The problem with Montessori is that in many people's hands it become a rigid expectation. As in: 'Before one is ready to learn x, one must have mastered y.' It does work for many, but I don't think the model of 'how kids learn' is complex enough.
The trouble is, letting a child skip ahead isn't necessarily a great solution either. The Montessori materials are designed to work on multiple levels, to assist with the development of the "whole child" -- including those areas where our gifties may have challenges. For instance, the cylinder blocks teach size discrimination, but they also help to establish the pincer grip, left-to-right sequencing, and even core strength and sensory integration (via what an OT would call "heavy work"). The more advanced materials don't tend to have all these aspects built in, because it's assumed that the child who's using them has already mastered those developmental tasks.
The question is, what should the teacher do with the gifted 3 year old who could benefit from some aspects of the sensorial materials, but has no interest in spending hours putting pegs into holes? It's possible to work around this by modifying the way the material is presented, but in order to do this, the teacher needs to observe carefully, to be willing to "follow the child,"
and to have a very thorough understanding of the didactic materials... in other words, to be a true Montessorian. Unfortunately, while there are plenty of so-so Montessori teachers out there, really great ones aren't that plentiful. The more traditional types often come across as rigid, and the less traditional types have often been influenced by mainstream ideas about what's "developmentally appropriate." I can't imagine that this situation would suddenly improve if the method were widely adopted in public schools.
If anyone is fluent in German, here's an interesting-looking book on the subject of Montessori and highly gifted children:
Lernprozesse hochbegabter Kinder in...elfallstudien in Montessori-grundschulenIt's by Esther Grindel, who works at the
International Centre for Research on Highly Gifted Children (ICBF) at the universities of Muenster and Nijmegen. I bought a copy from amazon.de several months ago, but my German is pretty limited, and I haven't had the time to decipher much of it.
Dr. Grindel will also be giving a presentation at the
Association Montessori Internationale (AMI) summer seminar in the Netherlands. The theme of the seminar is "Montessori and Neuroscience." That would be a fun trip... wish I could make it.
