Sounds Like A Cult - The Cult of Montessori Schools

Episode Date: May 2, 2023

This *highly* requested topic has all the makings of a modern-day cult: mystery, unquestioned loyalty, and the future of children's hearts and minds at stake. But does that make it dangerous?? This week, Amanda and Isa dive into the cult of Montessori education, those idyllic primary schools where kids allegedly (!!!) access transcendant knowledge with nothing but wooden blocks and hippie vibes (oh, and $40,000 annual tuition). Are Montessori schools a brilliant alternative approach to learning or something insidiously culty? With the help of listener call-ins, @amanda_montell and @isaamedinaa are aiming to unpack just that. To support Sounds Like A Cult on Patreon, keep up with our live show dates, see Isa's live comedy, buy a copy of Amanda's book Cultish, or visit our website, click here! Thank you to our sponsors! Get 20% off your first Liquid Death apparel purchase available exclusively at LiquidDeath.com/CULT Dipsea is offering an extended 30 day free trial when you go to DipseaStories.com/CULT  

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are solely host opinions and quoted allegations. The content here should not be taken as indisputable facts. This podcast is for entertainment purposes only. When I was a kid and I babysat, I remember I babysat like a newborn kid across the street from me. When I myself was like 11 years old,

I'm like, why are babies babysitting babies? That is an MLM. Like nanny and then the babies have babies. It's like existing is actually an MLM if you think about it. My name is Mel and I'm from Connecticut. And the cultiest thing about Montessori is that you have to basically change your entire lifestyle

around this teaching method or it doesn't work. The way that you pairing your kids, what toys you buy, what books you read, you have to change all of it and constantly reinforce this method or it literally doesn't work. My roommate went to a Montessori school and he said basically all he got out of it

was good handwriting. Hi, Sounds Like Occult. This is Sarah Culling from Portland, Oregon. I went to a Montessori school very briefly in the fourth grade. And I think the cultiest thing that I experienced while I was there was that my younger sibling who was starting kindergarten

and didn't enjoy being in a different room than me got to spend the first three months of kindergarten sitting with fourth graders. And I didn't even have to learn math while I was there just cause I didn't feel like it. A kid took me by the hand and just took me out to the playground. So I think the cultiest thing is that

you don't really have to learn if you don't feel like it and kids don't feel like it. Hi, Sounds Like Occult. This is Angelica from Ottawa, Canada. And as someone who attended a Montessori school in the middle of nowhere for the first six years of their education, I think the cultiest thing about Montessori

is when you leave the school system and transition to public school, I basically had to relearn how to socialize with other kids and also how to learn in a classroom that had no beads, no blocks, no other materials to learn with, just books. That was really difficult. This is Sounds Like a Cult, a show about the modern day cults.

We all follow. I'm Issa Medina and I'm a comedian and you can catch me performing weekly all over Los Angeles. And I'm Amanda Montell, author of the book Cultish the Language of Fanaticism. Every week on our show, we pick a different group or guru that puts the cult in culture

from beauty pageants to church camp to try and answer the big question. This group sounds like a cult, but is it really? Okay, actually, I immediately want to jump into this week's topic right off the bat because I am so excited to talk about it. You are? Yeah, because I actually was like,

do, do, do, do, Google.com research vibes. Okay, when I was like looking at this week's subject, which is Montessori Schools, I was kind of, this is the first one and I feel like you're going to give me a good lot of pushback. This is the first subject that we've covered that I've kind of been like, I don't know if it's a cult at all.

Bro, I got to agree with you. Because it's a learning method. From what I can tell, the word Montessori itself, it carries so much weight and yet it actually means so little. That an individual teacher or parent could do whatever they wanted, whether or not it had to do with the original intentions and pass it off as Montessori,

which is culty in its own way, but we'll get into that. The instinctive response when we got so many listener requests to do the cult of Montessori Schools that I had was a memory from my early youth. When I was growing up, I lived like maybe an eight-minute drive from a Montessori school and I remember because it had this big, beautiful sign and this gorgeous campus.

