With the right conditions, Montessori believed that children are naturally inspired to learn. The first is the prepared environment, a concept Montessori pioneered that emphasizes the importance of the environment in setting up students for success. There are three concepts from Montessori that readily serve as useful guides in this thought experiment. Former VP at Google Marissa Mayer famously said, “You can’t understand Google unless you know that both Larry and Sergey were Montessori kids.” Perhaps the most famous is Google, the founders of which credit Montessori to much of their success. Recently, there have been a number of efforts to try to incorporate the lessons of Montessori and apply them to business practices. Let’s take your typical modern workplace.
One of the ways is to exhibit the principles in other contexts – taking Montessori concepts and applying them to more familiar circumstances.
How to do this? By showcasing Montessori itself. Similarly, it is often helpful not to compare and contrast Montessori to traditional education – that can be misleading – but rather, to highlight what makes Montessori exceptional. How is it possible that children can coexist in a mixed-age classroom, work independently, functional socially and without conflict, while following their interests and excelling on their own terms? This is why Montessori schools typically recommend that prospective families set up a time to observe the classroom in action.įor many of us, especially those who attended a more traditional educational background, the concepts displayed in a Montessori classroom may seem foreign. Montessori is one of those things that often needs to be seen to be believed. One of the ways to make Montessori concepts more familiar is to place them in a modern workplace setting.