Comments on: Avoiding Evasion

By: Branodn Killen

Branodn Killen — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 22:03:05 +0000

There’s a couple articles by Lisa VanDamme dealing with the problems of Montessori education past pre-school scattered around the web. One was published in the Objective Standard: http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/issues/2006-spring/hierarchy-of-knowledge.asp In this essay, I thought she gave a very good argument not only why teachers should have to “decide what the students will learn, when and by what method”, but also why it is crucial to a child’s learning process.

There are also several articles that she wrote concerning hierarchy, lecture-based teaching, etc. at capmag.com

By: Stephen Bourque

Stephen Bourque — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 17:28:26 +0000

Excellent post and comments!

To add to Heike’s point, another exceptionally good resource besides Lisa VanDamme is Leonard Peikoff’s lecture, “Philosophy of Education” (available here: “http://www.aynrandbookstore2.com/prodinfo.asp?number=LP01M”).

In the lecture, Dr. Peikoff makes abundantly clear why leaving children free to choose what they learn is not appropriate. I believe this is the aspect that limits Montessori instruction to the very young. (I realize that the choices children make in a Montessori setting are not haphazard – which is why it is a good system for budding minds.) Dr. Peikoff’s point, with which I entirely agree, is that the teacher must not only present volumes of relevent facts to his students, but must present them in an order that builds concepts from the ground up (i.e. hierarchically). Concepts presented out of order – even true concepts – are necessarily floating in the child’s mind. Hierarchical instruction implicitly exercises the child’s mind in the practice of induction. Thus, he is not merely filled with facts but actually learns to think, which is the purpose of a proper education.

By: Amy

Amy — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 02:54:10 +0000

Heike, I do remember Lisa VanDamme talking about the issue, but I thought I had heard it from AR or Dr. Peikoff long before that. Maybe not.

Bill, I’m still not convinced that you Parent by Authority. I look forward to reading your essay.

By: Bill Brown

Bill Brown — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 22:06:54 +0000

I’m on the “authority” side of the spectrum as far as both parenting and education goes and I can assure you that it does not stem from the doctrine of “Original Sin.” I was raised non-religious (no religious education at all except my grandmother’s sending me to vacation Bible school for a few weeks one summer) and have been an atheist since 5. Until I discovered Ayn Rand, I had never even heard of such a noxious notion. (Now it’s entirely possible that more religious folk might latch onto the idea as a rationalization for authoritarian parenting.)

In my case, I believe that I know more than my children and that my job is to convey that knowledge to them. If an analogy would help, I am a college professor giving lectures to my students rather than leading group discussions. That, in a nutshell, seems to me to be the essential difference between what you’ve outlined here and my parenting style. (I’m finally working on an essay about my thoughts on parenting. I’m about ¾ of the way through the outline so it might be a week or so. I’ll be sure to send you a link when it’s ready.)

By: Heike

Heike — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 21:34:16 +0000

All,
Lisa Van Damme talked about issues with Montessori in the advanced grades. I am answering from memory, so you should check out her lecture on ‘Hierarchy in Education’ directly. I believe one of the issues is that as knowledge advances, it no longer is perceptual/concrete, where the child can judge what comes next in difficulty/sequence by trying, but that instead on the conceptual level/higher abstractions, it is important to have someone providing the proper hierarchy, and that at that point, a lecture/teaching approach with Q&A is more useful than a totally child-guided approach where materials are just presented for them to work with.

From what I recall, Lisa implied that Montessori in the higher grades tries to keep very conceptual material at a perceptual level, and thereby violates the hierarchy of what a child needs to know first.