Day 80 (of 2024/25) happy anniversary #montessori
https://apple.news/AiC2k-wSrTWWiIwSsH71Sfw
This first week of 2025 also connects with the birthday of one of the great education thinkers… schools (especially preschools) continue to use her name to market her philosophy ~ even if they don’t actually authentically follow her approaches, because it isn’t as easy to visualize or trust as an assembly line and standardized test.
But the Smithsonian article does a great job unpacking her approach… stimulating activities instead of solely rote memorization and academic drills.
Always a fun staffroom discussion topic…people get mad!
What I love: her idea about encouraging curiosity
What I don’t: how some products are branded with her name as ‘the only way to be montessorian’. Yes she created some building blocks, but it’s not like that was to be the only materials forever and ever.
Fun fact: I came in second to go through Montessori training to run an intermediate Montessori classroom initiative – so instead I got to focus on the philosophy blended with tech… a great hybrid!
She focused on special trading for those working with learners with special needs – but these work for all… just because someone can perform well on a memory test doesn’t mean they should…
And crazy that they ‘auto-education’ led to reading and writing without Science of Reading lessons! I tease because while Montessori focused on intrinsic, independent work, teachers could facilitate skills… what Piaget episode;d later call the ‘zone of proximal development’ but not good for goals/declarations that start “by grade x all students will ___”
Free choice
Open space
Special materials
mixed age classes
uninterrupted blocks
No grades]no homework
Trained teachers.
Her work heavily influenced what I have seen become ‘project based learning’ and initiatives like ‘geniushour’.
Sigh so much great thinking in the early 1900s ~ See also John Dewey whose ideas and quotes still seem progressive…
Be more Montessori!
Technolandy 
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