Content area
Full Text
You need not think the Montessori Method holds the cure for all that ails American education to regret it has never been given a fair chance to prove just how much it can do.
We talk about needing systematic rather than piecemeal reform. The Montessori approach is integrated across the curriculum and through the ages from preschool through elementary. The benefit may be greatest for children from chaotic homes. By creating respectful, stable, and integrated learning environments for children from early preschool through the elementary years and beyond, Montessori schools can provide a sense of order in an otherwise disordered world.
We talk about reforms that meet the test of the marketplace. Montessori education has succeeded in the marketplace with almost no governmental support and almost no support from this country's educational establishment. Today about 3,000 independent schools and 130 public schools--some starting with preschools, some reaching eighth grade--describe themselves as Montessori schools.
Where Montessori education has been accepted in the public sector, it often has been as a desegregation tool. The "Montessori Method" developed by Maria Montessori in the early years of this century was built on the needs of the neediest children. It is the advocacy of white, middle-class women that revived the movement and kept it alive in the United States. Thus, for city school systems like those in Buffalo, Cincinnati, Dallas, Denver, Kansas City, and Milwaukee, Montessori schools become an obvious strategy: Montessori magnets, if done well, are effective with the neediest and draw children of the middle class.
Nearly everywhere it has been implemented in the public sector, the waiting lists are long and the signs of parents' approval are clear. Is it out of line to ask if there is some larger contribution this approach could make?
Expansion of programs is limited by several factors, including the shortage of trained Montessori teachers, the upfront costs of starting a program, and, most important, the discomfort key players--both Montessorians and those in the public sector--have in making the leap of faith necessary to move forward.
Montessori, born in 1870 and the first female physician in Italy, focused her attention on the way...