Montessori and Early Childhood's Cognition

Question:
Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the founders of Google, underscored that their early education at Montessori Schools contributed to their unprecedented accomplishment in the cyber world. Does it work in HK? If not, what is best fit to children in HK?


Answer:
Some thoughts...
It has been argued that the Montessori methods were only more useful during the times of the Montessori founder's personality herself (Not the Method)...and under the cultural context of where it had evolved. If it were to really work in HK, it has to be modified to suit the culture of Hong Kong kids. So far, if Montessori Schools in Hong Kong are only implemented under a "International School Setting", that is probably having a bias that the kids have a non-HK cultured setting.

Further Thoughts: It is true that "old" Montessori methods may not fit HK-culture setting? However, the followers have made some significant improvements. Will you try? Check this link
http://www.montessori.edu.hk/
http://infinitychildren.com/default.aspx

Changing Montessori's culture to fit Hong Kong Setting
Culture is the most important element. In fact, i think HK as a whole, has a culture that is different from other countries. And if we just look at HK itself, I believe different schools have their different cultures too. If we look at the mission statements or value-added statements every school put as their banner, they are all different. Every school has their unique culture. Hence the "One size fits all" approach would probably not work. Secondly, language has to be modified. Different kids have a different language ability. Thirdly, different kids have different approaches to learning. From the links, I think I appreciate the Post-Montessori approach that uses the "Multiple Intelligence" methodology. Every child has different talents.

Answer Two: I have some local friends who send their children to IMS and seem to be quite happy. Obviously with the advantage of learning english and mandarin, in a 'fun' enviornment, there is an attraction.

I know we also considered the school, for but a moment. As you know it only goes to age 12 and then one would need to find another school, and with school access so challenging, it is a big risk.

For local parents it wouldn't be considered realistic from my perspective because of the lack of reading/writing. Reading/writing characters is very important, obviously, and this system would need more emphasis in this area. Also, the philosophy of having the teacher as facilitator only, seems too non-directive. The cost. This school is expensive, and if parents can get their child in a good local system the cost is not an issue. This method in many respects seems like a very different type of philosophy than HK culture, seems too "liase faire". Please correct me if I am wrong, what do you guys think?

Only if the Hong Kong education system can be more flexible would allow better bridging between various teaching methodologies. I am optimistic that the education system will eventual develop in a direction which embraces diversity. History has told us that one-size fit all does not work. The US system is more relaxed which encourage creativity (though not to the extreme of Montessori approach), but it is criticized that few exams and tests are administered which is deemed as the main contributing factors to the lowering of academic performance in general. Now the US system (middle and high schools), are moving towards a performance based approach, more standardized test, etc. In the opposite spectrum, Hong Kong system has been criticized for force-feeding their students that have led to low creativity in students. Now the education system is changing and gearing towards a more interactive learning environment hoping to foster creativity.

I see this going back and forth in the education system will eventually transform into a more flexible system where different teaching approaches are embraced, at least this is my hope. We all talk about tailor-making consumer products to better serve the needs of customers, why not education as well? What do you think?

Answer Three:
For such an industrialist culture like Japan, it is interesting to know that they actually emphasizes more on the child-centered, constructive approach for pre-school education, and Monterssori strategies is quite common there. On the contrary, US is more focused on "giving a good start academically."

I believe majority of the Hong Kong parents are geared towards "giving a good start academically," maybe even to the extreme. The "flashcard baby" phenomenon is getting more common in Hong Kong. Some parents are not only looking to just get a good start, but jump start their babies academically by training their babies since infancy using vocabulary flashcards. A documentary by RTHK showed that by the time these flashcard babies become preschoolers, they already know an amazing large pool of vocabularies. These children definitely do well on entrance exams to reputable kindergartens and primary schools, but the program also shows some of these preschoolers can only match the vocabularies with the pictures on the cards, but not the actual objects. This is very sad because the children lack the opportunities to explore first hand in the world. Michele as you are a mother of two, you share that the pressure to better prepare children academically is tremendous, what do you think of the flashcard approach? And Edwin as you are going to be a father soon, how are you planning to prepare your kid academically to make it in the competitive system, but not overwhelm him/ her?

Answer Four:
The pressure on parents toward finding an appropriate school for their child is amazing, obviously this leads to pressure on the child. Parents are desperate to do anything to advance their child i.e. music in the womb, music whilst the child sleep, drilling their kids with flashcards. Personally, I think every child is different, has different strengths, different abilities and different interests. For some kids flashcards can be fun and can work, for others they aren't interested and then parents feel like failures if junior isn't doing their part. I think the whole thing comes down to pressure and attitude. Fostering a spirit of learning is important, not pressure to perform. But this is difficult when everyone around you is striving for their child