds as parents. At Forest Bluff School, we continually find wise guidance in the Montessori approach to learning emotional balance, which emphasizes healthy self-governance in action as well as thought . What I see in the described stories are problems that stem from adults—perhaps unconsciously—trying to run young people’s lives for them. In contrast, our students at Forest Bluff learn from an early age that they are in charge of themselves. While making numerous choices throughout the day and deciding what work they are going to do next, our children learn to take their feelings and energy level into account. For instance, when a student has been working hard on editing his research paper for an hour with his teacher and practicing presenting it for another hour with classmates, he will usually choose to spend some time drawing the cover while in easy conversation with a friend or by himself in a reflective manner near a window. Because the teacher does not interfere with such decisions, healthy personal habits develop.

Forest Bluff School in Lake Bluff, IL, explains how Primary and Young Children's Community students build independence during the first plane of Montessori development.