Might be due to many other things than the Montessori methodology. Such as peer quality and teacher quality, potentially better and more expensive/healthy lunches or a million other things.
montessori methodology and training (at least as certified by AMI) is a strong selector for teacher quality. trainees have to spend 90 hours in class just observing children and writing reports about their observations as part of their training. they learn to understand what the kids need and how to teach them. i am not aware that traditional teacher education does any of that.
likewise peer quality should not be even a factor because of the way how montessori education works. children are not given the opportunity to disrupt others.
the methodology is all-encompassing. it affects the children from the moment they enter the school, until they leave to go home. most of the potential other factors in the school are eliminated by the methodology itself.
it's hard to envision. you have to observe a class in action to understand why.
Teachers who pass the tests required for this probably are from the top of their teacher cohort regarding intelligence, consciousness, empathy, motivation etc and they are likely better paid, so less stressed from life stuff like bills or whatever.
The peers all come from non-random families who generally have good life outcomes either way. These kids will model good behavioral norms. If kids can interact, they will influence each other. It's not only disruption or no disruption, but likely more subtle.
The effects were only shown here up to end of kindergarten. It likely disappears later.
My default assumption remains that these fashionable methodologies do very little actually. The correction is probable almost entirely due to who the people involved are. I know that the study participants were randomized to Montessori or not, but the rest of peers and the teachers are not random.
The real test would be for a Montessori kindergarten to drop the methodology while keeping the same people.
Okay, that's an empirical question. I rather doubt it and think that the more adept teachers are more likely to apply there and to get through it. It's a filtering mechanism.
if montessori is adopted as part of a national or state curriculum then there would not be a filter anymore. and i do not think may people would fail the training. from what i saw it is rigorous and intensive, but it is not difficult. certainly not more difficult that traditional teacher education. the only teachers that would struggle would be lazy ones that enter the training with a preconceived idea of what teaching is about and find that idea challenged.
I doubt that you need any of that or it has any use for dealing with kids ages 3-6. Every granny and auntie knew how to do it since time immemorial. Just let them play, go out in the yard, chase the ants, dig some holes in the mud, run around, play with a ball. Eat and take a nap, look at picture books, have the teacher tell a story while the kids sit around her etc.
What matters is to have low-stress, motivated teachers with good personalities, empathy and intelligence. And similarly a filtered peer group. All the rest is window dressing.
no grandma or auntie can do that with 30 kids. seriously, you have to observe a montessori kindergarten in person to get what is going on there. and do some reading on how it works. the difference to regular kindergartens even with good teachers is massive.
you are underestimating how much effort it is to calm down a large group of kids. motivation alone is not enough for that. it does require training. if it didn't, then we would not require trained teachers to run a kindergarten group. it's not window dressing at all. and the montessori training and method is simply better and more effective than regular methods and training. and it doesn't need a filtered peer group either.
