Montessori's Education Vision

by Paul Epstein, Ph.D.

Dr. Maria Montessori defined a vision of our civilization's future based on the developmental capabilities of children. Based on years of close observation of children's spontaneous activities, Montessori's vision was more spiritual than economical. Speaking to an international conference on education in 1932, Montessori looked to the child as a hope for humanity. Noting the terrible destruction the first world war and the gathering forces for the second, Maria Montessori called upon the spiritual possibilities of the child and said, "We must have faith in the child as a messiah, as a savior capable of regenerating the human race and society. We must master ourselves and humble ourselves in order to be able to accept this notion, and then we must make our way toward the child, like the three kings, bearing powers and gifts, following the star of hope."

Today, educators are also articulating a vision of our future. This is not a spiritual vision; it is instead an economical one. It is a vision is based on beliefs and expectations for adult life during the 21st century. Tomorrow's child must now develop specific skills in order to experience successful living in a 21st century information-era global economy. For more than a decade, this vision has guided American education reform. Activities have included new legislation, national curriculum standards, and new measures of classroom performance.

This series of articles will compare current education reforms with the Montessori methods of education. Rather than argue that one vision is more correct than the other, the purpose for comparing is to merge the two. This article will set the stage by looking at American education reform. Later articles will focus on Montessori programs. For now, listen to Dr. Maria Montessori's warning issued in 1932:

"When we took the personality of the child into account in and of itself and offered it full scope to develop in our schools - where we constructed an environment that answered the needs of his spiritual development - he revealed to us a personality entirely different from the one we had previously taken into consideration .... With his passionate love of order and work, the child gave evidence of intellectual powers vastly superior to what they were presumed to be. It is obvious that in traditional systems of education the child instinctively resorts to dissembling in order to conceal his capabilities and conform to the expectations of the adults who suppress him."

American education reform today is based on the belief that our society is now in transition from an industrial era to an information era. During the 1980's, best sellers such as "The Third Wave" and "Megatrends" provided us with glimpses into our children's future. These and other publications made it clear that American business could not continue with business as usual. To be competitive in an emerging global economy, and in response to decades of declining productivity and commerce, business began to redefine and restructure business.

Restructuring itself as total quality and learning organizations, business has developed and defined new management and leadership approaches, manufacturing procedures, and the roles and relationships between owners, laborers, clients, and customers. In a global economy, businesses must have workers who know how to learn and who are prepared to think, communicate, create, and solve problems. Tomorrow's child must become proficient in reasoning and communication, able to question, gather, and comprehend new information, and work cooperatively in decision making teams. This sounds like Montessori programs in which we value that children can learn how to learn.

If this vision of 21st century life becomes real, then tomorrow's child must attend tomorrow's schools. Preparing learning environments is the task of every Montessori teacher; the task is to prepare a learning environment to sponsor the growth of the whole child - intellectual, social, emotional, physical, and spiritual. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, however, American schools took stock by comparing only the academic performances of our children with those of children throughout the world. The results were shocking. Published in 1983, the landmark "A Nation At Risk" rang a modern bell for American freedom. In short, our children weren't even close to making the grade. "A Nation At Risk" concluded that our future could only become grim unless our schools changed their ways and began to produce graduates prepared for competition on a global scale.

American schools were quick to respond during the 1980's with the assumption that more is better. School districts provided: more teachers to reduce teacher-pupil ratios; more salaries for teachers; more choices of learning programs for parents; better instructional apparatus; and better technologies including video, laser discs, computers, graphing calculators, satellite uplinks, high-tech phones and pagers, CD-ROM's, FAX machines, microwave ovens, and robots.

Despite a decade of reform involving large investments in schooling, the results in student achievement were, and are still, negligible. Spending for elementary and secondary education rose 40% in inflation-adjusted dollars. Nearly every state has imposed higher standards for academic excellence. Forty-two states have raised high school graduation requirements, including higher attendance. The gaps between our children and children from the rest of the world continued to grow wider. In 1964, American 14 year olds ranked 5th in mathematics among six selected nations. In 1991, American 13 year olds ranked 14th in mathematics among 15 selected nations. Meanwhile college board achievement scores remain virtually unchanged while S.A.T. scores continue to decline. The average score on the Graduate Record Examination, while higher than in 1982, is still lower than in 1965. The percentage of American colleges offering remedial instruction or tutoring has increased by 10% since 1981.

By the end of the 1980's it became apparent that American schools were not producing graduates capable of succeeding in tomorrow's workplace. And the cost of this failure was skyrocketing. The business of business had become the business of education. The American Council on Education concluded in 1988 that more than one-third of the American labor force was not prepared with the kinds of skills required for success in the 21st century and was lacking competency in reading, writing, and performing basic mathematical calculations. A 1993 special report published in Education Week magazine estimated that American businesses by the late 1980's spent from $240 million to $260 million on basic literacy skills training for employees.

Still worse, a growing proportion of Americans have not and may never experience successful 21st century living. Despite increased spending on American schooling; despite magnet programs and court-ordered equalization of school funding, the gap between the poor and the rich continued to widen. It is now estimated that some 25 million children live in poverty lacking consistent and necessary nutrition, housing, and health care. The families of these children do not thrive and are trapped in continuing economic decline. Children at-risk cannot attend to reading, writing, and arithmetic. These are Americans who will struggle to succeed - if indeed they ever do - in high-performance schools. Children cannot access higher order thinking skills when fundamental issues of survival are the curriculum. For these children, the likelihood of even developing social competence and self-confidence continues to lesson. Still worse, too many American children, regardless of class, culture, and race, are increasingly victims of physical and sexual abuse and homicide. Our children are not safe in the school house. While crime cannot be condoned, we now build more prisons than school houses.

No one seems to question that economics has become the guiding vision of 21st century life. Instead, by 1990 the well documented failure of American students to learn (when compared with children from other nations) had become synonymous with the failure of America to endure. In response to this national crises, the Nation's governors convened a series of meetings led by then Governor Clinton. Their recommendations were presented to the Nation in 1991 in a report titled, "America 2000". In this report, President Bush told the Nation that our future and economic freedoms were at stake. In "America 2000" he declared: "Today, education determines not just which students will succeed, but also which nations will thrive in a world united in pursuit of freedom and enterprise....Think about every problem, every challenge we face. The solution to each starts with education. For the sake of the future - of our children and the nation - we must transform America's schools. The days of the status quo are over."

Experts concluded that what was missing during the reform attempts of the 1980's was accountability. "America 2000" and a number of other documents established national goals and standards with which to measure progress towards their accomplishment. Last year, President Clinton signed a number of "America 2000's" and other recommendations and strategies into law. "Goals 2000" and the re-authorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act are public mandates through which the vision of 21st century life could become a reality for tomorrow's child.

American schools seeking and using public funds are now accountable for demonstrating specific student achievement outcomes as measured against a number of national performance and curriculum content standards. Failure to produce could mean loss of funds and programs; state departments of education can close down schools by firing principals and teachers. It still remains to be seen, however, if accountability will result with children becoming successful 21st century adults. And debate has begun over the emerging standards and whether or not it makes sense to accept business visions of 21st century life and their models of social reform and leadership for tomorrow's child.