[lotsofpulp]

Is “Montessori” sufficiently defined?

I compared Montessori and non Montessori labeled daycares/preschools for my 3 and 4 year olds, and was unable to discern a meaningful difference in the course of the day.

Edit: I ended up going with the daycare that had cameras (so that at least management could audit employees), and a livestream for the parents, which was at a non Montessori daycare. Staff turnover also seemed lower. Was more expensive, but have been happy with results.

[Illniyar]

From the article: "All 24 public study Montessori schools met basic Montessori criteria (SI Appendix, section 3A), but implementation varied widely. "

"The final implementation criteria for school inclusion were thus:

• At least 66% of the lead Primary classroom teachers are trained by one of the two most prominent Montessori teacher training organizations, the Association Montessori Internationale (AMI) or the American Montessori Society (AMS). One school was excluded on this basis.

• No more than two adults, the trained teacher and a non-teaching assistant, in the classroom on a regular basis. No school was excluded on this basis.

• Classrooms are mixed-age, with at least 18 children ranging from 3 to 6 years old. Five schools did not mix ages so were excluded.

• At least a 2-hour uninterrupted free choice period every day. Five schools were excluded on this basis.

• Each classroom has at least 80% of the complete set of roughly 150 Montessori Primary materials, and fewer than 5% of the materials available to children in the classroom are not Montessori materials. No school was excluded for failing to meet this criterion."

So seems like the criteria for this research is fairly good.

In general though it's hard to tell if a school is Montessori or not. The method is not trademarked and anyone can claim to be a Montessori school ,or Montessori inspired etc...

There are two organizations that certify - AMI, which was created by Maria Montessori's daughter and functions mostly in Europe, and AMS which is an American organization founded by people inspired by the Montessori method.

AMI is stricter while AMS is more modern, but most places that identify as Montessori is neither.

I would say the best way to identify if a school is Montessori is first if they have mixed-age classrooms, the standard is a 3 year class (so 1-3, 4-6, 7-9...).

If all the kids in a class are in the same age, it's not Montessori.

Second, for preschool, you expect the class to be very organized with intermittent shelves and work areas, and very neat (no mountain of toys etc...) - https://www.google.com/search?udm=2&q=montessori+classroom

[schainks]

There are two actual standards around this (AMI and AMS), but therm "Montessori" is mainly fungible in the day care market.

The difference between these two, from my experience, is HUGE. Certified AMI schools, while a little more rigid in terms of teaching fine motor skills, generally have been better at making my kid more independent at doing things he likes to do. AMS schools are kind of wishy washy by comparison, and my kid was bored and under-engaged.

[dfxm12]

How many schools of each standard has your kid been to? For how many years?

[schainks]

One of each.

[turnsout]

Unfortunately, Maria Montessori lost control over her name, and now literally any daycare or school can label themselves "Montessori."

Look for a school/teachers with AMI (Association Montessori Internationale) certification.

[giobox]

I've had similar experiences too, it's almost like trying to get a room full of software engineers to agree on a definition of "Agile".

[germinalphrase]

Additionally, even schools that label themselves Montessori will have significant differences in how the educational concepts are applied and to what degree. It’s not a regimented approach/program. I only say this to suggest that any parent interested in Montessori schools should definitely visit and ask questions before enrolling your student. Make sure that the experience will align with your expectations.

[f1shy]

In my experience, I would say no. Same as similar approaches (e.g. Waldorfschule)

Once I asked some advocate of the method, what was it exactly; the reply was very good and detailed, but then I pointed out institutes that “follow” the method, which were nothing as what he described. From that point, it was a mess. “Well, you must not absolutely do it that way” “there are variations” etc. I was pretty dissatisfied with the description, and was clear that is not very well defined.