4 ms·

I went to a Montessori School from k-8 then switched into a fairly fast paced public school district for high school. I absolutely loved Montessori, and feel ve

I went to a Montessori School from k-8 then switched into a fairly fast paced public school district for high school. I absolutely loved Montessori, and feel very lucky that I had the opportunity to attend. I felt a lot of ownership/independence about my learning from a young age, and it really supported my curiosity about the world. Interactions with teachers felt like collaboration, not being told what to do, so I felt trusted and it felt very safe to make mistakes and learn. There was no homework, which meant the school day had lots of time built in to work on assignments and move around, which I didn’t realize how much I appreciated until I got to high school and was sitting at a desk all day with hours of homework every night. There were lots of opportunities to learn from people who were really excited to teach what they were teaching. We got to do lots of weird science experiments, big class projects, woodworking, learning about ancient history, several different languages, lots of different instruments... the list goes on. There were two notable challenges for me, though not everyone in my class experienced these. Some of it will also be limited if you only have them there through 6th grade. The first was figuring out how to socially transition from a small private school that effectively functioned like a big family, to a large public school. I didn’t really learn how to meet people being at the same small school for so long, and the culture shock of leaving of leaving Montessori was pretty bad. (Both with the way people my age approached learning and the way the public school system operated, i.e. everything is for a grade nothing else matters). The second is because of some combination of the curiosity driven learning and the particular sequence of teachers I had, I managed to avoid getting a good foundation in algebra because I didn’t really feel like it. This turned out to be a big problem for me for many years, partially because no one realized so I kept being put in higher math classes, doing well through brute force, and being very frustrated and confused about all of it. I’m now getting an advanced degree in math, so everything worked itself out, but I do think math specifically wants a little more structure at those early steps than what I got. Overall it was still absolutely worth it for me. Sometimes I wonder who I would be now if my curiosity hadn’t been so strongly reinforced when I was young. Happy to answer any specific questions! Hope this helps.

boringg 4y ago
Thanks for sharing - glad to hear you managed to get through your lower level algebraic struggles! That's a tough thing to have to fix. One of the things you mentioned (and i've seen in many comments) is the transition from Montessori to another system (an aside: usually while implying saying how poor the structure/goals of the other system is). My product development part of my brain points to this as as systemic problem that could try to be addressed by the school/parents - though that is such a holistic change that the best you could do is minimize impacts but maybe that should be considered. The other part is that it seems that most people have very positive memories of their Montessori days. As I see it the big family, highly personalized, explore at your own pace, keep children curious, unstructured but guided combination is very attractive but the concern is really that transition after the fact to a larger more structured institution & smaller amount of emphasis on athletics are the sticky points. Without going into a larger debate about education - I kind of wish the state system was less results oriented and exploratory in the early years for all children and then the program changed as they got older. I recognize there are inherent challenges. I'm curious if the two challenges that you had (which would probably be different challenges for other children) could have been identified at an early time and given some support - or if you think that struggling through both of them help develop your internal strength without sacrificing too much?
- gabcbrown 4y ago
  I definitely think that these two things could have been identified and supported. It’s actually very interesting reading the comments here that they are pretty common experiences, and structurally that makes sense to me. I’m not sure these two things helped me develop “internal strength” as much as being supported in lots of other ways counterbalanced it. The math learning was fine for me until about 7th grade, so you might not even encounter this. If you’re mathematically inclined and and have the resources to support, I think it’s fairly straightforward to keep an eye on how math is progressing and boost. My parents did identify that I wasn’t prepared for high school math, but didn’t follow through in ways that actually fixed the situation. They both went through pretty rigorous traditional math education, and so probably didn’t even realize this was something that could slip through. I probably would have been back on track with either of my of them sitting down to teach me algebra, or an after school program, or such. Instead what happened is I was handed an algebra textbook to work through over the summer, which honestly I half succeeded at after being in Montessori for so long, but I really needed more guidance/pacing/accountability. It kind of sucked going through high school and early college math without that foundation, I’m not sure I learned much from that struggle other than the usual “I must be naturally bad at math”. The social transition is a harder one, and bound to happen given how differently Montessori and the generals public school system operates. I echo what the other people here are saying of making sure your kids get to socialize outside of the Montessori environment, especially practicing meeting new peers. Many of my classmates had a hard time at first and then figured it out, it took me a bit longer. I am grateful though that I managed to hold onto the “weirdness” of being curious and passionate about learning, even if it made high school hard at times. I also don’t think being excited about learning and being well socialized are mutually exclusive! Generally my friends who did better transitioning had more social parents to model off of, or other previously Montessori students at their high school. Something that probably would have helped me is staying in regular contact with the people I went to Montessori with. Then we could navigate the change it together, even if we were all at different schools, and the social switch over wouldn’t have been so total and isolating. My younger sister had a few friends switch to the same high school together and they adapted much much faster. I wonder if parents/kids of parents who move around a lot have any advice on this?
jkestner 4y ago
I feel you on the challenges. I had the same culture shock going to high school, even though it was only a smallish Catholic school. Learning how to work within a system is a critical skill! On math, my early elementary teacher and my father (also a teacher) combined Montessori math, which spoke to (or influenced) my visual/tangible style of thinking, and lots of classic drills to internalize math facts. Or maybe it worked out in contrast to your experience because something clicked and I loved learning math early. (High school beat that out of me.)
- gabcbrown 4y ago
  It took me a few tries to learn that lesson! I feel pretty lucky that I finally found math that I enjoyed and made sense after hating it for so long. I didn’t do a ton of memorization/drilling and I never really got into the world of fun math puzzles, so in high school I was both underprepared and never got to do the cool stuff. It’s much easier to convince myself as an adult that fluency in algebraic computation is useful because I now have examples that I care about being able to work through.

