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My son was in a standard non-montessori private kindergarten. Every day we dropped him off he would cry and throw a tantrum, and it would break our hearts, but

• jjeaff 5y ago
  I think yours is a great example of how one size fits all programs are not necessarily what we need. Some children just respond differently to different things.
  • goldenkey 5y ago
    I despise the middle paths fallacy however well intentioned it might be. Traditional education is just shit and evokes a poor response in most of everyone. And alternative methods are better, even for those who can tolerate the former. In this case there isn't an equivocal middle ground. Anyone who attended public schooling can tell you that our K-12 education system is a dumpster fire.
    • eru 5y ago
      Totally depends on where you are. Eg from what I can tell, traditional German Kindergartens are just fine and most kids love them. (German schools are a different beast.)
      • Moru 5y ago
        In Germany there is a big after school business with homework help that parents have to pay. There are old disilusioned teachers that has quit school and started homework help instead, making more money and actually helping the kids. Sweden is also getting worse, we have some weird idea that everyone should be in the normal classes, even the ones with different diagnoses. "Everyone should feel included". This leads to a lot of youth not able to get anything done in school and having to get help after school to keep up. Some of them get aggressive because of their ADHD and disturbs the rest of the class. And the grading system has apparently completely broken down. Now the kids in 7'th grade gets judged towards the goals for 9'th grade. So someone that feels they are doing great in 7'th grade gets an E (F is worst) because they didn't get to learn what they are supposed to learn in 9'th grade. How are they supposed to know if they are doing well or not?
        • estaseuropano 5y ago
          This is utter nonsense. Yes there are homework help businesses (and NGOs, council-run offers, etc) in Germany or Sweden but this is a fringe business and the vast majority of students never use it. If you have evidence for the contrary please provide it. Its not like e.g. Korea where this is basically obligatory to use.
          • Moru 5y ago
            "Utter nonsens" is such a non-startar in conversations you know... My "proof" is that everyone I know in Germany has been forced to change their kids school or use homework help or other way of paying for help in school because the parents either aren't educated enough to help by themselves or just don't have the time to help them due to working two jobs to keep up. This is ofcourse in a small area in Germany but it is one of the densest populated. When walking in the streets I see homework business in the former shopping windows even in tiny towns. And they are visibly used by youth. I also had a hard time believing this about Germany when I first started hearing about it 20 years ago but I have met so many parents that repeat the same thing and it hasn't changed a bit. No wonder Montessori and Waldorf schools are so popular there. In Sweden the homework help is part of school. Our kids school has four different homework help after school that is run either by state/school or teacher students as a project. On top of that comes extra teachers for the kids with diagnoses. They always follow the student around to classes and help out where the teacher isn't enough.
    • watwut 5y ago
      This is just not true. Even in the original story, the boy who cried every day was outlier. It was not story about most of the kids being super scared.
    • koide 5y ago
      The fact your K12 system is a dumpster fire, doesn't mean that there is a single way to educate all children which is the best for all and where all will thrive. The method needs to incorporate the differences between the children and that's hard to do in large groups.
    • chrisweekly 5y ago
      "Anyone who attended public schooling can tell you that our K-12 education system is a dumpster fire." My experience (public schools in Arlington, MA, class of 92) paints a different picture; I feel I received an excellent education. And though I put my teenage daughters in Montessori kindergarten (a fantastic experience that I believe continues to benefit them today), their public school education in Duxbury, MA has also been very good.
      • skadamat 5y ago
        This is so timely -- Arlington is on our short list of cities to move to within Boston and we've heard the exact same thing about the schools.
        • chrisweekly 5y ago
          Cool. Feel free to DM me if you have questions about the Boston area. (Contact info's in my HN profile; I saw you're into dataviz and would be stoked to connect on twitter if you like.)
          • skadamat 5y ago
            Followed you on Twitter, but can't seem to DM hmm!
      • ryandrake 5y ago
        Same. I grew up in suburban-to-rural Pennsylvania, and I think my K-12 schooling was excellent, with the possible exception of year-12 calculus, where our teacher just didn't seem that knowledgeable. Consequently I had to re-take a year of college calculus, not a huge deal. In my view, the worst thing about public education in the US is how inconsistent quality is from district to district. One public district can be excellent, well-funded, full of great teachers, while the district in the next county over is a dumpster fire. I've got a kid now so we played this game when deciding where to move. I could move to one street, which is in a great quality School District, or I can save $300K and move one block to the west, where gangs run the high school and your kid will not learn multiplication. This is a result on the US's obsession with micro-local control (and funding) of education.
