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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   2601 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 8, 2026

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What is your opinion of "Montessori"? As a label for schools and kindergartens or a philosophy for parenting and education. My spouse is getting quite into those books and we are approaching the age when the kid will soon need some sort of teaching

My mother has a masters in early childhood education and ran a preschool for 40 years. Her opinion is that it's OK for kids up through about 3rd grade when you really need to sit them down and have them memorize the times tables. Her preferred method for early learning is the Reggio Emilia approach though I don't really know the difference, personally

But a lot of the reason those two have good outcomes is the teachers tend to be well-trained and the student:teacher ratio usually is very good, roughly 6:1

Thanks. I went through a very traditional memorisation and rote learning approach and always felt I benefitted but after all there were no other options around me so I don’t know many people who did something else. When I read about this stuff (even your link) I encounter plenty of theory but I really struggle to visualise how the actual learning takes place, without writing down facts and then reciting them until you remember perfectly.

These two schools of thought are student directed. So instead of say, what you described about memorizing things and repeating them, let's say the kids express an interest in robots. The teacher might find a book about a robot, set up a craft station so the kids can build their own robot, and talk about what kind of things their robot would do. Maybe the teach throws in some facts about robots like where the name comes from, what the future of robotics looks like....

Hey what do you know it's the most-viewed TED talk of all time and it's about how we need to let kids explore their own creative capacities. This type of thing has wide appeal, but it's difficult to quantify success on an institutional level so it's unpopular with states

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