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AMI Montessori
Research Studies
NAMTA
Montessori Research Summary
Montessori Education in America: An Analysis of Research Conducted from
2000-2005
CBS News: Do Montessori Schools Have An Edge?
Angeline Lillard
Scientific American: Students Prosper with Montessori Method
They may be efficient,
but traditional teaching methods
also may not be the most effective.
A psychologist
looks at the Montessori method.
By
Linda Kobert
Posted October
2005
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Lillard.
Photo
by Stephanie Gross.
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Angeline Lillard is the offspring of the Montessori movement. She comes from
a long line of teachers, and in the 1960s when the innovative educational ideas
of Italian physician Maria Montessori first made their way to the United States
,her mother was among those who embraced them. Lillard and her sisters attended
Montessori preschool. Her mother and two sisters are Montessori teachers, and
both of her own daughters attended a Montessori program through the elementary
grades.
 “The
whole time growing up when I would play school with my younger sister, we would
always play Montessori school,” says Lillard, a developmental psychologist who
is an associate professor of psychology at U.Va.
In fact, it was a Montessori teacher training course she took many years ago
that both inspired Lillard to return to graduate school and helped shape the
research she does today.
She describes her explorations of these unconventional educational ideas in
her new book, “Montessori: The Science Behind the Genius.” Lillard took on this
project because, although she had been steeped in Montessori principles from a
young age, she wasn’t sure she believed everything she was told. “People seemed
so blindly devotional,” she says. “I couldn’t tell what were the ideas of
Montessori and what was based on evidence. I was quite sure that, although
Montessori had its strengths, other school systems did too, and we should try to
put together the best of everything.”
In seeking a more scientific exploration of the basic principles of the
Montessori method, Lillard simply wanted to sort out fact from faith. Her book,
however, turned out to be more of an indictment of traditional education than an
uncritical collection of the best of different schools of thought.
When Lillard started looking at the evidence, she discovered a strong body of
literature that indicated Maria Montessori was right. “Modern research in
psychology suggests the Montessori system is much more suited to how children
learn and develop than the traditional system is,” Lillard writes in her book,
which was published in March by Oxford University Press and now is in its fourth
printing.
Structure
The problem with modern schools, Lillard maintains, is their fundamental
structure. Traditional educational systems, she says, apply a factory model to
the systematic production of an educated populace. Students in traditional
schools are viewed through a behaviorist lens as empty vessels that respond to
stimuli and are subject to rewards and punishments meted out by the teacher.
Although efficient in managerial terms, “these models create a host of
impediments to children’s learning,” Lillard says. This approach is why, she
adds, children prefer snow days to school days and why those who enter the
teaching profession stay only an average of three years.
Lillard’s book looks at eight of Montessori’s basic principles about how
children learn. Montessori teachers, for example, step back and let students
make their own decisions about what direction their learning will take. They
encourage kids to work together with peers and to focus deeply on subject matter
that interests them. Rather than working for the rewards of grades or praise,
children in a Montessori school are motivated by the intrinsic rewards of their
own achievement.
The achievement gap
Although there is much research still to be done, Lillard found no evidence
to refute any of the mainstays of the Montessori method. On the contrary, she
found lots of evidence to support the value of Montessori techniques in dealing
with modern educational challenges.
Take the achievement gap, for example. Lillard cites work by U.Va. psychology
colleague Eric Turkheimer and others who demonstrate that for children in
families at lower socioeconomic levels the educational environment makes a
significantly greater difference in achievement than it does for children of
middle- and upper-income families. “There are lots of factors that can be in
play there,” Lillard explains, “but in low-income areas where there are good
Montessori programs, we do see progress being made.”
Finding out whether Montessori makes a difference with economically
disadvantaged children can be a challenge, though, because a Montessori
education is usually only available at private schools. Milwaukee Public
Schools, however, support several charter programs that offer Montessori for
children of all socioeconomic levels. At these schools, the rate of passing
standardized tests is 20 percent higher than the average rate of the Milwaukee
public elementary schools.
Lillard also sees anecdotal evidence to support Montessori practices as a
response to children who have learning challenges as a result of Attention
Deficit/Hyper-activity Disorder (ADHD). Children who were diagnosed with ADHD
in other schools, she finds, are better able to engage in the focused attention
that comes from student-driven learning in a Montessori school. Having come full
circle in her inquiry, Lillard sees much resistance to any reform that
challenges the current system.
Studies show that middle- and upper-income students, for whom families
usually provide strong support, can manage well enough in traditional schools.
“I think that’s part of why school change is resisted,” Lillard says. “People
are happy enough.
Linda
Kobert is a freelance writer and
poet living in
Charlottesville
,
Va.
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