    • cafard 5y ago
      There is no "our K-12 education system" for any "our" comprising more than one school district. In states where the school district goes by county or county equivalent (Maryland, Virginia, and Colorado come to mind), a school district is likely to have three education systems: one for the poor, one from the less poor, one for the upper middle class.
• eru 5y ago
  > My son was in a standard non-montessori private kindergarten. What counts as 'standard' is wildly different around the world. Where are you based? Eg 'standard' Kindergartens in Germany are fairly relaxed. In contrast, Kindergartens in Singapore are much more regulated. So much that even their ostensibly Montessori or Waldorf branded ones are much stricter and less play based than German 'standard' Kindergartens.
  • kubb 5y ago
    he's in the US, you know that by the fact that he didn't mention it. people from anywhere else would have
  • nouveaux 5y ago
    "What counts as 'standard' is wildly different around the world." I would give GP the benefit of the doubt here as he's referring to a more "traditional" education when compared to something like Montessori, Waldorf, Outdoor School, etc. My only experience is with schools in Taiwan, Japan, Korea and US. While these countries do have big differences, they can still be categorized together when compared to something like Montessori. To compare and contrast between the two categories, testing does not usually happen in Montessori schools and I would consider testing a core part of traditional education.
• jbaiter 5y ago
  Have a similar (n=1, usual caveats apply) experience with one of my partner's nephews. Incredible kid, very creative, very excited about all kinds of things. Then he gets enrolled in primary school, within 3 months all the joy is sucked out of this kid, loathes going to school, doing homework is a daily struggle. His parents moved him to a Waldorf/Rudolf Steiner school for the next year, and within a few months the old personality is back, excited to go to school, etc. Two years in, he's among the best in his class according to his teachers, has become class president, etc. Now, I'm not a huge fan of the whole Waldorf/Steiner anthroposophy shtick, but the results in this individual case have me convinced that their approach has some merit.
  • bawolff 5y ago
    > Then he gets enrolled in primary school, within 3 months all the joy is sucked out of this kid, loathes going to school, doing homework is a daily struggle Kids have homework in their first year of primary school???
    • dEnigma 5y ago
      Yes, same here in Austria (if that isn't were OP is based). I would imagine it's the same in Germany, since the school system is quite similar. Of course it's possible that some schools handle it differently, but this is the "standard" way as far as I am aware.
      • em500 5y ago
        AFAIK none of the primary schools here in the Netherlands give kids any homework until the last 2 or 3 years of primary school, when the kids are 9 or 10 at least.
        • fgeiger 5y ago
          Don't forget that primary school starts later in Germany than in the Netherlands where children go to primary school from the day of their fourth birthday. In contrast, German primary school starts around the age of 6 (not exactly because all children regardless of birth date start in summer). That means that the two to three years of primary school without homework mostly equate with the last two years of kindergarten in Germany (which obviously also do not assign any homework)
• sunsetonsaturn 5y ago
  I had a similar experience as a child. I cried every day morning before school. This continued until I was switched to another school. Both schools were regular ones, and in both cases - there wasn't any bullying. I don't remember what the problem was, but the fact is that going to a different place had a great effect. In your particular case, it could be the change itself that had an impact, rather than the "Montessorinness" of the new school. Also, consider the Hawthorne effect - it could also explain the situation. Looking back at those times, 30 years ago, I really cannot tell why I didn't feel well in the environment managed by with my first primary school teacher. She was a decent lady, she treated her pupils with respect and never shouted at us, or anything of that sort.
  • otippat 5y ago
    Hm, if you don't remember the problem causing the switch, how do you know it was the switch itself that improved the situation?
    • tomaskafka 5y ago
      I wish no one would doubt children intuition about people and environment they are in ever again. Naming the 'why' behind the emotions is a job for 12+ year old, not for the kindergartener.
      • couchand 5y ago
        Most adults can't even do it reliably. The things we expect from kids that we don't even ask of ourselves....
      • margalabargala 5y ago
        The developing brain of a child may be experiencing the emotions associated with having a negative intuition, without having any of the negative stimulus that normally causes negative intuition about something. An important part of the human developmental process is learning to calibrate these sorts of things, and one way to calibrate one's reactions is to have adults check whether the child's intuition about something was correct or not. There can be some cases e.g. hidden abuse where the adult thinks the child may be being unreasonable where they are not, but in situations where the child and adult have equal information it's a valuable learning tool.
• deleted 5y ago
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• hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
  I had a similar case but the change was just between one normal kindergarten and another. It turned out the biggest difference was in people, not really the method. YMMV.
• epolanski 5y ago
  My ex had entire elementary in montessorri school and she had fond memories. she was also brilliant.