I am a Montessori kid and it had a profound impact on how I view the world around me. I plan on enrolling my children in a Montessori school and wish that there were more K-12 schools in existence. My journey through Catholic middle and high school crushed my spirit, to say the least.

I wanted to put my 4 yr old daughter into a local Montessori school but decided not to after finding out it was going to cost us $1,400 a month. I did have a tour and liked the school but it was just too much $$$.

I'm a Montessori kid myself. I cant' remember really going to school when I was a kid. I always felt that I was going there to play. Years later I was surprised when I dug up knowledge about things and friends wondered how I knew them. I always thought my education was "standard". I love how advanced our lessons were but it never felt like it was a burden.

I loved my montessori school and like you, saberkite, I never realized it was school.

Another Montessori kid here, engaged to a Waldorf alum. When we have them, we will absolutely be sending them to a Montessori school, even if we have to pinch in other budget areas. The mental framework for creative and logistical thinking that I have from preschool has been invaluable to me. Even decades later, when a boss or educator finds out that I had a Montessori education, the response is always the same: "Ah! That explains it." "It," being that I am a weirdo-genius.

Kid O is a phenomenal brand. The make that Bilibo (sp?) thingy that can be a stool or a chair or a spinner toy or anything one can imagine! My son, now 18 mos, received two of their Go Cars for his first birthday and they are still his favorite toys. They're streamlined, simple and solid - perfect for his age. We added to the collection the Tip Truck (I think that's the name) and it is the same style as the car, except the bed of the truck tips back. It's wonderful to see him play with these toys, ones that don't make noise! :)

Montessori kid here, too, and I absolutely loved it. One part of the Montessori method is to bring home life into the school, so that's an easy one to do at home -- teach them to take care of their environment, and have a child-size broom, dustpan, apron, watering can, etc. We homeschool, and when our kids were little I incorporated a lot of Montessori method, "practical life", and math & language work into our life. There are some great online resources for parents looking for ways to do that without spending a lot.

I'm not a Montessori, but i love it anyway.

im not a montessori kid, never had the privilege. i have a 2 1/2 year old and would love to put her in a montessori school..but sadly the cost is WAY too much. i DO find it ironic that most montessori schools are private and are tuition based as montessori was founded on and based on low income children and how they learned ...it seems weird that now and days only children of parents with high forms of income can afford to go to a montessori school...there is a few public montessori schools in chicago(where we live) but we are 1.5 miles outside the schools boundary so in order to apply i have to go through a city wide lottery in hopes of my child being able to attend. i personally love the montessori way of teaching but i do find it sad that only the privileged can go with out all the trouble of being in a lottery. i do think if maria montessori was still alive she would not be happy to know that low income children or children from "lower"middle class familys would not be able to attend

I think that the Montessori method - or whatever you would like to call it - is overrated and considered a specialized form of education, when in fact, it is common sense techniques at a very high price. Many young parents that I know throw their kids into Montessori schools because there is the sense that it is special and exclusive and will give their children an edge on learning. However, most teachers that I know won't waste their money on placing their children in Montessori programs.

Montessori education results in children that are more independent, focused, curious to learn, and considerate.

I plan on enrolling my children at a Montessori school someday if I can afford it. I attended a Montessori school in my small hometown for about 4 years as a kid, and I think that (coupled with my parents teaching me at home, of course) it really laid a special foundation for me in terms of how I learned to think about the world.

Public school all the way! WHAT, WHAT?!! I did not receive a fancy pants education and am very glad for it. It's kept me humble. It also instilled in me the realization that education only opens the door to knowledge; it does not help you walk through it. Viewing the world in a different light is helpful but viewing yourself as separate part of that world because of education/class/money/culture makes you a dangerous fool. Sometimes I see myself as separate because I am smarter, faster, Kanye-er... so thanks AT readers for reminding me that elitism is silly and Kanye is kind of an A-hole.

@korryo
My sister taught at an NYC montessori school, and from her stories it seemed like they had a significant proportion of low-income scholarship students--which the non-scholarship students' $40k/year tuition went to supplement, I guess.