boringg 4y ago

Thanks for sharing - glad to hear you managed to get through your lower level algebraic struggles! That's a tough thing to have to fix. One of the things you mentioned (and i've seen in many comments) is the transition from Montessori to another system (an aside: usually while implying saying how poor the structure/goals of the other system is). My product development part of my brain points to this as as systemic problem that could try to be addressed by the school/parents - though that is such a holistic change that the best you could do is minimize impacts but maybe that should be considered. The other part is that it seems that most people have very positive memories of their Montessori days. As I see it the big family, highly personalized, explore at your own pace, keep children curious, unstructured but guided combination is very attractive but the concern is really that transition after the fact to a larger more structured institution & smaller amount of emphasis on athletics are the sticky points. Without going into a larger debate about education - I kind of wish the state system was less results oriented and exploratory in the early years for all children and then the program changed as they got older. I recognize there are inherent challenges. I'm curious if the two challenges that you had (which would probably be different challenges for other children) could have been identified at an early time and given some support - or if you think that struggling through both of them help develop your internal strength without sacrificing too much?

gabcbrown 4y ago
I definitely think that these two things could have been identified and supported. It’s actually very interesting reading the comments here that they are pretty common experiences, and structurally that makes sense to me. I’m not sure these two things helped me develop “internal strength” as much as being supported in lots of other ways counterbalanced it. The math learning was fine for me until about 7th grade, so you might not even encounter this. If you’re mathematically inclined and and have the resources to support, I think it’s fairly straightforward to keep an eye on how math is progressing and boost. My parents did identify that I wasn’t prepared for high school math, but didn’t follow through in ways that actually fixed the situation. They both went through pretty rigorous traditional math education, and so probably didn’t even realize this was something that could slip through. I probably would have been back on track with either of my of them sitting down to teach me algebra, or an after school program, or such. Instead what happened is I was handed an algebra textbook to work through over the summer, which honestly I half succeeded at after being in Montessori for so long, but I really needed more guidance/pacing/accountability. It kind of sucked going through high school and early college math without that foundation, I’m not sure I learned much from that struggle other than the usual “I must be naturally bad at math”. The social transition is a harder one, and bound to happen given how differently Montessori and the generals public school system operates. I echo what the other people here are saying of making sure your kids get to socialize outside of the Montessori environment, especially practicing meeting new peers. Many of my classmates had a hard time at first and then figured it out, it took me a bit longer. I am grateful though that I managed to hold onto the “weirdness” of being curious and passionate about learning, even if it made high school hard at times. I also don’t think being excited about learning and being well socialized are mutually exclusive! Generally my friends who did better transitioning had more social parents to model off of, or other previously Montessori students at their high school. Something that probably would have helped me is staying in regular contact with the people I went to Montessori with. Then we could navigate the change it together, even if we were all at different schools, and the social switch over wouldn’t have been so total and isolating. My younger sister had a few friends switch to the same high school together and they adapted much much faster. I wonder if parents/kids of parents who move around a lot have any advice on this?

jkestner 4y ago

I feel you on the challenges. I had the same culture shock going to high school, even though it was only a smallish Catholic school. Learning how to work within a system is a critical skill! On math, my early elementary teacher and my father (also a teacher) combined Montessori math, which spoke to (or influenced) my visual/tangible style of thinking, and lots of classic drills to internalize math facts. Or maybe it worked out in contrast to your experience because something clicked and I loved learning math early. (High school beat that out of me.)

gabcbrown 4y ago
It took me a few tries to learn that lesson! I feel pretty lucky that I finally found math that I enjoyed and made sense after hating it for so long. I didn’t do a ton of memorization/drilling and I never really got into the world of fun math puzzles, so in high school I was both underprepared and never got to do the cool stuff. It’s much easier to convince myself as an adult that fluency in algebraic computation is useful because I now have examples that I care about being able to work through.