Montessori At The Secondary Levels - WMPCS

MONTESSORI AT THE SECONDARY LEVELSMontessori AtThe SecondaryLevelsYour children have been inMontessori all their lives. Theylove school and learn enthusiastically. Montessori has been theperfect match, but your children areapproaching the age where they willhave to leave Montessori if their schooldoesn’t do something soon! And soyou ask, “Why aren’t there anySecondary Montessori programs in ourtown? What would it take to start amiddle school class at our school?”Most Americans have the impressionthat Montessori is just for earlychildhood. Even though Montessorischools have spread all over the worldduring the last century, most schools inthe United States stop after kindergarten. Some schools run throughsixth grade, but Secondary Montessorischools are very rare. This is beginning to change as more and moreMontessori schools open elementaryclasses, and many have either openedor are exploring the possibility ofdeveloping middle school programs.This is important to the entire Montessori community because, unfortunately, in the eyes of many peoplearound the world, “real education”begins with high school. Just considerthe relative respect given to highschool teachers compared to the levelof respect given to those who teachpreschoolers. Consider the dollarscontributed annually to high schoolscompared to the relative pittancegiven to early childhood programs.“The need that is so keenly felt for a reform of secondary schoolsis not only an educational but also a human and social problem. This can be summed up in one sentence: Schools as theyare today are adapted neither to the needs of adolescence norto the time in which we live.”— Maria Montessori147

MONTESSORI PROGRAMSToday, we know thatthis prejudice isillogical, as researchsupports the premise that the mostimportant years ofa child’s educationare not the years ofhigh school and college but those ofthe first six yearsof life. This is thefoundation of everything that will follow.Illogical as thisprejudice may be, itis a fact of life thatMontessorians havenot been able toescape. Parents invariably look forevidence that Montessori works, andthe evidence thatparents would findultimately compelling is a track recordof Montessori preparing students togain admission tothe finest collegesand universities.For this reason, as Montessori education slowly develops at the highschool level, it will finally be able totake credit for those terrific youngmen and women that we have beensending off for generations to thefinest public and private high schools.Think back. Do most people give credit to the preschools and elementaryschools that they attended, or do theylook back fondly on their high schoolyears? For this reason alone, the expansion of Montessori at the high schoollevel is an important and essentialtrend in the future development ofMontessori around the world. Only theestablishment of successful Montessori148High Schools can validate the effectiveness of Montessori as a “whole” in theeyes of the average person.The Emergence of SecondaryMontessori ProgramsThe first secondary schools organizedalong Montessori principles werefounded in Europe in the 1930s. AnneFrank, the young girl made famous byher poignant diaries, was a student inthe first Montessori high school inAmsterdam when it was closed by theNazis. At last count, there were eightlarge, highly regarded Montessori HighSchools in the Netherlands.The first American secondary programs influenced by Dr. Montessori’sideas, but not openly identified as“Montessori” began to appear in the1940s and 1950s. Co-author, TimSeldin, attended one of the first ofthese programs at the Barrie School inSilver Spring, Maryland, which established its upper school in the 1950s.In the late 1970s, a small group ofMontessori leaders, interested in thedevelopment of an American Montessori secondary model, founded theErdkinder Consortium. This group’sdiscussions led to a consensus thatwhile Dr. Montessori’s vision of a residential, farm-based learning com-

MONTESSORI AT THE SECONDARY LEVELSmunity would be a model to worktoward, schools interested in developing a modified middle schoolprogram in the interim shouldbe encouraged to do so. Theseschools became known as “urbancompromise” programs.In the 1970s, a number of earlyadolescent programs openly identified as being “Montessori influenced,” were established in theUnited States, including Near NorthMontessori in Chicago, the RuffingMontessori School in Cleveland,Ohio, and two that are no longer inoperation: the Montessori FarmSchool in Half Moon Bay, Californiaand the Erdkinder School nearAtlanta, Georgia.In 1982, the Barrie Schoolbecame the first Montessori Juniorand Senior High School programofficially recognized by the American Montessori Society. That year,the Institute for Advanced Montessori Studies in Silver Spring,Maryland, and the Dallas Montessori Teacher Education Program inDallas, Texas, opened the first Montessori Secondary teacher education programs.During the 1980s, a number ofother programs for young adolescents opened in the United Statesand Canada, including the Franciscan Earth School in Portland,Oregon; the School of the Woodsin Houston, Texas; St. Joseph’sMontessori in Columbus, Ohio; theToronto Montessori School inOntario, Canada; and the AthensMontessori School in Athens,Georgia.Today, perhaps half the Montessori schools in America stop afterkindergarten, while most of therest extend to the third or sixthgrade. Montessori Middle and HighSchool programs, however, are stillvery rare. We estimate that there“My vision of thefuture is no longerof people takingexams, earning asecondary diploma,and proceeding on touniversity, but ofindividuals passingfrom one stage ofindependence to ahigher, by means oftheir own activity,through their owneffort of will, whichconstitutes the innerevolution of theindividual.”— Maria Montessori149