My elementary school looked like a normal fucking elementary school, it was just a public school in Baltimore County, but the Montessori school looked like straight out of Midsommar. It was like rolling hills and a white picket fence and an old farmhouse and I never saw any students on the campus. It was extremely enigmatic and it kind of looked like a cult. I can't lie, in a good way. Yeah, and that's the thing is like sometimes something

looks like a cult, sounds like a cult, smells like a cult, but this is why this podcast exists because it's not always necessarily a cult, but we're not giving you the verdict just yet. I feel like once we looked into it, there are so many culty aspects of this, especially like spoiler alert for the rest of the episode, all the people who were like this famous person

went to a Montessori school. Yeah, but they were like born wealthy. Is it a chicken or the egg situation? Yeah, it's like, did they become successful because they were baptized Montessori or were they baptized Montessori because they were already set up for success due to having been born rich, you know?

Yeah, and also something that I noticed, there's like this huge list of all these famous people and successful people that have gone to Montessori schools and then when you actually look into it, they went there for like a fucking week, bro. Classic. That's when like a certain celebrity says I went to Harvard. They most certainly did not graduate.

Yeah, they like went to the campus, looked around, got a coffee and like I went to Harvard. But yes, indeed, today we are talking about the cult of Montessori schools. We should define what these are. I wasn't clear on what a Montessori school was before we looked into the research. Research, the way that a Montessori graduate

would pronounce that word. According to Montessori's Northwest website, Montessori is a method of education that is based on self-directed activity, hands-on learning and collaborative play. So it's like a bougie hippie school. Yeah, it was founded in Amanda's current home, Italia. And it was this woman, her last name was Montessori.

One of her first names was like Maria or something. Yes, her name was Maria Tecla Artemisia Montessori. Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. That's like if every time I wanted to say quesadilla, I was like, dami una quesadilla, por favor. I think that would be cute. I just made Spanish sound Italian though, because if you rubbed on me, a quesadilla.

So Maria attended the University of Rome where she studied pedagogy and educational theory. While there she would visit Rome's mental asylum and she observed that confined children were in need of more simulation from their environments. Those were essentially like the roots of what later became her Montessori method, which was based on observing children

and experimenting with the environment, materials, and lessons. This woman made the school for low income students in 1906. The education was designed for special needs kids. It was like a room in an apartment building where she just like put a couple of things together. So the whole basis of Montessori teaching, which is different from Montessori schools, by the way,

is that kids have a lot of autonomy. So it started in this population where they needed something different from the average student. Yeah, it was also like after the First World War. And so it was for like a lot of kids who had been traumatized. But as we know in today's society,

like there are things like kids need to know. Like right off the bat, I'm like, okay, so are you teaching them math? Do they know what one plus one is? I completely agree. It actually reminds me very much of when my baby sat a little girl in high school whose parents were very sort of like woo woo easy breezy.

We never tell our child, no, we don't believe in letting her interact with technology. They didn't discipline her and she was a nightmare. Like I think the Montessori method can go too far and it can definitely get way far away from what Maria Montessori herself had in mind. I do think it is pretty curious that the school started out teaching kids who had PTSD,

teaching kids who were in poverty, teaching kids who like had the least privilege and least power in society. And now it's reputation is like celebrities and rich people go to the school. And I think that jump from like the most impoverished people needing this teaching method to the richest people sort of appropriating it.

It's basically the whole what's classy if you're rich and trashy, your poor motif, you know? It's like, it's not a farm, it's a commune. It also reminds me a lot of Pilates because Pilates now is something that you think like when if Paltrow rich types who can pay $30 a class do, but it started out as a rehabilitation exercise

for war veterans. It like reminds me just of that. I was gonna say it just reminds me of like late stage capitalism because like everything that is good, people are charging a million dollars for, but Pilates does make sense because I've never taken a Pilates class because I'm like, why would I pay to lie down, lie down?

