When I was 11 (specifically on June 6, 1993), my mother asked me to describe my ideal school. I have been thinking about this question pretty much ever since. I recently asked her to dig up the notes she wrote from that conversation, and what amazes me is that it really hasn’t changed much, except that it has grown a bit more nuanced.
Recently, I’ve come back to that question more seriously, as COVID has allowed me to dig deep into my roots as a guide and educator, and trust myself to invent my Montessori work anew. It has finally given me the confidence to own my nuanced view of Montessori as I’ve seen it practiced (in many different schools—this is not a critique of any particular school), with all its strengths and weaknesses.
You see, my critique of so many Montessori schools is that they are too much like school. This is to be expected. Nearly all adults in Montessori schools come from an upbringing in traditional schools, as do the parents or school boards we “sell” our product to, and all of us are steeped in the stories those traditions tell about what is normal, what is important, and what the purpose of school is. Even when we disagree with those stories, it is quite hard to question them, for fear of losing the respect of our colleagues or the trust of parents in the school. And in the case of public Montessori schools, there may be no such choice at all.
What’s more, those stories and norms are so deeply ingrained in us that we may not even notice they exist. Or if we do, we might not notice when we are secretly following them, even inside a Montessori classroom that is supposed to tell a different story.
I would like to tell a different story about childhood. One that seriously, as John Holt says, “Trust[s] children.” Please take a journey with me, as we visit my tender heart-child: The Montessori Unschool.
You enter through a gate with an archway. Over the gate is a sign that says “Welcome to The Montessori Unschool,” and on one side is a hand lettered sign that says “Abandon fear, all ye who enter here.” On the other side is a sign with a quote:
The child must learn by his own individual activity, being given a mental freedom to take what he needs, and not to be questioned in his choice.
- Maria Montessori
As you enter, you are greeted by two students, one appears to be about 16, and the other is 10 or so. The younger one introduces himself as Oren, and the older one says, “I’m Robin, my pronouns are they/them, but you can also use she/her.”
They begin the tour by explaining that this is the courtyard. It’s the one place inside the community where parents and other non-staff adults are allowed without an escort. As you look around the courtyard, you see that it is set up as a garden, lush with wildflowers lining the paths leading to the buildings. They take you first into the building on the right. When you walk in, you see a narrow table with several clipboards on it. Robin explains that these are the sign in sheets for the senior students. Those are all the young people who have graduated to an open campus. “We have to be here for at least five hours per day, and of course, adults need to know where we are, so we sign in when we get here and out when we leave, and we have to sign out if we go off campus.”
Oren puts in, “Younger children can’t leave campus without an adult or special permission. We have our home base in the Junior Lab, so that’s where we sign in and put our stuff. It’s kind of a big deal to graduate to senior student. We have a big celebration when someone does.”
You ask, “How do you get to be a senior student?”
Oren explains,“You have to get permission from one of the junior guides, get a senior guide to agree to be your mentor, get permission from your parents, and get your off campus safety certification. When that happens, you get to ring the gong [he points to a big gong hanging in the courtyard behind you], everyone comes out and makes a big double line, and you carry your belongings from the Junior Lab to your new cubby over here.”
“Usually, is something you plan, and someone makes cake, and it’s a big celebration,” puts in Robin.
They continue guiding you through the building. On your left is a large, comfortable looking room, which Oren identifies as the “Community Room”. A teenager and a child of about 9 or so are sitting together at the piano. The older one appears to be teaching the younger one how to play. They try playing a duet, mess it up, and laugh uproariously. The older one says, “You lost the beat. Let’s try it again, slower?” The younger one nods, and they start playing again. It’s not polished exactly, but you can tell there is a melody there.
On the other side of the room, a group of people are playing a board game. They range in age from an adult to a child who can’t be more than 6 or 7. From the way they are sitting and talking, it’s clear that the youngest child has teamed up with one of the adolescents to play.
At another table, a group of children is working on constructing something out of legos. Oren says, “That’s the Lego Legion. They’re constructing a model of Ancient Rome. They’ve been working on it for months. It’s been a bit of a debate, because they really should be working on it in the maker space instead of taking up room here, but the project sort of started by accident, and by the time anyone realized it was a long-term project, it was too late to move it safely, so we decided to let them have that corner.”
To your right are two connected rooms that are obviously offices. “Those are the community offices,” Robin explains. “The one in the back there is only for adults, and it has all the official records and stuff that are confidential. Anyone can use the outer office for community business. Older kids, especially, help a lot with running the Unschool, or they use the office for things like figuring out their budget for a project they want to do. It’s also the only place where personal cell phones are allowed, so it’s where people go if they need to call their parents or something.”
Oren adds, “Hey, it’s not just the older students who help with running things. I’m still a junior student, and I’m leading a tour right now!”
The two of them look at each other and start giggling. You guess this is some sort of ongoing joke.
