Monday, January 30, 2012

Natural talent?

The Talent Code.

The missing voice

Laura Flores Shaw used to be a school psychologist. She became a Montessori school leader because she wanted to dedicate her life to helping children develop the personal strength and resilience that would make therapy unneeded.

Read her article in the Huffington Post.

Thursday, January 12, 2012

Parent Stories

An invitation to parents from Mark Berger:

I've launched a new website to capture all those stories parents love to tell about Montessori and their child/family. Parents are always talking about their experience with Montessori- how it helped them be a better parent, how their child emerged so capable and confident, etc. Well, here's a place to gather those stories- from parents around the world.

Share your own and pass this on to others. http://www.montessoriwords.com/(hint: open in Firefox)


Cheers,

Mark

Monday, January 9, 2012

Montessori and Macintosh

Another Alan Kay comment about Montessori education. This one before congress: "The Macintosh user-interface used Montessori's ideas..."

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

"the inside sort of things"

Writer Rick Ackerly tells Maggie's story.
"Maggie awoke one morning at the age of eighteen with the profound fear that after 13 years of school, 'I knew very little about myself and what I wanted in my life.'”

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

"The best way to predict the future is to invent it."

That statement is from Alan Kay. So is this one:

"For me, the key is education. And in my mind the patron saint of how to teach kids is Maria Montessori. A hundred years ago, Montessori understood that children always are trying to learn about their environment, and so the best way to help them was to give them carefully organized, rich environments, where the toys and the play have 20th-century side effects. In my opinion, this is one of the great ideas in the history of education. Even today, most of the best cognitive science about education harks back to Montessori's original insights."

To read the whole article about Alan Kay's work at Xerox PARC and the Dynabook, go here.

Monday, January 2, 2012

the plaid avenger

Check it out: The plaid avenger + Aung San Suu Kyi + an auditorium full of university students.