Classical education and Montessori method: afterschooling inspirations

 I was a Montessori kid. My children were Montessori kids. If you have the means, Montessori is amazing. It's all the things I hoped my kids would get out of education: inspiration, rigor, independence, and deep understanding. I used a lot of Montessori principals in, e.g., how I taught my kids to read, how I set up my house, etc. 

But during the year I homeschooled, I switched to a classically-inspired curriculum. At the time, I was inspired by a) the price (Montessori is expensive!) and b) how much my post-Montessori education jibed with classical education, at least at home. 

Though the methodologies and focuses of classical education and Montessori are pretty different, they share a lot:

• Children move through stages of brain development, and education should match where the child is.
• While the curriculum is structured, there should be room within curriculum for the child to lead in her own choices of material.
• The "real" world is endlessly fascinating and is to be treated with awe and wonder.
• Children have the capacity to understand much more than adults often give them credit for.
• Developing basic knowledge of the world provides a foundation on top of which children to learn to ask questions, make connections, and study patterns. 
• The hallmark of learning is the question. 
• An educated mind is orderly and curriculum should be taught in an orderly way.

There are obviously big differences as well. I like to think of the backbone of the Montessori method as three-fold:

• Children are scientists; they learn through working and observing.
• Children can choose to learn what they like, so long as the environment is filled with education-rich resources and no distractions.
• Children's work is important and pleasurable, and one should not distract them from it.

The pieces of classical education I have borrowed are thus:

• History is a unifying conceptual framework.
• Learn through text, ultimately through "Great Books".

This all said, I am neither doing real Montessori nor real classical education. But these are ideas that inspired how I decided to do afterschooling.

To read more about classical education for modern families, look into Susan Wise Bauer's Well Trained Mind. She comes from a Christian background, but her advice and information is meant for a general audience. There are a million resources for Montessori, but for general inspiration, Maria Montessori's The Absorbent Mind is very inspirational.

One last sort of fun thing to read for those interested. I did not learn music using the Suzuki method, but one of the most inspiring teaching texts I've ever read was Suzuki's Nurtured By Love. One of the foremost ideas he discusses is normalizing learning. Parents who make music have kids who make music. Similarly, parents who read books have kids who read books. It's a simple idea, but if you want a text that will have you smiling and ready to teach, it's a marvelous book. A house full of fascinating books, with adults who read fascinating books (assuming a limit on distractions), will produce children who love fascinating books and who think of learning as an opportunity and gift.