This is a genuine question – why aren’t there more?
I read tonight that there are an estimated 140 Montessori high schools in the United States. That’s out of the approximately 40,000 high schools in the US.
The Montessori model is founded on solid principles. Allow natural curiosity to drive the student in a structured and supported environment. Provide resources that facilitate learning yet still require the skill of discrimination to determine the most helpful ones. Avoid extrinsic rewards as incentives to do work.
Most of the Montessori schools out there are for the youngest kids. And that’s great – keep their intrinsic curiosity alive as long as you can! But there’s tremendous value in the teachings of Montessori for high schoolers. Legal adulthood comes around graduation time – along with all of its challenges.
School should be teaching real life skills – budgeting and cash flow, how to write resumes and cover letters, how the law works, the finances of buying a house and car, how to travel and adventure, and so on. All the subjects of traditional classrooms can be covered – math, science, history, art, etc., as well as shop, home economics, and the like. Young adults could then have the basic skills needed for everyday life and instead focus their energy on work and career.
While there are many school models that can teach this, I feel like Montessori would be an obviously good fit for this need – a need that the public cries out for solutions to.
So, is there some reason that we don’t see more Montessori high schools?