And you know what other thing it reminds me of? Bar, have you ever taken a bar class? I fucking hate bar, but yes. I literally have never taken a bar class, but I'm like, why would I pay to hold on to a bar on the wall and stand on my tippy toes when I have to like wait for the bus? Like I can hold on to the bar at the bus stop.

You're like, I can just do parkour as I wait for the bus and that is bar. Yeah, I do understand paying for a workout class as we know because you need to hold yourself accountable. And I did get back into Peloton yesterday, which honestly made my day. Like I was so happy. They fixed the Peloton bikes at my gym

and I finally was like back. Well, we already know it's a live your life. We already did that episode. Sorry, spoiler alert. And they still haven't sent me a Peloton. Yeah, and we got a shout out from the Peloton instructor, Hannah Frankson. So where is our merch?

I'm Marie from Washington. I went to a Montessori school when I was little and I hated it. When people tried to tell me to send my kids to Montessori school, I flatly refused. Every time I would draw or write with my left hand, my teacher would get really angry and put a crayon or a pencil in my right hand

and hold my hand around it really hard until it hurt and would force me to draw with my right hand. It was not acceptable for me to do anything with my left hand. That was not the Montessori way. Hi, I'm Allison. I'm calling from Cincinnati. And I think the cultiest thing about Montessori schools

is that they are praised as being this amazing alternative way of learning. And honestly, I believe have many benefits that people and students could use, but they are often gate kept by super expensive tuition or only being prominent in wealthy areas. Hi, I'm Laura. I'm calling from Portland, Oregon.

My elementary school was divided between a traditional public school on the top floor and a Montessori school on the bottom floor. And I think the cultiest thing about Montessori school is that we didn't do any activities together. So we felt very separated and like I had friends that lived across the street from me that were in Montessori and we could not be friends at school.

We did want to mention that we got so many requests to do the Waldorf school in addition to Montessori and we will get there, my friends. There aren't just so many culty schools, one at a time, one at a time culty, one at a time. Now that I'm thinking about it, this whole idea of taking something that originated in low income populations

and then was appropriated by the very rich, very white is something that we see across cults because think about it, a lot of the like tradwife stuff and like rich people taking on homesteader lifestyles and like making their own oat milk and sowing their own aprons, the sort of like mom fluencer in a prairie dress,

that is a rich person appropriating compound shit. So that's like, that's kind of a pattern. And the thing is, is like with the Montessori school teaching, what they would do is that they would like give the kids different activities to choose from, but one of them was like cleaning the classroom and like a lot of times the kids would like choose to do that. But now there are all these Montessori school toys.

There's like a style of the toys. They're like all the wooden and their blocks and they kind of fit together. And there's even these brands that sell Montessori homeschool toys for like $80 a pop and they deliver them every two months. It's essentially this method of making what was supposed to be a really like homemade

and self-sustained method of teaching into something that costs more money than it should. And the toys are wooden and it's like giving rich people cost playing as poor. And it's only fun for them because they are rich. And if their kid has a temper tantrum, they can buy them a little electric Hummer to drive around and terrorize the apartment.

That is funny, the idea of like a Montessori kid who's the daughter of an executive, like playing with her like hideous little like totally unstimulating block at school and then coming home and being like surrounded by iPads and it just like completely undoing the teaching method because the parents can't possibly keep that up. Or if it's not the parents, it's the nanny

and it's like everyone knows that as good of a nanny as you are, we're all gonna have a day where we're like, take the iPad bitch when I was a kid and I babysat. I remember I babysat like a newborn kid across the street from me. When I myself was like 11 years old, I'm like, why are babies babysitting babies?

That is an MLM like nanny and then the babies have babies. Existing is actually an MLM if you think about it. I know anxiety is a pyramid scheme, but so is life. Something that is also a little bit MLME and also a little bit cross-fitty is that there is a Montessori teacher training that is apparently extremely comprehensive, challenging, expensive, et cetera.

However, the term Montessori is not regulated. So basically any school can affiliate itself with Montessori and there aren't any real checks and balances to make sure that the curriculum is standard. There have been some culty prep schools that have spun off of the Montessori method, just like a religion can have culty sects that spin off of that.

