This is the 8th and final lecture of [[Stephen Hicks]]'s [[PA Philosophy of Education]]. The Montessori method was the novel educational method developed by Maria Montessori during her time working with intellectually disabled children. She opened her first Casa dei Bambini in 1907. Philosophically speaking, Montessori belongs to the empirical lineage of John Locke, as her method focuses on sensations first and work their way up to abstractions in their path of cognitive development. Self-directed learning through play. Teaching materials—in this case, manipulatives—help essentialize and focus. They toys designed has to teach one thing at a time. Learning to dress oneself — learning to be independent. Zippers, laces, ties. Montessori observed that students are starved for interaction. "It is true that the child develops in his environment through activity itself, but he needs material means, guidance, and indispensable understanding. It is the adult who provides these necessities." (The Absorbent Mind) Her summary of the child's relationship to the environment here is that the child should have "freedom in a structured environment." She is a proponent of the child being physically active and participatory in the learning process, claiming that "one of the great mistakes of our day is to think of movement by itself, as something apart from the higher functions. Mental development must be connected with movement and be dependent on it." On the freedom of children, "children have free choice all day long. Life is based on choice, so they learn to make their own decisions. They must decide and choose for themselves all the time." On the social side, children each have their own mat and learn to respect each other's space. They learn to interact with one another voluntarily. Manners are also learnt here. In contrast, the teachers take a de-centered role in the classroom. "The teacher's task is first to nourish and assist, to watch, encourage, guide, induce, rather than to interfere, prescribe, or restrict." (Montessori Method 1912) But that does not exempt from the teacher from interfering the child's activities, especially "when the children are still the prey of their different naughtinesses." (The Child, Society and the World). A benevolent worldview, not based on fear. ## Progressivism vs Montessori Progressives were against Montessori. Progressives took hold of public education in the States, and Montessori went private: "The educator must be as one inspired by a deep worship of life, and must, through this reverence, respect, while he observes with human interest, the development of the child life. Now, child life is not an abstraction; It is the life of individual children. There exists only one real biological manifestation: the living individual; and toward single individuals, one by one observed, education must direct itself." (The Montessori Method) As opposed to John Dewey: "Education, in its broadest sense, is the means of this social continuity of life… each individual, each unit, who is the carrier of the life-experience of his group, in time passes away. Yet the life of the group goes on." (Democracy and Education, 1916) Thomas Edison explicitly claim to "like the Montessori method" because it "teaches through play." The inventor of the telephone as well. Google founder, Jeff Bezos, Wikipedia founder, Stephen Curry and more big names are all brought up in Montessori schools. ## Changing times Human wealth has exploded in the past 150 years. That means the way we think about work today is very much different from almost all of human history. During the same time, poverty rates went down dramatically. There is also a difference in how determinate our fate is — ancients have fixed roles, moderns find our own paths and purposes. Then, within one generation, US people working for Fortune 500 companies went from 1 in 4 to 1 in 14, suggesting people are proportionally quitting large bureaucracies in favor of smaller companies. The question in regards to education is how much does education have to prepare students for work? Then, more specifically, what sort of jobs? What sort of skills? Do we anticipate for future changes in the market? Some skill as jobs fade. Typing is gone. Photoshop selection is gone. We have to anticipate for jobs that do not exist yet. Most sought out skills based on American university recruiter data: Problem solving and critical thinking — they are both essential and rare. ![[essential-skills-diagram.png]] The implication here is that Montessori's methods are better for producing people that are looking for jobs at an organization. Questions that still left hanging: Should education prioritize people that are looking for jobs? Or should it hit more domains than that? Or should it insist upon building people that are group-minded? One more question I myself would add is how much the essential-ness of a skill is culture-dependent, or more specifically dependent on how each market operates. --- Back to: [[PA Philosophy of Education]] Previous Lecture: [[Pragmatism and Progressivism]]