As you continue down the hallway, you enter a cozy library. The walls are lined with books, and There are two large, wooden tables in the middle of the room. There are several nooks with comfy chairs for reading, and one with a loveseat where three children are seated, reading together. Another child is curled up in one of the armchairs, completely absorbed in a book. It’s not exactly a quiet space: there are two young people sitting at the table with a a book open between them, arguing about whether Hermione Granger is the actual hero of Harry Potter. You would say the children are intent, rather than quiet.
Robin points to a door at the back of the room and puts in, “There’s a quiet library room back there, where loud arguments aren’t allowed.”
They lead you upstairs, where there are several conference-type rooms, and explain that they are used for seminars, working on group projects, or just other spaces to work. There are shelves around the rooms, with a litter of books, and what appears to be the physical evidence of projects in various stages of completion, as well as a variety of neatly arranged Montessori materials. In one, two young people, maybe age 13 or so, and an adult are carefully arranging some colored shapes, and the adult is explaining how to use the shapes to factor a quadratic expression.
You head back downstairs and into a large kitchen, where your tour guides explain that the kitchen is for everybody, but you have to have a kitchen safety and care certification to use it, and there is some equipment, like the stove, that you can’t use without adult supervision, unless you have an extra, specialized certification.
Finally, they lead you out a sliding glass door off the community room. There is a wide, wraparound patio along the side and back of the building, and from here, you can see down the slope to the play area, large garden, and wooded area in the back. The patio is partly covered, so even on this drizzly day, there is busy activity out here. The play area seems to consist of a large field, and a bunch of logs and other natural looking features. Oren explains that it is a natural playscape. “The idea is that there are plenty of places for all the usual kinds of play, but it is in nature instead of on a bunch of play structures. There are also swings and some slides, but they are behind that building.”
They point out the other buildings visible from here. There is a building that looks rather like another house, surrounded by a garden and a picket fence. Robin tells you that this is the Children’s House. “It’s for the toddlers and young children. They need a safe space to be, where everything is their size, and anyway, licensing requires that they be separate from the rest of the Unschool, so that’s their home base. We can go there to visit, but we have to follow their rules. It’s also the one place where parents are allowed to go without being specially invited. They can walk their children to the door of the children’s house and come pick them up there.”
They lead you back down to the courtyard and into the building on the other side of it. This is a wide open room with big windows, pleasantly full of wooden tables and shelves neatly stocked with a variety of mysterious items. This is the junior laboratory and it is home base for the younger students. Oren tells you that it is just like an elementary classroom in any Montessori school. “All these materials are there to help us learn about anything we want to know, and there is a guide who can show you how to use any of them. This is also where the junior circle meets to discuss business.”
“What’s the junior circle?” You ask.
“Oh, that’s all the junior students and their guides. It’s when we meet to discuss business that’s mostly just relevant to us, like how to care for the junior lab.”
“Is there a senior circle, too?”
Robin puts in, “Technically, yes, but it doesn’t meet much. We mostly have circles dedicated to particular spaces or projects, like a library circle and a maker space circle. Those aren’t limited to just senior students, anyway.”
There is also another long, low building, which they take you down to. Inside are two large rooms: one is designated The Maker Space, which is a combination art studio, wood shop, and robotics workshop. It has art supplies, drawers full of electronic components, several computers, where children seem to be working on a programing project, a 3-D printer, and some miscellaneous tools you don’t recognize.
The other rooms is a completely open room, rather like a gymnasium, with a collection of mats and various play equipment in one corner. This, you are told, is the movement room. It’s there for people to come play games, exercise, or otherwise be noisy when, for some reason or other, they don’t want to be outside. “It is also used for big meetings and events,” Oren and Robin tell you, “though we don’t use it for Community Meeting. We fit just fine in the community room, and it’s a lot more comfortable there.”
“What is Community Meeting?” you ask.
“Oh, that’s how we make decisions,” Robin explains. “Every week, we have Community Meeting, where we deal with business. We hear reports from all the different committees, people can bring up problems or proposals, and we make decisions about them. We also discuss any issues that are referred to the whole community by the Judicial Committee. It’s pretty much how our Unschool is run.”
“Not everyone has to go,” Oren adds, “And there is always one staff member who doesn’t go and stays outside to supervise people who aren’t there. It tends to be older students who go regularly, but it really depends. Some people don’t care much and are happy to just follow whatever rules are set, and other people want to be part of all of it. Big rule changes can’t be passed without two readings, so if something big comes up, everyone goes the next week to discuss and vote on it. We aren’t that big a community, so you always pretty much know what’s going on.”
“Wait, that’s how you make rules? What if the teachers don’t like it?”
“We run on consent, so if the guides really, really don’t like it, they can formally object. But also, you know, we trust them. Usually, if a guide doesn’t like a proposal, they have a good reason and they explain it to us, and then we talk about it and find an alternative.”