So there is an educator named Helen Parkhurst who trained under Maria Montessori herself in Rome who went on to found the Dalton School in Manhattan where tuition now tops $57,000. The little girl that I babysat in college went to the Dalton School and she would be like 10 years old, so fucking stressed about her homework.

It actually kind of seemed like the opposite of Montessori now that I think about it. That is such an American prestigious thing to do is like to study abroad and then open school. It's like all the clowns in LA are like, I studied at the clowning school in France and then they come back and I'm like, I can charge $500 an hour to teach how to clown

and then they just get naked on stage. That is crazy, $50,000 a year is antithetical to like what the Montessori school stood for. Oh, except now Montessori is equally expensive. According to the Flatiron slash Soho Montessori School website, New York City full day tuition for toddlers and elementary school students is $40,000. $40,000 for a little kid to go to elementary school.

Yeah, and that's because it's a prestigious private school, ultimately. Like they could remove the word Montessori and it would just be the Flatiron Soho School, but they added the word Montessori and so on top of it being like private and prestigious, it's also like thinks it's better than everyone else, even other private schools, because it's like Montessori.

Dude, it kind of also reminds me of like the unschooling trend. That's like a whole other episode topic, but it's like how- What the heck is that? Okay, I mean, apparently Alanis Morcette does this. It is that style, I don't know exactly what unschooling is, I've only heard of it, but you're sort of supposed to subvert all of the structure and all of the discipline

that children learn in a traditional public school classroom. One of my friends used to babysit for Alanis Morcette, nanny for her actually, like in her early days of having moved to LA, and Alanis would not allow the nanny to tell her kids no. And they were little like terrors because of it. They had no boundaries.

That sounds like my worst nightmare too, for a rich person to tell you to not say no to their kid. Yeah, sounds really bad. I wanna actually emphasize that point that anyone can use the word Montessori and say that they quote unquote are teaching Montessori methods, but there are no systems in place to confirm like whether those are right or wrong,

because there are around 5,000 Montessori schools in the United States, but only 500 are public schools. And the thing about like schools, here I go. The thing about education is that you need a structure in your life. And I feel like the whole premise of Montessori schools because it's mostly just like elementary schools, it's not high schools.

They kind of think they can just like throw shit at the wall and they're like, oh, it's not what you learn. It's how you learn it. And it's like, exactly. They are like literally exactly. Like not only are they maybe not learning the right things, but they're also not learning structure. And I 100% agree that kids should have like freedom to roam

and like sweep the corners of the classroom if they want to. But I'm like, maybe have three recess times a day, but like still two classroom times a day. I don't know. It just seems like a lot of freedom. I agree. It does sniff of cults.

It does emphasize aspects of childhood that I think are important like creativity and imagination. Like I think that's so important. But I also think that like we do ultimately live in a society with structure and learning structure at a young age is important. But again, there needs to be a middle ground.

And I feel like Montessori schools are a type of extreme. I really have to wonder, cause Montessori parents and teachers do have these kind of like a woo woo step 40 vibes. Like such like a relaxed, like I'm so calm. I'm this like angelic, ethereal, unbothered goddess. And I can just like, you know, like flutter my hand in the air and your child will be perfectly behaved.

That's the impression. I have to wonder though, if behind closed doors, those Montessori teachers are like fucking mistrunchable from Matilda. Well, in the original method, the main teacher, Mrs. Montessori herself, she had helpers. They have like two or three teachers in the classroom.

And then they kind of just like observe. So I'm like, what are the other ladies doing? What are they doing? It's like a Greek chorus. It is step 40. Yeah. Before we get into the rest of the episode culties, here are a few words about our cult followed sponsors.

