Youtube "experts"

Ever notice how the internet has somehow given people the ability to think they are experts on things?

This is VERY common as far as what you hear about Montessori, despite the fact taht he is simply wrong. I am at least impressed that he did at least familiarize himself somewhat with some things in some books. Most people who claim to be expert enough to give an opinion do not even do that. Below is the video, then please read my comments on it. I quote him, then reply.

Ok. The video didn't load on the blog, so here is a direct link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MIhmY00rYw

Now go watch it, then read my reply here.

He seems very disorganized at first and seems unclear exactly what he is trying to make as a point. He does move into the practical life activities with the dressing frame and setting the table. He talks about an example of washing dishes and I am curious exactly how he is describing it.

"You know - give them cold water with no soap and have them wash a dish off and put that one to the side. And then give him warm water and no soap and then warm water with soap. And then look at the dishes and the cold one with no soap...it's greasy."

As a parent, teacher, or anyone else associated with Montessori in some way, this is a very important thing to remember - do NOT think of Montessori activities this way. Remember that you are dealing with process - not product. Remember that the perfection of washing the dishes will be attained - if not now then eventually. The dishes the child produces from this activity will eventually become clean. We are not so much worried about the clean dishes (we can always re-wash them) as much as the process the child goes through.

The Practical Life activities are considered the backbone of a process that will continue throughout their Montessori life. Critics of the method say it reminds them too much of a robot, but that is simply because they do not really observe it. What we have is a system for a child to organize their thinking. They can take a concept as large as dish washing or table scrubbing and organize the steps they need to take to complete the task. Other benefits happen from it as well. (Left to right and top to bottom in table scrubbing is a pre-writing and pre-reading skill). Simply regarding Practical Life as "learning how to do things on your own" (not his words...just paraphrasing) is not enough. That is an important part of it. It is definitely a key aspect that a child grows in independence and becomes self-sufficient. To think, however, that the only benefit centers around the child's ability to do a housework task shows such a shallow understanding as the method. It is similar to saying Ghostbusters is about the Stay Puff Marshmallow Man. Sure, he was a part of the movie, but not the whole thing.

He is also leaving out the fact the uniqueness of this idea. When a child plays house, a child is really expressing the desire to be more grown up. What Montessori does is provide real grown up activities for the child to do. What a unique concept!

He then goes on to say, after talking about handling things with your hands:
"The Montessori method is carried through to the later stages *IN EXACTLY THE SAME WAY*" I can't even begin to mention where the errors fall in this one.

Elementary Montessori might be perceived as exactly the same by an outside observer. It still has a lot of hands on materials. There is still a certain educational buzz and excitement from the children about learning. It is carried out in quite a different way, however.

A general overview, Montessori Elementary centers around what we call the 5 Great Lessons. While fairy tales are good for learning certain things and entertainment, there are stories that are neglected by the education out there today. These stories, if used properly, can spark the child's imagination and sense of wonder. They can make the child want to learn more about all the subjects they are normally force fed in schools.

"...by offering the child the story of the universe, we give him something a thousand times more infinite and mysterious to reconstruct with his imagination, a drama no fable can reveal." --Maria Montessori in "To Educate the Human Potential"

The 5 Great Lessons center around the origin of things. How did language come about? How did the world come about? How did mathmatics come about and how do we get the numbers we have today? What about the timeline of life and how civilizations came to be? These stories are what are involved in the 5 Great Lessons and they are the cornerstone for how children can begin to understand concepts foreign to others the same age in a normal classroom environment.

The materials are very hands-on. What is unique about the Montessori method in the elementary years are not simply the materials, but also the amount of research the students are engaged in. It is not simply based on one thing, either. Something may spark the child's interest ~ he sees a frog outside (an example). He might then want to investigate about the frog's life cycle. In the process, he reviews the different types of animals and recalls that frogs are amphibians, something he learned about in the 3-6 classroom.

The child finds out frogs live near water and can breathe both in and out of water. He learns that frogs take oxygen from water and insert it directly into their blood stream.

This may lead to the study of the pond water the frog lives near. Under the microscope, the child can see the different types of microscopic organisms he became familiar with in one of the 5 Great Lessons. He learns there are different types of frogs and finds out where some of them live in the world - reinforcing his geography knowledge and possibly expanding it. This information can be included in his report that he assembles as a book about frogs, which he may choose to share with the class.

Now the child is faced with the decision. Is my report complete or did I find something else out (difference between frogs and toads, perhaps?) that I can include? While studying this, I was talking to my friend and he said he was upset about how people treat each other because of their race. Maybe I'll end this research project and do one on civil rights leaders.

Imagine this child then going on to take a "prove what you learned multiple choice" style test at another school. He comes to a question that might say:

"What do tadpoles turn into?" or
"Why is Martin Luther King famous?"

Will the child struggle over these questions, stressing out because so much information has been crammed into his head? Or will the child laugh at the test and consider it a great waste of time and wonder what the big fuss is? I can tell from my own personal experience that I laughed at the tests like this after Montessori. I never worried about them and always considered these test days to be a "day off regular school." Almost like a vacation day. I'm not bragging and jesting at those who did have trouble....I'm just pointing out the system many people were set up in pushes so much for the test that they forget to actually educate students on the information they need to easily pass the tests. It's not their fault...it's not the teacher's fault...it's not even necessarily the school's fault. It's the system's fault.

Enough with that rant. Back to this guy.

He talks about photosynthesis. He talks about the drawing of the leaf with people carrying stuff around on the leaf. It's honestly been a while since I looked at that picture, but I know what he is talking about. I SEEM to remember (Elementary Teachers, correct me on this) the people pushing wheelbarrells around and going into an elevator on the stem... Am I wrong about that? Right when he mentioned photosynthesis, I thought of that picture. I just don't remember it clearly.

Either way, it got the point across to me very well. It was obviously better understood by me (who studied it in a Montessori classroom) much more clearly than it was by him. For those that do not know, photosynthesis is the process by which a plant takes the sun's energy and converts it into food for the plant. Let me recap his description, which he says does not need to be concretized to be understood:

"You can't concretize abstract principles like that. Photosynthesis...there's just no way to concretize it. You can explain it. You can break it down into simple facts that can be absorbed one by one. But you can't concretize the abstraction of photosynthesis."

You ready for this? Here's what he said next:

"IT IS NOTHING MORE THAN THE GREEN COLOR OF THE LEAF WHEN THE SUN STRIKES IT. THAT'S PHOTOSYNTHESIS."

Whoa! When did we turn into that definition? Did science change its definitions and concepts in the last few weeks and I missed out on the update?

Obviously, his teacher failed him by NOT concretizing a concrete thing such as photosynthesis.

This review went from bad to worse. Unfortunately, I have seen MUCH worse. This is one of the only ones I have seen that tried to do it on youtube. As such, I thought it deserved special attention.

Matt