As this conversation is going on, they lead you outside to the gardens and play area. You would guess that there are probably 50 people spread out in these outdoor spaces, everyone from 6 or 7 year old children, to people who are obviously adult staff members. Just about every possible sort of activity is going on here. Some people are playing frisbee. A few are sitting in front of a bird feeder with notebooks on their laps. They seem to be observing the birds, and Robin tells you they are doing some nature journaling. Others are rubbing sticks together; perhaps they are trying to make fire. Still more are climbing on the play structure, and three appear to be having an intense argument about something. And adult and several teenagers are weeding in the garden. One of the teenagers is standing next to a much younger child, and is obviously explaining something about the plants.
As you walk around the outdoor spaces with Oren and Robin, you ask, “Who decides when you do your schoolwork?”
“What schoolwork? This is our schoolwork.”
“Oh, well, how do the teachers give you lessons?” You try again.
“They’re not teachers; they’re guides,” Oren tells you.
“Oh, well then how do they teach you what you need to know?”
“They don’t really decide what we need to know. They teach us things when we ask them to, and all of them are really happy to show you what they’re doing or show you how to do something,” Robin explains.
“And they are all really good story tellers, so it’s exciting to get to talk to them. I’m always interested in something new after a conversation with one of the guides,” Oren adds. “Sometimes, they’ll invite you specifically to come learn about something, and they all plan interesting activities, which they announce at Community Meeting. Like, one will say ‘I’m doing an orienteering trip on Thursday afternoon. Feel free to sign up if you are able to walk at least three miles.’ And another one will say ‘On Wednesday mornings, I’m going to give a series of lessons on how to use the 3-D printer.’ So there are always chances to learn new things.”
“You can always ask for a lesson or even a seminar or class on something you’re interested in. So I would say they give a lot of lessons, but mostly we decide what lessons they’re going to give,” Robin puts in.
You turn to Robin, who you figure has thought more about life beyond this place. “But what about all the stuff you have to learn?”
“You mean, like the public school curriculum?”
“Well, yes. Isn’t there a curriculum?”
“No, there isn’t, but at some point, everyone gets ‘The Lecture’. That’s when a guide sits you down and explains that there’s all these things that the government says everyone has to know, and you should probably learn them too, because people will judge you if you don’t. They’ve worked really hard to make all these guides to the Stuff You Should Know and make available good ways to learn them, though you can come up with your own way, if you want. Most of us go through those lists at some point and make sure we can do all the things. It’s not really a big deal. For some of the more complicated things, like high school math, a bunch of kids will usually get together and ask a guide to teach them. They find a good time and run a seminar for as long as they want or need.”
“All the guides also like to make a big deal out of developing all parts of yourself, so if they notice you avoid doing anything mathematical, or you never play any music, they’ll probably give you a hard time. But it’s always friendly, and they’re never going to make you do anything if you don’t agree.”
“But what about going to college? I mean, you don’t have grades or transcripts or anything.”
“It turns out that it isn’t that big a deal, and pretty much everyone who wants to go to college gets into someplace that’s a good fit for them. Instead of all the grades and stuff, we build a portfolio of the things we’ve done, with writing, videos, commentary, etc, and send that to colleges. Usually, we send a transcript, too, but it’s not really a list of classes and credits; it’s more like a resume, with highlights of the big activities and projects we’ve done. And anyone who needs to just studies for the SAT and takes it. It’s just like anything else you want to learn. I guess it all works, because it’s so different. You really stand out, so colleges have to think about you as an individual. Anyway, if you really want to go to a particular college that won’t accept you without a more normal looking transcript, you can take classes at your local high school or at community college.”
“Don’t you need a high school diploma?”
“Not really, but you can get one here. You have to do a senior project, and you have to have an oral exam in front of the diploma committee, where you have to defend the ‘Life after Unschool’ proposition.”
“What’s that?”
“It says, ‘I am prepared to step into the world as an adult. I have a plan for developing economic independence, I know what my next life steps are, and I can articulate my Cosmic Task, as it exists right now.’ Your Cosmic Task is basically how you plan to contribute to making the world better.”
By this time, you have returned to the community offices, and you can tell that Robin and Oren are eager to turn you over to the care of an adult and get back to whatever they were doing.
Aaand, Scene.
I don’t know if this vision will ever come to fruition, or exactly what it will look like when it does, but schools like Sudbury Valley School have been providing a democratic education, rooted in liberty, for 50 years, and thousands of unschoolers have gone on to successful, happy lives without ever going to traditional school. The part about going to college without grades or traditional transcripts was not made up; that was my own life. I deeply believe such a school is possible.
So if you have always dreamed of “teaching” in an unschool like this, or sending children to one, or better yet, if you have a spare few million dollars to fund it, please do get in touch.