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So I think one of the reasons why we got so many requests to do this episode is because from the outside, there are so much sort of like unique particularities about Montessori schooling that make it seem very fringy. And I think we should walk through them. One of them is immediately the fact that it has its own vocabulary. So they call the children's activities work

and they get to choose between personal care, which is things like dressing themselves up and feeding themselves and the care of the environment, which is a really fancy word of saying that like they get to sweep. That's like, why are they caring for the environment? They are children they should be getting taken care of. Yeah, it is giving industrial revolution dressed up

as like a fairy tale. Yeah, now I'm just picturing like a musical and it's like all the kids in Annie and it's like, it's a heart, not life. Yes, that is totally it. But like everybody is in a little linen dress and they're blonde. I don't know, like it really just is like the sort of

reputation and the outside look that makes it look like this overly perfect uncanny, culty compound. Yeah. I think a lot of that has to do just with Maria Montessori's sort of like very strict conformist rules. Like according to the Montessori method, if you're supposed to like build a tower of blocks, the blocks get built the same way every single time.

And if you de-de-ate, you will have to do it again, just like Scientology. Yeah, and that is like a weird form of conformity that I feel like is antithetical to, again, the Montessori method because aren't they supposed to be like allowed freedom? So it's like they're allowed freedom in their activities and in what they choose to learn,

but they're not allowed freedom in like the way they physically create. Like the blocks have to be built the same. It is very confusing. We came across this nature.com article that was like breaking down how a certain tower was supposed to be built, the one called the pink tower.

It consists of 10 cubes, which differ only in their dimensions, the smallest being one centimeter and the largest being 10 centimeters. And in building the tower, the child's attention is focused solely on the regular decrease in volume of successive cubes. It just sounds like this sort of like Sisyphusian,

very rote activity that like you're supposed to do to be a very good boy, a very good girl. It seems like how an adult would meditate because like as adults, we have so many things going through our mind that like in order to truly like find peace, we have to do kind of a singular activity that takes up your brain.

Like that's why people like do yoga or like count and breathe in certain ways. Yeah, it's like a mindfulness activity, but children are already so centered and so at peace that it feels like they don't need that. Yeah, that's such an interesting point because kids already are so fresh and capitalism and mortality and the grind

and all of that has not occurred to them yet. The grind. Can you imagine a little kid just like getting up and being like, oh, I gotta go to work. My Montessori school is calling. Yeah, I can imagine the kid being like, the world is burning, but at least I have my Montessori school.

That's a funny and interesting point that it's sort of maybe, you know, an adult sort of like speculating and projecting what a child needs based on what they need. And I think we do that a lot to kids. And I do want to like devil's avocado myself in a way about like the sweeping thing. Like I was just shitting on them about the sweeping thing,

but I kind of want to shit more on like, we just talked about like the way they're forced to play in a certain way. I think the work thing is actually low key natural because like the research methods of Montessori schools show that like given the free choice, kids will often choose practical work over structural work. Like they will choose to sweep over like do times tables

or something like that, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. And that kind of makes sense. Cause remember when you were a kid, like you go to the grocery store and there's like a mom and then there's the kid behind them with like the fake cart. Totally. Like kids love to pretend that they're adults

because they're doing just that, they're pretending. They like to play, like they have their little kitchens. Oh, my favorite, exactly my favorite toys as a kid were like my play refrigerator and my play vacuum and my play telephone. But there is completely something to that idea that like children and I think probably adults, we would probably all be happier doing practical work

than really abstract work and getting stressed out by like the math problem that is everyday life and trying to work in like these societal constructions. Whereas like, if you go outside and play with a stick, I don't want to speak for everyone in the literal world, but I'm going to right now. What do we all do the moment that we like actually have like a task to do?

Clean our fucking house. I know a lot of people procrastinate by cleaning, not me, I wish. Like a lot of people procrastinate by cleaning. I literally am like, oh, I need to like write a pilot. And then I'm like, oh, instead I'll like do laundry, clean the house, make the bed, sweep the floors, like my kitchen, my bathroom has never been so clean.

Yeah, that is very, very common. And there must be something quite innate about practical work that, you know, whenever we have something more conceptual to do, we always default to doing that instead. And by we, I mean other people, because I don't know. Well, because you have Casey. My boyfriend does our dishes.

