Gerald Lee Gutek - The Montessori Method: The Origins of an Educational Innovation

Anne E. George , an elementary teacher at the Chicago Latin School, visited the Casa dei Bambini in San Lorenzo in 1909 and had an interview with Maria Montessori. At the time, George did not know Italian and conversed with Montessori in French. When she returned to the United States, George brought with her a copy of Montessoris Il Metodo della Pedagogica Scientifica applicato alleducazione infantile nelle Case dei Bambine and some of Montessoris didactic materials. Committed to researching Montessoris method, George learned Italian so that she could read Montessoris book. She decided to go back to Rome and was the first American to enroll and complete the eight months training course that Montessori directed.

After completing the training course, George returned to the United States and established the first American Montessori school at Tarrytown, New York, in 1911. Leaving her assistant in charge of the Tarrytown school, George next established a Montessori school in Washington, D.C., in 1912 with the support of Alexander Graham Bell. Montessori held George in high esteem and regarded her as the only person qualified to implement her method in the United States. George was asked to translate Montessoris Il Methodo into an English version that was published by Frederick A. Stokes as The Montessori Method. The book quickly became a best-selling nonfiction work.

George became a member of the Montessori American Committee in 1912 that grew into the Montessori Educational Association. George, along with McClure, accompanied Montessori on her American speaking tour that the Association sponsored in 1913. George was acted as Montessoris translator for the lectures and press conferences that took place during the tour. Georges translation of the lectures emphasized the following Montessori themes: (1) The liberty of children to develop, without unnecessary adult interference, through self-active learning activities in a structured environment; (2) the use of didactic apparatus and materials in childrens auto-education; (3) examples of childrens interactions and discoveries in the prepared environment; (4) the difference between the Montessori directress and traditional teacher.

William Heard Kilpatrick (18711965) was a leading Pragmatist and Progressive educator. As a public school teacher in Georgia, he developed a highly child-centered and activity method of instruction. Rejecting competition and grades, he emphasized childrens whole cooperation in learning through group activities.

In 1912, Kilpatrick became a professor of education at Columbia Universitys Teachers College; he became a proponent of John Deweys Instrumentalist or Experimentalist Pragmatism. He identified with and was regarded as the leader of the progressive education wing of the Teachers College Faculty and associated with George S. Counts, John Childs, and Harold Rugg. Seeking to implement Deweys learning by the Complete Act of Thought into methods of instruction, Kilpatrick developed the project method, an activity-based approach in which pupils worked in groups to solve problems or pursue projects. Kilpatrick asserted that group-based education not only provided children with experience in implementing the scientific method but that it had concomitant learning consequences such as learning to share, to listen to others, and to practice democratic procedures. Kilpatrick, a popular and influential professor at Teachers College, was highly successful in promoting his Project Method. Project-based learning was a highly popular teaching method in the United States in the 1920s and 1930s.

Early in his professional career, Kilpatrick wrote two books in which he analyzed and criticized the educational ideas and methods of leading figures; The Montessori System Examined (1914) and Froebels Kindergarten Principles Critically Examined (1916). His critique of Montessori was based on an interview with her, visits to Montessori schools in Italy, and a detailed analysis of The Montessori Method , which had been published in English in 1912. The timing of Kilpatricks critique came at a key period for the first introduction of Montessori to the United States. Montessoris philosophy and method of education had attracted an enthusiastic following in the United States. Her lecture tour in 1913 had generated a favorable and well-publicized response from American audiences and journalists. Kilpatricks book had the effect of blunting the enthusiasm for Montessori, especially among professional educators, and of seriously weakening the Montessori movement.

In the excerpts from The Montessori System Examined , Kilpatrick claims that Montessoris educational generalizations are unscientific and her knowledge of education limited. He criticizes her concept of development, lack of group work, overreliance on mechanical didactic apparatus, and use of formal mental discipline in transfer of training. He finds Montessoris claims about childrens success in mastering practical life activities to be exaggerated. Kilpatrick concluded that Montessoris educational theory was a mid-nineteenth-century piece that was fifty years behind the times and much inferior to John Deweys philosophy of education.