On Mon, Oct 12, 2009 at 10:18 AM, Sameer Verma <[email protected]> wrote: > I've been reading "Montessori Madness" for a few hours now, and I find
Another good one is "Montessori Today" http://www.amazon.com/Montessori-Today-Comprehensive-Education-Adulthood/dp/080521061X The funny thing is that since I've been exposed to Bryan Berry's poignant "theory" of education, I can't help looking at Montessori and thinking that it is excellent, but not because Montessori's approach and materials are inherently better. It is excellent because - Montessori teachers are teachers who are clearly smart and passionate about education, and the school environment (principals, etc) share the smarts and the passion. - Parents sending kids to a Montessori school are smart and passionate about education. - The group of kids is small and manageable, so the smart and passionate teachers can work their magic. And that wins. They could teach with computers, or abacuses or post it notes or books written in Esperanto. It's all a catalyst that brings the 3 (purely human!) elements above together. Indirection. A social mind trick. Of course, I like most of Montessori's approach. But remove the human elements and... poof! it's effects will be gone. Montessori strategies in a crowded group with an unenthusiastic teacher have very slim chances. Bryan, you need to postulate your theory more formally :-) cheers, m -- [email protected] [email protected] -- School Server Architect - ask interesting questions - don't get distracted with shiny stuff - working code first - http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User:Martinlanghoff _______________________________________________ Olpc-open mailing list [email protected] http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/olpc-open