Shout the fuck out. Maybe he went to a Montessori school. I actually not sure. I feel like he did. He seems Montessori. Didn't he look like a Montessori kid? He looks like the word Montessori. He does.

He like went to Princeton for college. He is giving Montessori kid. That's probably why he's so like on the outside, very placid and very polite, but on the inside, he's so stressed all the time. He is a Montessori kid because he's like, he plays pretend that he has a little coffee shop. Yeah, he does.

They, Amanda and Casey bought like a espresso machine and Casey literally like pretends he works at a coffee shop and like minks little lattes in the morning. And when I go over to record, he's like, what do you want, a cappuccino, a latte, a flat white? And then he like, he bangs the coffee so hard, like we're in a coffee shop. Yeah, he does.

You know, if he were a cult leader, he might start an elementary school just based on pretending to be a barista. He would like teach children how to make a cortado. He would be like, that is a really fun thing someone should open, like kids learn karate, but they don't learn how to make lattes. Yeah, hello.

Imagine teaching your kid how to make a latte and then they just make you a latte every morning. That would be fucking incredible. That is kind of child labor we need and want and deserve. Put them to work. Another culty thing is that Maria, Ms. Maria Montessori has achieved God-like status. I mean, she wrote a book on how Montessori works

and she named it after herself, which like, I will say I am proud because woman doing that in the early 1900s, yeah, literally pop off. We do stand. But historically men have done that and called themselves prophets. That is so fucking true.

No, it does take a certain confidence, cultish confidence to be like, you know what? No, everything that's been done by the institution, wrong. Not only am I going to come up with something different for my own children, I am going to establish it as a school and name it after me bitch and everyone will follow me into the woods.

I feel like that's what you're doing in Italy. Listen, the Amanda method, have an app or all spritz in the afternoon. Montel makes more sense, the Montel method. The Montel method. If I enjoyed bossing people around, I think I could make a pretty good cult leader, but instead I just like to be perfectly alone.

So we did mention a little earlier that Montessori allegedly has this whole roster of celebrity alumni and it does sort of feel like Illuminati light, all of these elites having gone to Montessori school. We looked at the American Montessori Society's notable alumni page and it includes Taylor Swift, Steph Curry, Chelsea Clinton, Julia Child,

other rumored to have attended are Jeff Bezos, Beyonce, Mark Zuckerberg, George Clooney. Don't forget David Blaine. And when I saw these names, I was like, sir, what is going on? Where are these schools hidden? Because no, and didn't Taylor Swift like drop out of school or whatever?

Like, so I looked into it and Taylor Swift only went to Montessori school for pre-K in kindergarten, which I guess is famously like what it's known for. But are we literally attributing her entire creativity to that or the fact that her parents were so rich, they moved to Nashville for her? Yeah, I don't know if anyone is like, you know why Taylor Swift is queen of the world?

Montessori. That's true. No one had ever said that until we did just now. Actually. Well, that's what the freaking website said. The website is like, they use these names as like bait. You're absolutely right. And that is, you know, that is a pattern that you see

in cults as well, from nexium to Scientology to celebrity mega churches, is that there are always these celebrity endorsements. And if you're outside the cult, if you don't give a fuck about the cult, then you're like, what, Taylor Swift is a genius because she went to Montessori, that's bullshit. But if you've bought in,

if you have a glimmer of willingness that has lured you into the cult, at least a pinky toe in, then suddenly all of these methods of persuasion are gonna become really compelling. I mean, as the moment I saw Beyonce on the list, I was like, okay, I'm sending my unborn child to the school. But then again, I looked into it

and it's like she went to a Montessori school for very little and then immediately went to like a magnet school for elementary school and a high school for performing arts. And so again, she was fostering her talent in other ways. And this is the thing, and this is why it can be culty, especially in the United States,

to attribute all of one's creativity, all of one's success to one source, is that like we obviously, we talk about this all the time, we want a quick fix. We want instant gratification. I think especially the school system in the United States is another one of these kind of broken, very stratifying institutions.

