Is there a role for Montessori in the mainstream?Is Montessori's Place Outside the Mainstream?Jacqueline Cossentino and Keith Whitescarver
Similarly, researchers have begun to take a closer look at the theory, practice and outcomes of Montessori education. We are among a growing group of researchers who recognize the importance of addressing these questions by examining the lessons mainstream educators can learn from the remarkable story of Montessori in America. That story presents a rich-and as yet unexamined- case study of educational reform that is both ambitious and enduring. At the center of the story lies an irony that, we argue, goes to the core of American social and educational life. For nearly a century Montessori education has managed to exert significant influence on the American educational establishment while remaining on the margins of that establishment. While Montessorians often find this situation vexing (exercising influence from the margins can be a frustratingly thankless task), our perspective as researchers tells us that making sense of that irony can help us (Montessorians as well a non-Montessorians) understand the shifting role Montessori education has played in American life and, by extension, how Montessorians might steer the movement so that it may define and protect a vital role for the future. Perhaps most ironic is our contention that a stable place on the margins has, in fact, proven to be an effective-we suspect the most effective-means of keeping Montessori an educational force that is both distinctive and dynamic. Not many educational movements can claim this distinction. And it is one we think is worth a closer look. AMERICANIZING MONTESSORI: TRANSPLANTATION OR TRANSMUTATION In many ways, the story of Montessori in America is a chronicle of tensions: between liberalism and radicalism, between pluralism and cohesion, and between the concentration and diffusion of authority. Is Montessori an "all or nothing" approach? Or can elements of the method be incorporated in American social and cultural norms? Is it better to guard the integrity of a highly complex and integrated system of human development and pedagogy or should the movement seek to bring Montessori to the widest possible audience? What are the consequences of either approach? Throughout the history of Montessori in America, Montessorians have kept these questions, and the tensions they embody, at the forefront of debate. And this fact alone, we suspect, has helped keep the movement whole. Maria Montessori's vision of who children are and what is necessary for healthy development was radical. Moreover, it was formulated in direct opposition to prevailing educational conventions (many of which still persist in our schools today). In the earliest years, that radicalism proved unpalatable to American cultural and social norms. Half a century later, however, a new, Americanized, version of Montessori re-appeared. And this time it took. Nancy McCormick Rambusch, widely credited with forging the Montessori revival of the 1960's, framed much of the rhetoric of the Americanized version of the movement by describing the effort as a "transmutation" rather than "transplantation" of theory and practice. In order for Montessori to take hold as an authentic American educational phenomenon, she reasoned, American practitioners must be free to interpret Montessori theory within the context of American culture while, simultaneously, keeping the essence of Montessori alive. Transmuting Montessori, in other words, meant liberalizing a set of ideas and practices that were, at least in their original form, quite radical. Here we use the term liberal not in opposition to conservatism, but in its classic sense: aiming the do the greatest good for the greatest number of people. Likewise, the structure of Americanized Montessori professional organizations reflects the conventions of liberal, democratic society, emphasizing equitable representation and the diffusion of key ideas and practices across and large and varied social landscape. Contextualizing Montessori within an American cultural frame, moreover, has led to variety from school to school, again a reflection of the pluralistic, pragmatic and liberal tendencies of American culture. As anyone familiar with Montessori history knows, efforts to transmute rather than transplant Montessori into American culture were (and continue to be) met with resistance, and at times open hostility, from those committed to protecting Montessori's ideas from the threat of dilution and distortion. Practitioners often tell us that ongoing disputes between these two segments of the movement are dispiriting. Moreover, many Montessorians view the failure to "unify" the movement as a key obstacle to gaining currency in mainstream education. Yet, from our vantage pint-as observers and analysts-the tensions embodied in the historic rift between transplanters and transmuters, tensions that now are visible in a growing array of splinter organizations, are instructive, even hopeful, precisely because they illuminate a set of issues that are central to the improvement of both Montessori and mainstream American education. While the values of pluralism and pragmatism rank high in the pantheon of American virtue, pragmatic and pluralistic schooling, by definition, lacks coherence and strains for clarity. Efforts to guard against the American penchant for tinkering with practice, we think, are well-founded. The Montessori method is, after all, a complex and highly coherent system-linking developmental theory, pedagogical action and moral worldview. Misinterpretation of any one of the parts of the system could-and does-produce results that greatly diverge from established aims of the method. The ongoing tension between transplanters and transmuters has, perhaps unwittingly, produced a vigilance -in word as well as deed-that has allowed Montessori to evolve while maintaining its coherence. MARGIN OR MAINSTREAM: TENSIONS AND TRADE-OFFS It is important to remember that Montessori has, in fact, influenced a good deal of what goes on in traditional classrooms. From child-sized furniture to differentiated instruction to flexible scheduling, these signature elements of the method can be seen in all corners of American schooling. These influences, in and of themselves, constitute a significant contribution to the mainstream. Still the radical core of Montessori: the remade vision of childhood, the insistence on pedagogy framed by developmental theory, the profound commitment to transformative teacher preparation and, perhaps most important, the seamless integration of all these parts to form a coherent and self-contained whole, has remained on the margins of mainstream American education. Why? Because the pluralistic, liberal and pragmatic tendencies of American culture are profoundly at odds with the distinctive coherence of the Montessori system. Efforts to preserve the coherence of the system have prompted even the most liberal of Montessorians to erect walls. Terms like "directress," "normalization," "work cycle," or "sensitive period" are puzzling to outsiders. Likewise, the rituals that govern classroom life-the scripted lessons, the careful arrangement of objects on shelves, ceremonies like the Great Lessons-often strike non-Montessorians as strange. Yet these cultural practices have been essential in maintaining the cohesion of the community. And without that cohesion, we suspect that Montessori would likely have gone the way of similarly radical innovations. Think kindergarten. Think the Dalton Plan. Even think progressive education. Good fences, in other words, have made very good neighbors. Left largely alone to define and modify itself according to its own set of-sometimes contested-standards, American Montessorians have been able to manage a creative tension between transmutation and transplantation. The push-pull of tradition and innovation, of pluralism and coherence, of diffusion and concentration has been undertaken earnestly and, so far, productively, and, in our view, it is the most important lesson mainstream reformers can learn from the story of Montessori in America. BUT WHAT OF THE FUTURE? As Americans continue to seek viable solutions to a host of educational problems, Montessori, once again, is capturing the attention of reformers. As the mainstream turns to Montessori as a model of rigorous, personalized, community-oriented, and, yes, time-tested schooling, the question before Montessorians is this: Can the tensions that have characterized the movement for its first hundred years be transformed into respectful and constructive dissent? Can the various voices within the movement work together to ensure wholeness while at the same time respecting difference? If the answer is yes-and there are signs on the horizon that it is-the second hundred years of Montessori in America may be even more remarkable than the first. Jacqueline Cossentino is Assistant Professor of Educational Policy and Leadership at the University of Maryland, College Park. She is also head of the Williamsburg Montessori School. Keith Whitescarver is Assistant Professor of educational history at the College of William & Mary. |
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