I know nothing about Montessori and her method, being French where this is totally unknown. Still, I tend to agree with JASMINEISDOMESTIC: it seems like common sense, at least for the main parts. Creating a calm environment ? Doesn't that seem obvious, unless you want a high-strung child ? Make space at their scale ? Well... that's the point of a nursery, isn't it ? You don't put a king size bed and an executive home office in there, but small, reachable pieces of furnitures. Allowing the child to reach everything is also common sense, unless you want to take out and pick up something for him every second.

I'll subscribe to a good, common sense-diven education any day.

My 2 older children are now 9 and 10 and I had no idea what Montessori was. But we did EVERYTHING just like Montessori and Waldorf combined.
My husband always called this common sense.....
This is how he grew up, and the love for nature and natural living.
Now, new parents again with baby #3, we use words like Montessori and Waldorf when asked why we do the things we do.
However, I would never pay a high price to put my children in any school.
Teaching our children COMMON SENSE at home is our way of life. Able to pass this onto them just feels right. Able to live a simple and natural life feels right.
I like common sense.

My experience with a montessori school is that it focuses and emphasizes structured freedom and play. At many public schools, children aren't given the freedom to decide their activity as an individual because the teachers have to keep all of the kids in order and there's just less room for a little chaos. I distinctly remember teachers at the montessori school asking what I wanted to do with my "play" time - and I had a variety of activities to choose from, but the important aspect was that I was deciding what I wanted to do, not being told "now it's time for coloring." Certainly this is something that could be incorporated in the home, but unless you're a stay at home parent, you can't create that kind of environment throughout the day.

Oh and also, the youngest age to enroll is usually 3 and many parents take their kids out by the time they're ready for kindergarten so this is an area where many public schools would not even touch anyway. Many public schools don't offer preschool.

I appreciate Dr. Montessori's philosophy to "Follow the Child". I think the important idea is to have a variety of materials and experiences for the child and then to observe which ones hold the interest and enthusiasm. I am a teacher, and I also like the ideas in Waldorf that the parent is the child's first and best teacher. So I created a set of learn to read books for my own children and structured them so that they are practically self-taught with just an intro by the parents. I was able to start my children from home on the path of reading if and when they were interested with a non threatening, almost self-taught approach! LearntoReadwithKinderRead.com.

I'm a Montessori kid. When I started teaching after college I taught in a regular elementary school and felt sorry for the kids. I went back to be certified in Montessori and plan on using it with my future children. I was fortunate enough to go to a Montessori school that was open to the public, it was just first come-first serve. I look back very fondly at my experiences in a Montessori school. Going to regular public school for middle school was weird for me since the textbooks I used in 6th grade public school were the same I had used in 5th grade Montessori school. Montessori all the way!

Our son is thriving in a Montessori school right now - he started at 37 months and is will complete his first year in May. I am a Montessori kid myself and can't imagine any other way. It feels so intuitive based on the natural stages of children. You really have to experience it either first-hand or through your kids to see the difference. Sad that we pay a fortune for public schools (in our area, over $11,000/yr/pupil) and many parents are interested in Montessori (or Waldorf) but there are few public school options. And even the Montessori public school still has to comply with federal testing standards, shifting the focus from 100% Montessori.

Needless to say, I am VERY pro-voucher/school choice. I feel fortunate to be able to send our kids to private schools and wish everyone had the same opportunities.

My daughter is in Montessori for Kindergarten. There are some things I like and some things I don't. It's easy for kids to fall behind because they always get to choose their own "work" - so if a child finds reading difficult, they spend less time on reading. There is little encouragement to really stick with the hard things, because the kids get to choose what to do. So if something is boring or too challenging, they don't have to do it. I find that troubling. The flip side of all the independence is that they can become very me-centred -- doing what they want, when they want.

She will be moving to public school after kindergarten. I think Montessori is okay, but I am not as impressed as I thought I would be.

My children are in public school, but we are a Montessori family. I believe in the power of a neighborhood school, so my children attend with their neighbors. I am a trained Montessori Teacher with a Master's Degree in Early Childhood Education. Our home is designed with Montessori Principles, as this was my Master's Thesis Project.

