On our immersion trip to the Nashville area we visited Abintra Montessori’s Middle School class. They’re an excellent school, about the same size we are with about a dozen students. Yet every time I visit another Montessori school I’m amazed by the subtle differences and remarkable similarities: they read many of the same books; they cover the same topics in social and natural science (as should be expected since we’re in the same state and are at the same academic level); but, most curiously, their students mirror my own pupils in independence, confidence and sociability.
I find this last congruence most interesting, because I’ve seen it in other places, too. It reflects a shared culture. One developed despite the fact that neither these students (mostly) nor their teachers had never met or even corresponded before.
There is a theory that Scandinavian countries can be more socialist because they are so culturally uniform and it is easier to connect with, and be emphatic to their fellow citizens. There is probably something similar in the Montessori secondary level in particular. Students are expected to display a large amount of independence in how they work and use their time. It’s why Montessori Middle Schools tend to be cautious about taking in students who do not have some Montessori background. It can often take a lot of time for students more familiar with the rigors of more traditional, command-and-control classrooms, to adapt to, and work effectively in, an environment with so much freedom and dependence on individual responsibility.
The differences between our schools are important, too. I’ve been thinking about Frederic Hess’ argument for more educational diversity in the U.S.. Teachers are different, parents’ philosophies of education are different, and students are different, so we should not expect a one-size-fits-all system of education to be the most effective.
Abintra and Lamplighter share the same philosophy, have students with a shared culture of independence and intellectual freedom, and basically the same curriculum. Yet as small, independent schools the teachers have a lot of freedom to adapt and interpret that curriculum based on their own expertise.
It also means that we have a lot to learn from each other.