Comment by lz400 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by lz400 | Hacker News Reader

I want to offer a different data point. I took my daughter to a Montessori-adjacent school for 3 years. It's not Montessori exactly and they didn't advertise as such but they had a different European name attached to it that is downstream from Montessori. They had multi-age education, stressed in children directed learning and individual growth, they didn't have exams, etc.

I changed my daughter this year and overall I'm disappointed in that school. There were many issues but the most important ones to me where:

- No exams, only individual growth meant there's no guarantee the kid is learning at a good pace. When I worked with her at home I could easily identify many gaps and deficiencies. She's now struggling a bit in her new school because of this but I think it will resolve soon.

- Because they didn't like comparing kids to standards or among each other the feedback I received was useless. It was always "she's doing excellent, we see strong growth" but it wasn't true.

- The school rejected most parent feedback and issues raised with something "maybe this style of education is not for you". For example, I know of a few other kids that had to leave because the school didn't take action against bullying because they didn't believe in punishments, etc.

I have to say there were good things too, in particular my daughter really enjoyed it there and formed strong bonds with other kids. I think in general it was ok for elementary education but I strongly think it's not after that and I now have a perhaps unjust bias against Montessori and derivatives.

No exams, only individual growth meant there's no guarantee the kid is learning at a good pace.

that's not true. it is possible to notice if a kid is learning at a good pace without exams. that is part of what the montessori method is about.

it sounds like this school just picked the things they liked but did not understand the point. the core of the montessori method is intensive observation, to understand what the children need and how they can thrive. it looks like this didn't happen in your daugthers school.

There is definitely a survivor bias. It probably works well for those kids who make it through. The kids who it isn’t working for, leave and there are so many of them.

I wonder sometimes if that kind of school is only good for the high-strung go-getter child prodigy types because they are so hands off. But the very lack of metrics and standardization that purports to help with that kind of mission unfortunately certainly makes the shopping a lot harder for prospective parents. Similar with other private schools later on. Is it a good academically strong place where kids get pushed and excel later? Or is it a party den where rich kids joke around and snort coke all day? Hard to tell. It also depends on the student and parent body itself. Good luck :-)

Another thing that kind of tempers my opinion of this kind of school is anecdotal, some friends were lamenting that in their otherwise excellent public elementary school in an affluent district, some parents are pulling their kids out of _first grade_ and moving to private school because "there is not enough homework." What a sad image.

I attended Montessori in the 80s up to high school level and was part of a "gifted" group who went on to a public school a couple of years younger than typical. I was completely unprepared for student bullying in HS and the generally harsh attitudes of teachers. Also my learning style had to completely change, and I did not adapt well.

My Montessori persona was to be competitive about "finishing my weeks work first" usually on Monday or Tuesday, so I could enjoy working with other students on their work lists, and getting a crack at the highschool algebra book when the teacher would let our group at it. I had some strengths in English, math and computing, but weaknesses in foreign language and science where there were fewer opportunities for social learning. Obviously there were no opportunities for that in HS.

In addition to terrible grades, the transition to public school completely destroyed my social confidence and I had to stop playing sports due to my small stature. My dad noted this year (in my 40s now) later that I was unrecognisable after just a few months but he lost the argument to pull me out. It wasn't until my late 20s that I started to find my original confidence.

Very interesting story. If I may ask, looking back, do you blame Montessori for the “lack of real world preparation” or do you think rather that it was the regular school that had a bad system and you were in a better one and should have stayed there? If you had stayed there until uni do you think you’d adapted well to higher edu?

I think my Montessori teachers did a great job. I don't have much love for the public school model but I was a special case being put up several grades and not being familiar with that teaching style.

I don't think I would recommend putting an 11 year old into high school early. Better to be an A+ student and have peers your age than take on a heavier burden to scrape through with Cs.

I have some friends who went through the entire steiner school model and they seemed fairly happy well adjusted adults. So I think yeah, if the model is working stick with it until uni.

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