It may seem to be common sense to some, but in Dr. Montessori's time- she was the first to break the old rules of 'children should be seen and not heard', and that children are valuable members of society. I suggest doing some research. Montessori isn't just about educational gains, it's about valuing the children in the family and viewing children as the future. Look for information at AMI or AMS and you'll see that Montessori isn't just a fad.

Whatever opinion you come to, can you see the beauty in these rooms? The adults considered the children beyond a sleeping place. Lovely!

Maria Montessori was so prized by the Italian government that they put her on the 1000 lire note, equivalent to the dollar bill. But she's not on any Euro denomination. Sigh..

@LEPIDOPTERY yeah alot of the schools in chicago offer scholarships for low income families but you still need to apply in the city wide lottery and if you happen to be chosen, the scholarships can be anywhere from 15-70%depending on your income(but according to most schools never as high as 70%) but when its $15,000+ a year even 70% would be waayyy too much for us to pay for just 1 year of school :( not to mention most of the schools have entry fees(normally $2000) which arent covered by the scholarships..also the scholarships are limited(since the most of the schools are private it doesnt get money from the gov and the money it receives is from donations) so there is limited amount of space/funds for those low income kids on scholarships :( yeah i ave looked into every which way we would be able to put our daughter in one of the montessori schools in chicago but with our income and planning on having a 2nd child its not possible (unless the scholarship went up to 90+%, then maybe lol)

I've been looking up basics about Motessori and Waldorf, etc and have realized that even though I went to public schools throughout my life (including a state university) my parents had a very similar outlook. I had a kid sized broom when I was small and actually helped around the house. I began learning to sew at ~6, previously having those cards with holes in them for shoelaces. While I'm certainly not an expert on any of this educational stuff, it seems to me that a lot of it is (A) giving the child options and (B) not limiting the child based on your own preconceived ideas. So many people don't even let their child turn on the stove until they're a teenager now of days! I know that my mom was cooking whole meals by herself by the time she was 7 or so, and I distinctly remember trying to bake yeast bread when I was 8 (and failing miserably at first - killed the bajeebus out of the yeast!) and then learning to crochet and work the weedwacker as I was tall enough then. None of these things were learned by force (although we obviously had chores that later included things like weedwacking and cooking) and I really think that my brothers and I were some of the most prepared people I know when we moved out on our own.

To me, it really is just common sense.

Instead of criticizing Montessori for being elitist, we should be questioning why public school systems do not offer the Montessori method so that all children can enjoy the same opportunities.

More and more public systems are adopting Montessori, but they are still few and far between. In our city, there are 3 publicly funded Montessoris which go until grade 5. However, they are in the French Catholic system, and so already have stringent entry guidelines (must be fluent French speakers, ideally from a Francophone home, and must be Catholic). Needless to say, you must live in their cachement area since they are oversubscribed.

Hopefully, as more and more research is being done on the Montessori method to better substantiate the benefits, more and more public systems will consider adopting it. Of course, there will be the problem of a shortage of trained Montessori teachers.

We've had our daughter in Montessori since she was 11 months old -- we were lucky enough to find a Montessori infant program. Both she and her brother are still in a Montessori, and although it's a huge strain for us financially at the moment, we believe very strongly that it is the best teaching method for each of them at this time.

Our son has a language/speech problem. The speech pathologist who evaluated him told us that Montessori was the best place for him, providing the best support for his particular issues. We are amazed at the work he does, at only age 5. He loves geography and a couple of weeks ago came home with a project he had done about the earth, drawing out the continents, placing them in context, and labeling them with cursive labels he wrote himself. He had done another similar project on the solar system a couple of weeks earlier. He LOVES math -- Montessori has a completely different approach to teaching math -- and loves reading books and making presentations, despite the language issues.

The public school system has no programs for my daughter until grade 5, and so we hope to be able to keep her in Montessori until at least then. At age 8, she is entirely self-motivated, which should hold her in good stead throughout her life. She writes and illustrates books, she just made pizza dough, and painted her version of the Mona Lisa this morning upon waking. I can't keep up with her, much less keep her supplied with paper.

