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The children in our schools are free, but that does not mean there is no organization. Organization, in fact is necessary … if the children are to be free to work.
Maria Montessori

Research & Articles

Preparing Children Today for the World of Tomorrow

Try to imagine what the world will look like 20 years from now.  What sorts of jobs are going to be available?  What skills will be needed?  That is the world that we are preparing our children for today.  This is why the Montessori approach is so important in the modern world.  The goal of the Montessori method of education is to allow children to construct themselves as adaptable, educated, responsible, independent, and conscientious adults.

Famous Montessorians

The Montessori approach prepares children to succeed and prosper no matter what path they choose for themselves.  Montessorians include people from all walks of life, from CEOs to homemakers, from artists to engineers.  However, Montessori kids make up such a large percentage of the top levels of business and the arts, some people joke about a “Montessori Mafia”.  There is certainly something about the Montessori approach that allows children to construct themselves as highly creative adults.  Here are just a few of the well-known Montessori alumni who credit their early education for their success: 

  • Larry Page and Sergey Brin - Google Founders
    "I think it was part of that training of not following rules and orders, and being self motivated, questioning what's going on in the world and doing things a little bit differently," says Page, who's now CEO of Google.
  • Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs - Rapper and Producer
    "The Montessori educational approach might be the surest route to joining the creative elite, which are so overrepresented by the school’s alumni that one might suspect a Montessori Mafia," writes The Wall Street Journal, which names Combs as part of this talented gang. "Is there something going on here? Is there something about the Montessori approach that nurtures creativity and inventiveness that we can all learn from?"
  • Dakota Fanning - Actress
    "I learned to read at two," she told About.com. "I was in a Montessori school and they teach you to read really, really young."
  • Julia Child - Chef and Author
    In her book "Julia Child and Company," Ms. Child says that Montessori learning taught her to love working with her hands.
  • Will Wright - Video Game Pioneer
    “Montessori taught me the joy of discovery," Mr. Wright told The Wall Street Journal. "It showed you can become interested in pretty complex theories, like Pythagorean theory, say, by playing with blocks. It’s all about learning on your terms, rather than a teacher explaining stuff to you. SimCity comes right out of Montessori."
  • Jimmy Wales - Founder of Wikipedia
    "As a child, Wales was a keen reader with an acute intellectual curiosity and, in what he credits to the influence of the Montessori method on the school’s philosophy of education, 'spent lots of hours pouring [sic] over the Britannicas and World Book Encyclopedias,' " says Mr. Wales' own Wikipedia entry.
  • Gabriel Garcia Marquez - Nobel Prize Winner for Literature
    Many Montessori websites quote the Nobel prize winner as saying, “I do not believe there is a method better than Montessori for making children sensitive to the beauties of the world and awakening their curiosity regarding the secrets of life.”
  • Jeff Bezos - Amazon.com Founder and CEO
    "Mr. Bezos often compares Amazon’s strategy of developing ideas in new markets to 'planting seeds' or 'going down blind alleys,' " writes The Wall Street Journal. "Amazon’s executives learn and uncover opportunities as they go. Many efforts turn out to be dead ends, Mr. Bezos has said, 'But every once in awhile, you go down an alley and it opens up into this huge, broad avenue.' "
  • Anne Frank - Diarist
    Anne Frank went to a Montessori school while living in Amsterdam.

Research

The evidence for the Montessori advantage is not purely anecdotal.  There is also research-based evidence that the Montessori method results in improved outcomes, especially in terms of intrinsic motivation and achievement on standardised tests.

Outcomes for Students in a Montessori Program: A Longitudinal Study of the Experience in the Milwaukee Public Schools

“This study supports the hypothesis that Montessori education has a positive long-term impact. Additionally, it provides an affirmative answer to questions about whether Montessori students will be successful in traditional schools.”

“A significant finding in this study is the association between a Montessori education and superior performance on the Math and Science scales of the ACT and WKCE. In essence, attending a Montessori program from the approximate ages of three to eleven predicts significantly higher mathematics and science standardized test scores in high school.”

Read the entire article here…

Interventions Shown to Aid Executive Function Development in Children 4 to 12 Years Old.

“Children chosen by lottery to enter a Montessori public school approved by the Association Montessori Internationale (AMI) were compared to those also in the lottery but not chosen, at the end of kindergarten (age 5) and the end of grade 6 (age 12) (41). At age 5, Montessori children showed better [executive functions] than peers attending other schools. They performed better in reading and math and showed more concern for fairness and justice. No group difference was found in delay of gratification. At age 12, on the only measure related to Executive Functions, Montessori children showed more creativity in essay writing than controls. They also reported feeling more of a sense of community at school.”

Read the entire article here…

A Comparison of Montessori and Traditional Middle Schools: Motivation, Quality of Experience, and Social Context

With the help of co-investigator Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Dr. Rathunde compared the experiences and perceptions of middle school students in Montessori and traditional schools using the Experience Sampling Method (ESM). Montessori students reported a significantly better quality of experience in their academic work than did traditional students. In addition, Montessori students perceived their schools as a more positive community for learning, with more opportunities for active, rather than passive, learning.

Read the entire article here…