And parents are really stressed, especially like wealthy parents are like, I want my kid to like follow in my footsteps and maintain my legacy and there's so much competition with like pre-K, you know, like rich parents are like, you know, fighting tooth and nail to get their kids into a good preschool because I think they just wanna like guarantee

their child's future. And if Beyonce went to Montessori, they're like, I'm gonna send my kid to Montessori because that's gonna set them up for success, but it's more complicated than that. But we don't want it to be, we want it to be simple. And that's why we joined cults because they provide a simple answer

that just isn't true in the end. And I think that's a very elite circle thing to do is to start incorporating your child into these places, into these cults from such an early age that their expectations for everything in life is so high. And that point like goes beyond Montessori, right? Like it's just something to always look out for. Like do the promises sound too good to be true?

And are they really, really good at convincing you? Do they put on a good show when you give a tour of the school? Like these are all things to pay attention to. I just think it's really tough to make a verdict on Montessori schools on whether they're good or bad because at the end of the day, the kids are so young

that while they are also very impressionable, they are also going to forget a lot of the things they are taught. So it's like this middle ground, I'm like, is it really important or is it not important at all? That is such a good question. Do not know.

Yeah, no, that's a really, really good question. It's like it's built up. It's like, this is the most critical period of your child's life. And it's like, is it? Yeah, I feel like the more important thing is, and again, I'm no child psychologist. Can I phone in my sister?

Hello? But I think the most important part about a critical moment in a child's life is them not observing like negative things. And so as long as they aren't being abused or they aren't observing abuse or being put in negative situations, whichever method for teaching that you choose,

it's just that they're in like a safe environment. I actually agree with that. I was reading recently about the idea of the good enough mother. Have you heard of this? It's like this theory that derived from a psychologist named Donald Winnicott. And it basically talked about how like,

there's so much pressure for a mother to be perfect and to raise their child flawlessly, send them to the perfect school like Montessori. But really what child psychologists have discovered is that like in order to grow up to be a well-adjusted person, all you really need is a mother that's good enough who's not like abusing you

or completely fucking you up or neglecting you. Like if even a perfect mother existed, then the child would grow up to be like completely fragile and unable to deal with small failures. Like you need that training. You need your mother to fail you in manageable ways as you grow up so that you learn how to cope. And I think the idea behind this perfect Montessori facade

is that if your child has this sort of like perfectly curated educational experience, then they're gonna grow up to have a perfect life. But that's not true. And that actually pertains to like some of what we found about whether or not the Montessori method even really works. I want to tattoo that on my ass good enough. Like one cheek left, one cheek right.

Because why don't we double down on that more often? Yeah. I mean, you know, my New Year's resolution was do less. Sit down. Be good enough. Yeah. And like you said, it's like, we don't know if this method works.

And we honestly never will because the way that it's implemented now is extremely biased to kids who are very privileged and come from wealthy and well-connected families. So it's like, again, we don't know, but if we were to conduct this in a scientific experiment vibes, the sample size is not giving, ultimately.

That is like, what is happening right now? It's like the sample size is skewed as balls. Oh my God. That I want to tattoo that sentence on my ass. That's like going to ease the talks about science. Vibes comes at the end of the word. The sample size is not giving. I'm dead.

That's so good. I mean, we did find some research. You know, we read in Forbes that there was a study published in Frontiers of Psychology in 2021 that said, there is strong evidence of elevated psychological well-being among adults who attended Montessori schools as children. And that study was controlled

for age, race, ethnicity, gender, and socioeconomic status. However, there are currently no high schools or universities that teach based on this theory. And students who have been used to this open-ended independent structure lack of concrete lessons often find themselves like unable to manage

a rigid classroom. And it is speculated that this teaching method might actually not prepare them as well for life as it promises. Yeah, and so it's like, sure, you have an elevated sense of psychological well-being, but it's like, can you make scrambled eggs? And if you can't, that might make you unhappy.

