Montessori Madmen

Advocating Montessori

We're an impatient, ragtag group of dads and advocates from around the world, united by a common zeal to bring the Montessori method to millions more. Our mission is simple: to advocate for Montessori education so that one day it's not called Montessori school; it's just called school.

The Education Paradigm

January 31, 2012  /  Bobby George

The challenges that adolescents face today as they seek to understand who they are and how they fit into this world are unique to the broad history of humanity in many respects. 

Maria Montessori advocated for farm schools for adolescents where they would bond as a community with purposeful work.  Indeed, the farm schools were (and continue to be) microcosms of the larger world. The farm schools have all the elements that allow children to "create", to continue to discover and build on their unique interests and talents... whether it be wood working, planting/cultivating gardens, learning about marketing/economics by selling the food harvested, etc.

Today, we still broadly force all sort of academic material on our adolescents and confine them within four walls lit by florescent lights.  (No wonder Obama wants to "force" children to stay in school until they graduate!)

The education paradigm that Maria Montessori envisioned for adolescents 100 years ago is as relevant today (if not more so) as it was then.