MONTESSORI PROGRAMSare now more than two hundredMontessori Middle School programsin North America with numerous others in various stages of development.There are approximately twenty highschools openly identifying themselves as Montessori, and a growingnumber under development.Montessori’s Visionof the ErdkinderMaria Montessori first proposed herideas for the reform of secondaryeducation in a series of lectures givenat the University of Amsterdamin January 1920. They were laterpublished during the 1930s as partof her work From Childhood toAdolescence.Dr. Montessori’s model of secondary education is based on her understanding of the developmental needsand learning tendencies of early adolescents. In addition to conceivingmany of the reforms incorporatedinto today’s most innovative programs for early adolescents, Montessori added a unique idea: she recommended a residential school locatedin a country setting.Montessori believed that by livingindependently of their families for afew years in a small rural community,young people could be trained inboth the history of technology andcivilization, while learning the practical habits, values, and skills needed toassume the role of an adult in today’ssociety.Envisioning a school where children would grow their own food andlive close to nature, she called herprogram the Erdkinder, which translates from the Dutch as “the childrenof the Earth” or “children of theland.”Dr. Maria Montessori proposed living and working on a residential farmschool as the best possible education-150al setting for young adolescents(twelve- to fifteen-year-olds) as theytransitioned physically, cognitively,socially, emotionally, and morally toadulthood.Montessori believed the demandsof puberty warranted a holiday fromtraditional lecture-based instruction.Instead of confining students toclassrooms, she proposed a programthat would help them accomplishtwo key developmental tasks: becoming psychologically and economically independent. Only then,she argued, would young adolescents escape from the pettiness oftraditional schooling and engageseriously in the realities of life insociety.Montessori envisioned the Erdkinder as a small community ofteenagers and adults located in arural setting. Here teachers and students would live and work togetherthroughout the year, growing muchof their own food and manufacturingmany of the things they would needfor life in the country, thereby developing a deep sense of their connection to the land and the nature andvalue of work.She envisioned students, underadult supervision, managing a hostelor hotel for visiting parents. The students would sell farm goods andother products in their own store.These farm management and storeeconomics would form the basis ofmeaningful academic studies.The Erdkinder curriculum wouldencourage self-expression throughmusic, art, public speaking, and theater. Students would also studylanguages, mathematics, science,history of civilizations, cultures,and technological innovations. TheErdkinder would possess a “museum of machinery,” where studentscould assemble, use, and repair theirown farm equipment.For many years the idea of aresidential farm school was explored, but considered impractical.Montessori Secondary schools arenow found in urban and suburbansettings in the United States, withenrollments ranging from fewerthan ten students to public schoolprograms with more than 250 students.The cost of organizing a residential Erdkinder program has beenconsidered far too high for anyone school to attempt; instead,Montessori Middle School programs attempt to incorporate asmany Erdkinder components aspossible.The Montessori community looked on with considerable interestin 2001 when David Kahn, Director of the North American MontessoriTeacher’sAssociation(NAMTA), opened the MontessoriFarm School in Huntsburg, Ohioin conjunction with the HersheyMontessori School. Serving students from ages twelve to fifteen,the Montessori Farm School is alovely facility and an exciting projectthat has attracted widespread attention, including a substantial articlein the London Times.Many leaders in Secondary Montessori education believe that thefuture will lie primarily with nonresidential programs. The openingof the Farm School, and otherslike it that may follow, provides anopportunity to test one of Dr.Montessori’s hypotheses. She proposed that the residential community, with its artificially created sociallaboratory, will prove to be of mostvalue in the completion of thedevelopment of mature, well adjusted young adults.A piece prepared by David Kahndescribing the Montessori FarmSchool in greater depth follows.

MONTESSORI PROGRAMS