What do Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ronan Farrow and His Royal Highness Prince George of Cambridge all have in common?

They are the beneficiaries of the century-old student-focused Montessori education, which has produced some of the most innovative thinkers on the planet.

Little Bets author Peter Sims wrote in his Wall Street Journal blog, “Ironically, the Montessori educational approach might be the surest route to joining the creative elite, which are so overrepresented by the school’s alumni that one might suspect a Montessori Mafia.”

“You can’t understand Google unless you know that both Larry and Sergey were Montessori kids.” Yahoo CEO and former Google vice president Marissa Mayer told Wired magazine, “In a Montessori school, you go paint because you have something to express or you just want to do it that afternoon, not because the teacher said so. This is baked in how Larry and Sergey approach problems. They’re always asking, ‘Why should it be like that?’ It’s the way their brains were programmed early on.”

When asked what drove their success, Page and Brin responded, “Nursery school.”

Page elaborated, “We both went to Montessori school and I think [our success] was part of that training, not following rules and orders and being self-motivated, questioning what’s going on in the world, doing things a little bit different.”

The five principles of the Montessori Method are:

• Respect for Students
• The Absorbent Mind
• Sensitive Periods
• The Prepared Environment
• Autoeducation

Respect for Students

Dr. Maria Montessori began her career as an educator working with children who had learning disabilities and were deemed unteachable; the only reason they were taught at all was to try to prevent them from becoming juvenile delinquents. Dr. Montessori noted that the needs, interests, and wants of her students were not respected. When she made the students the center of the learning activities and their inherent curiosity an integral part of their learning process the success was astonishing. Montessori Method teachers are trained to take their students’ curiosity seriously and foster their independence to help them learn for themselves. Learning, according to the Montessori Method, is a joyous, life-long pursuit.

The Absorbent Mind

Dr. Montessori observed that children are ready and eager to learn and that they easily absorb information from the world around them. Her view was that learning takes place all the time. Learning by absorption is indeed both constant and ageless.

Sensitive Periods

This refers to specific times during a child’s development when their capacity for absorbing certain information or mastering specific skills is noticeably increased. Montessori teachers are trained to observe their students and identify such sensitive periods to provide the students with the right resources and tools to support and accelerate their learning. Adult students learn to become aware of such periods themselves, and can ask for the appropriate assistance from their instructors.

The Prepared Environment

A Montessori classroom is an environment designed to promote the students’ freedom of choice. The room is well organized, with plenty of learning materials and the appropriate space in which to use them. Students are encouraged to move around the room on their own, allowing their curious minds to guide them as they explore the tools the teachers put at their disposal. Such an environment encourages the students to become active, involved participants in learning. Adult learners tend to create an environment that suits them once encouraged to do so.

Autoeducation

In this fifth principle, the four previous ones culminate in the realization that children, given the right support, can teach themselves. In a Montessori school, environment, authentic freedom of choice, and respect for the students work together to promote a life-long love of learning.

The Montessori Method recognizes three developmentally important age groups: 2–2.5 years, 2.5–6 years, and 6–12 years. Students learn through activities such as exploration, manipulations, order, repetition, abstraction, and communication. The first two age groups use their senses to explore and manipulate materials in their immediate environment. Children in the last group deal with abstract concepts based on their newly developed powers of reasoning, imagination, and creativity. 

Montessori Methods seem to be particularly suitable for adults, and the chief reason for that is respect. Quite often, adult education is brought in as a last resort in a government program for the unemployed, or as a company course required for promotion. In either case, most of the students are not attending because they want to, and when they encounter a grownup version of a traditional classroom they balk at the whole idea. What is lacking in such “traditional” instruction is respect for the individual.

The Intersection Between The Montessori Method and Psychodynamic Psychology

Prior to receiving psychoanalytic training, renowned behaviorist Erik Erikson earned a certificate at the Maria Montessori School in Italy. In 1950, he created the 8 stages of psychosocial development during his tenure at the Department of Psychiatry at Yale University.

Echos of Maria Montessori’s philosophy strike frequently in Erikson’s theories about how children learn and the powerful role early childhood development plays later in later.

Erikson’s 8 Stages of Psychosocial Development

The intersection between the Montessori Method and psychodynamic psychology  also aligns with Mindsplain’s principles, namely:

• Promoting autonomy in childhood. 
• Focusing on giving kids support that empowers them.
• Gaining autonomy through play and self-expression during sensitive periods.

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