Comic: Maria Montessori and the Freedom To Learn

Maria Montessori valued independence and experimentation in a time of authoritarianism.

(Illustration: Peter Bagge)

Comments

[(Impeach Biden) Weigel's Cock Ring]

I'm all for the freedom of parents to send their kids to one of these hippie dippie schools if they want.

But if you REALLY want your child to learn, the best way is the same today that it has always been forever: through extensive repetition (verbal and written), hard work, and reading reading reading, especially at a young age. Books do actually still exist believe it or not, though you'd know it less and less these days.

Sorry if this offends all you hippies and communists out there, but it's true!

[rev-arthur-l-kuckland]

The thing about Montessori is it's a brand name. The one my kids go to is hard core repitition and reading.

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[Don't look at me!]

.. through extensive repetition (verbal and written)

Pledges of allegiance, anyone?

[TheReEncogitationer]

Very good point! Kids are taught to mouth that damn thing and to pray and sing hymns without ever being taught about the meaning of the words, the authors, and the larger history and context of them! How the Hell is that learning? And how is it not just blind rote parroting and submission to authority? And how will children taught this ever be free, responsible, self-reliant adults?

Here is the real story about The Pledge of Allegiance, a creation of Christian Socialist Francis Bellamy, who wanted to use it to indoctrinate children into blind loyalty to the Nation-State:

Pledge of Allegiance–Wikipedia
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pledge_of_Allegiance

Why Patriots Shouldn’t Pledge Allegiance
https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/why-patriots-shouldnt-pledge-allegiance/

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[MWAocdoc]

It doesn’t offend me at all that your opinion is totally worthless and based upon ignorance and prejudice. It’s what I expect from most of my fellow humans here. Your worthless opinion may be based upon a fear of freedom or a desire to control children in hopes of turning them into worthless automatons like yourself. Every experiment, both constructed and natural, has supported the notion that children want to learn, will be successful at learning, and that the education of children will be less expensive and require much less overhead, if they are simply allowed a minimally-guided learning environment in which to do so. Most of them will end up being totally worthless as cannon fodder for tyrants or worker-bees in corporate hives, but their creativity, work ethic, satisfaction and productivity will be something closed minds such as yours cannot even comprehend.

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

The only pledge I want to hear from fellow citizens is support, or at least acceptance, of the NAP, and maybe for basic principles like rights to life, liberty, and property, and rule of law. It might be counter-libertarian, but I prefer not to share society with people who hate these things.

[IceTrey]

There's only one right and that's to liberty. Liberty is freedom from the initiatory use of force. All other "rights" are it's consequences or corollaries.

[Roberta]

I keep expecting one of those figures to marvel at how their words keep appearing in mid-air — and in English!

[harpac]

They can't see them. They think they're speaking Italian but as the words show, they're actually speaking English, just as God has always intended.

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[TheReEncogitationer]

Uh, didn't your God scatter humans asunder by confounding their tongues with different languages at the Tower of Babel?

That was what a manager once told me was her reason for not learning another language, when she heard me speak Spanish to a customer! The Peter Principle in action!
🙂

[Mike Laursen]

It would be interesting to ask the obvious follow-up of whether Castilian and Mexican Spanish existed at that moment, as well as Canadian French and American English.

[Fats of Fury]

Mamma Mia! If they were speaking Italian there would be a bunch of wavy lines around the arms.

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

Just like in the Bible.

[Brandybuck]

Maria Montessori is a super-hero. As such her words appear in thought bubbles over his head as she flies above the cityscape looking for villains to defeat.

[Brandybuck]

What's remarkable is that she created a private school, with no public funding, for the poorest of the poor. And it was a resounding success, far exceeding the results of the government schools.

Which makes it so ironic that most Montessori schools in the US are elite schools for the children of the elite.

If she wasn't such an "authoritarian" about her method, she could have turned everything around. Her methods seem tailor made to modern homeschooling pods, but everyone in the Montessori movement seems to be stuck in one of two "denominations", plus those are basically day care centers with toys just pretending to be Montessori.

[MWAocdoc]

You speak rightly. It would not be the first time and probably won’t be the last time that a brilliant experiment implementing a brilliant concept has been hijacked by special interests, or co-opted or suppressed by government authorities. The real take-away from this is that her brilliant concept has not changed thereby. Anyone can still, to this very day, start a new “school” based on her principles, experiment with modifications in the real world, and still end up with better-educated, happier and more successful young adults regardless of the official education policy and tax-supported public school system.

[JFree]

Montessori should not be a school. It should be classroom(s) within a school. That is in fact very similar to the element in the cartoon where the classroom had glass walls so people could see what was happening. Along with different homeschooling programs, learning-by-teaching, traditional curriculum, etc. Offer that sort of choice WITHIN existing schools. Let them compete. Add additional classrooms if they are successful and give up existing classrooms if they are not. Where success is not going to be judged like a ‘charter school’ – in complete isolation where those judgements (should this be funded? should my kid go here next year?) are made at constipation speed.

‘School choice’ has become a goddamn cronyist scam. Where decisions are only going to be made at district (or even state or federal level). Where the sole purpose is to extract taxes from everyone and give it to individuals to spend. And where it just reinforces all the bureaucratic bullshit that education has become – while eliminating the teaching.

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[Winston in Wonderland]

Both of my daughters attended a Montessori school. One thrived, and the other didn't.

The one who thrived at the Montessori school has thrived in every school she has attended. The other daughter did well when her teachers consistently set challenging goals and high expectations of her.

Montessori ain't for everyone.

[MWAocdoc]

There is nothing about Montessori’s principles that would prevent your daughter’s mentor from consistently setting challenging goals and high expectations of her. Having said that, the “Montessori” school you arranged for them might not have been following the principles implemented by Dr. Montessori. There is no educational theory in the history of mankind that can succeed in the face of bad teachers.

[TheReEncogitationer]

What I don't understand is what Maria Montessori thought she could gain for her Individualist educational philosophy by appealing to Fascist Mussolini, whose motto was:

"Everything For The State.
Nothing Against The State.
Nothing Outside The State."

The only Education befitting Mussolini were those final lessons in Aerobics and Callesthenics applied by bullet and rope.