Ahem. I spy a latent variable in this correlation. Can you find it?
Hint: Montessori education may or may not have advantages. But unless you control for educational background and income of the family, your analysis has a problem.
This WAS controlled for. Correct analysis WAS done, peer reviewed, and published.
It's a shame this is so highly upvoted. Pointing out that correlation does not equal causation is the very first most obvious criticism to make of a finding, but don't sail in with that criticism until you've made sure that causation wasn't actually suggested by legitimate research.
I am interested in what companies and technologies this leads to because so goes the fate of nations.
What a shame.
The Science paper cited at the bottom of this article found that Montessori kids from one school in Wisconsin had slightly better performance on some kinds of academic tests. The story's "finding" is that Montessori kids are overrepresented amongst the creative/business/economic elite. Clearly, one follows from the other, right?
But yes, let's talk about the up-voting of comments that sound approximately correct, but actually aren't.
See for example statements from the article like "perhaps it’s just a coincidence that Montessori alumni lead two of the world’s most innovative companies...". To which I would say, yes, it almost certainly is coincidence. Look at the (non-Montessori educated) leaders of pretty much every other company in the world as counterexamples.
The description of Jeff Bezos's behaviour makes it sound like he was an exceptional example of children in that system (unless Montessori teachers routinely have to pick kids out of their chairs), so probably not a good example of typical results from that system.
Go into an inner city Los Angeles elementary, and I guarantee you the great majority of parents wont have even heard of the name.
TL;DR: the parents of people who care enough about their education to enroll them in a montessori school, would have probably turned out pretty bright kids regardless.
Really? You think it's just a matter of caring enough to make it so? I think I'd phrase this differently -- that the parents of people who have the means to send them to a montessori school probably would have the means to give them other advantages in life as well, so their kids are probably going to do pretty well regardless.
I disagree with the emphasis on the "means" of the family. Contrast the success of immigrant families who struggle to get an education for a child with the wastrel habits of many "rich kids".
Care is critical. Wealth may be helpful.
> Care is critical. Wealth may be helpful.
Certainly I agree if we're talking about raising a successful child but that wasn't the issue we were discussing. When it comes to sending your kid to private school, I think money usually goes a lot further than care.
Not having the means is an excuse, not a reason.
http://www.montessori-science.org/montessori_science_journal... (click "see article full text")
An excerpt:
On several dimensions, children at a public inner city Montessori school
had superior outcomes relative to a sample of Montessori applicants who,
because of a random lottery, attended other schools. By the end of
kindergarten, the Montessori children performed better on standardized
tests of reading and math, engaged in more positive interaction on
the playground, and showed more advanced social cognition and
executive control.
I think Montessori and Steiner are far more dogmatic than sense dictates - but stay this way, despite the negatives, in order to give their system a magical quality. Determining the quality of a school is hard. So people are willing to cling to a belief because they don't know any better.
Just one example of negative; Montessori doesn't use imaginative play. It's been shown to be a great tool to give kids better concentration spans. But the writings of Montessori are against it and the dogma has to be followed.
What do you think about this? http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100311190247AA...
If we just looked at all schools like that study did, even with a lottery, we'd probably come to the conclusion that the stodgiest, most regressive kinds of top private schools is the way to go.
*Edit: Read the link more thoroughly. This answer is completely subjective but I can't really believe many people would agree with that characterisation of imaginative play and creativity who weren't rationalising their belief in a particular dogma. It doesn't ring true to me at all.
This is why so many social science results that are "controlled" for various variables actually don't make any sense.
(I walk pass 2 schools on my way to work each day - one Montessori, one not, sometimes around the time where children are dropped off by their parents. Even not knowing anything about the relative merits of the systems, I can easily tell which school I'd want to send my daughter to in a few years time; at the risk of sounding elitist, it's like standing next to the exit of an opera performance vs a soccer stadium).
The Science article is fine for what it is, but it's hardly the evidence that Montessori schools produce disproportionate numbers of billionaires. Based on the data provided, you can't even rule out the possibility that the teachers at the one school in question were just better than average.
To your point though, you could also cite a number of people not educated in Montessori schools who were very creative and achieved big things.
It goes without saying I don't have a citation for that, but based on my personal experience as a child and a parent I strongly believe it be true.