The Montessori Method

Sometimes ideas seem to follow me.  It's like I'm walking down a sidewalk and I look over my shoulder and I see the idea dart behind a tree.  Then I walk a little further, still feeling like I'm being watched, and I zip around to try and catch the stalker off guard.  When lo and behold, I face forward and I see the idea standing right in front of me, staring right at me.  

In this case, the idea that has been shadowing me for years now is the Montessori method.  I didn't realize it was following me until a recent visit to see my nieces in Danville, KY.

My brother asked if I wanted to drop my niece off at school, Danville Montessori school.  I agreed because a friend of mine from Harvard was a headmaster of a Japanese Montessori school.  He piqued my interest in the Montessori method, and I wanted to learn more.

I briefly observed my niece, as she skedaddled out of the car and began her morning routine at the Danville Montessori school.  Back at my brother's house, my sister in law showed me a video from the school's facebook page.

In the video, a boy - who could not have been more than six years old - rattled off answers to very complex mathematical questions.  The teacher asked the boy, "What is the square root of four?" 

"Two."

"What is the square root of 16?"

"Four."

On and on this went, until the teacher asked the boy, "How do you know this?"  The boy replied, "I've done it," as if he were a Mayan inventing mathematical concepts for the first time in human history.

When I returned home to Chicago, I picked up a book that had been collecting dust on my shelf for quite some time: Montessori.  A Modern Approach.  There are two important ideas from the book that I have spent a great deal of time thinking about.

First, Montessori believed that children have a natural curiosity to solve puzzles and require no incentive for doing so.  In fact, a child can be so insulted by the mere presentation of an incentive that the child averts tasks with incentives.  The author of the book cites research from H.F. Harlow, who found, "...In three separate studies...monkeys can and do learn to work puzzles when no motivation has been offered other the presentation of the puzzle itself."  The point here being that if monkey's natural drive is to solve puzzles, then surely it is a homo sapient tendency even more so.

Secondly, I have spent a lot of time thinking about Montessori's idea of 'control for error materials'.  This is a fancy term for educational materials that are error proof by design.  In other words, there is only one way to use the materials correctly.  For instance, think of the popular child's toy with a wooden platform with holes punched in the shape of a star, a circle, and a rectangle.  The toy comes with wooden cut outs of the shapes, and there is only one correct way to place the shapes in the cut out holes.  According to Montessori, most educational materials should be designed in this manner, so a child can work on the puzzle without having to stop and ask the teacher, "Did I do this correctly?"

These two ideas have already impacted my philosophy of educational best practices, and I'm finding myself wondering how I use these ideas in a more tangible way.  I can't rightly say to teachers I supervise, "Your lesson should include more control for error tasks."  I would get a blank stare.

I'm not looking to become a Montessori teacher or principal, but I am looking to use what I know about best practices to train my staff.  Montessori gurus, please respond with ideas.

Lillard, P. P. (1972). Montessori, a modern approach. New York: Schocken Books.