@jasmineisdomestic- it's because we public school teachers can't afford to send our kids to Montessori! ;)

Off-topic, I know, but I WISH WISH WISH WISH as a public school teacher that we incorporated more student-centered methodology. As standardized test season looms, it's harder and harder not to focus completely on how to pass some multiple choice exam. Yuck.

My mom is a Montessori master teacher (full-time teacher, plus part-time prof at a local university's master program, trained by Mario Montessori in Italy, Maria's son) SO needless to say I went through Montessori from age three to age ten, lol. My children will absolutely be educated in Montessori, without question. Every single child that went through my program has become an exceptionally successful (by many various parameters, least of which is financial), creative, thoughtful, active, and compassionate person, and the classes were incredibly diverse, both ethnically and socio-economically, so it's not like all these kids came from incredible privilege.

When I had to switch from my Montessori school to another private school, it took a good five years for me to be challenged again, and these were supposed to be some of the best schools in the city. It was actually shocking to me how behind all my peers were and after the brilliance of my old curriculum, it was a mind-numbing, horrible experience. It wasn't unique to me; my classmates all had similar experiences.

My mom teaches in a gem of a Montessori school in the San Francisco Bay Area, which is actually PUBLIC! And last week it actually just won THE School of Distinction Award for the entire state of California . It works so well that they recently expanded it from just K-5 to K-8. It's the most wonderful community, and all the teachers are some of the most dedicated, hard-working people I know.

What amazing about Maria Montessori is that she developed an entire teaching philosophy that has only been substantiated and validated by the majority of subsequent studies in psychology and neuroscience, and I just hope that the general education system can catch up with it as well. As my mom's school has shown, it is absolutely possible (though of course it takes small class sizes, which Shwarzenegger began dismantling after Davis set the limit at 20 pupils per teacher, and that is a real threat to the efficacy of the program).

On a final note, I don't understand the anti-Montessori tone in some of these comments. To respond to one comment in particular, one tenet of the philosophy is TO make sure children aren't left behind... For example, in a traditional classroom all the kids read from the same text at their desks and are taught AT. But one third might be too advanced for that pace and they get bored and disillusioned with their education, while another third might be developing at a slower pace, so they become discouraged, lose self-confidence, and feel that education is difficult and that they're stupid. Montessori teachers evaluate each child's skill level and plan a curriculum that is AT PACE with that child, challenging them just enough to continue and facilitate their growth.

LOL, sorry at this screed, but I am a very passionate advocate of this system! I've experienced it firsthand, and have seen the long-term benefits in my peers, in our adult lives.

Also Pinetree, I never had the option of just 'not doing something' when I was a kid, nor do any of the children in my mom's classroom (where I've volunteered extensively throughout the years). There is still structure and discipline and very firm limits (kids absolutely need them for growth, as much as anything). Expected standards are very well-established, and reinforced sternly but fairly. I'm sorry that you're experiencing a lack of structure, but I don't necessarily think it's reflective of the principle itself, which is a balance between structure and self-motivation, based on the individual.

My daughter began learning at a Montessori K-8 school almost two years ago. Since then I've been transforming our home into a Montessori home, with appropriate-sized furniture, kitchen tools and utensils sized for the kids, etc. I find that my daughter is extremely willing to help out around the house, and thanks to school she's generally very capable. Montessori principles for infants are also fascinating - our third child has no bouncy chair, bumbo, or exersaucer, and she's way ahead of her physical milestones - likely because she spends all her playtime on the floor.

As for the "elitism" issue, as others have pointed out there are and can be public Montessori schools. In Toronto, the school board will consider proposals for specialty programs - currently there's a proposal for a Montessori program downtown. The private schools shouldn't be elitist by attitude (ours isn't) but the tuition fees are definitely a barrier for most people. Unfortunately it's expensive to run a school, and the money has to come from somewhere :(

I'm passionate about this, can you tell? I've written a lot more about Montessori, and also the confluence of Montessori and Jewish education. It's over at Jewish Montessori Mom.

If I ever have children, I want to look into Montessori schools. The philosophy is fascinating and the program seems well-rounded.