Can you make me a latte? Yes. And you know, even though the study did report being controlled for all these different factors, variables, what have you, it's really hard to judge why someone's psychological well-being is elevated. Like I would have to think it's a correlation

rather than a causation. And the sample size was only 1900 adults who attended Montessori schools ranging in the age from 18 to 81. And then they just completed a well-being survey. Like that is not giving to me. Well-being is also defined differently by everybody. Totally.

Like measuring psychological well-being is so fucking speculative. Yeah, it's like, did they have a coffee that morning? Did they all have the same breakfast? Did they all sleep the same amount of hours that week? Literally did not control for caffeine. I could wake up on the wrong side of the bed and be like, I am not well.

Same. I'm Erica from Germany, and my sister-in-law is a Montessori school teacher. And it feels like a cult because whenever anyone disagrees with the method she raises her own children or teaches her pupils, she just prays up attacks them. You all kind of trauma-bond

because of how terrible it was. Like you're with the same seven to 10 people your whole life because the schools are so small. So it gets really like aggressive and mean and there's a lot of bullying and cliques that happen. And you just all end up trauma-bonding later in life. Hi, my name is Zara. I'm calling from Los Angeles, California.

And I actually grew up in the cult of the Montessori system. I think the cultiest thing about it is that they really train you from a very young age to have a communal kind of sense of responsibility. Literally kids five, six, seven years old were making and planting and harvesting gardens as part of school and cleaning up everything and baking bread and being just very, very responsible.

Also, we never addressed our teachers by anything other than their first name. So I was super confused when I grew up and I was calling my math teacher Mrs. Harvey. It was very foreign to me. Speaking of all of this lack of regulation that we've been talking about and how some Montessori schools can be complete, bullshit.

We found a bunch of testimonials from parents who either sent their kids to Montessori schools or toward Montessori schools thinking they might want to send their kids there. And they had some pretty cool things to say. Yeah, we found this one Reddit story from a parent that said, when we were looking, we toured so many places and so many were full of shit.

Like at one place, the lady giving the tour went on and on about how natural light is so important in Montessori. So we never turn on artificial lights. Well, this place barely had any windows so these kids were literally just sitting around in the dark and the only thing I could think was they were saving money on electricity.

It was so depressing. That is so depressing. Totally. And what's funny is that I too fucking hate overhead lighting. You know this, you hate chewing and I hate overhead lighting. I would rather sit in the dark

than turn on a fucking fluorescent bulb. But I'm not going to institutionalize that and start a school where every child also has to sit in the dark. Like this is what a cult leader is. It's someone who's like, I have my own tastes and preferences and things that work for me and now I'm gonna make everybody

who comes into contact with me do the same thing. So Amanda, out of the three cult categories, if this is even a cult at all, what do you think the cult of Montessori schools is? A live your life? A watch your back? Or get the fuck out, level cult? You know what's fucking weird is

I feel like it is clearly culty and because you're dealing with the hearts and minds of little itty bitty kids, the stakes do feel higher than a cult that is mostly geared toward adults. I would almost say it's like barely a cult but it is a watch your back. Does that make any sense?

Like I think the cultiest aspects of it are not why it's a watch your back. I know what you mean, but I do just like my gut feeling on this one is that it's like a live your life because it's just a method and like, as long as there are obviously like other baseline structures that like you have to invoke with kids like safety and respect and wellbeing or whatever,

then like it's just a method of teaching and like if, especially if you're just doing it for like pre-K in kindergarten, then like the kid can learn math in first grade. Yeah, totally. It's like there's an exit strategy because the school doesn't go on through high school and then college and then you're supposed to live there forever.

Like that we always talk about how like one of the biggest red flags is a lack of an easy and dignified way to leave. And you know, this pushes you out at a certain age and also they pride themselves on those two years like being the years that like signified the most, but it's like, okay, keep that to yourself. And then everybody else knows

you learned everything else in middle school. I think middle school are the most important years of your life. Bro, they are definitely the most traumatizing. That's when a friend of mine in middle school started nothing wrong with giving blowjobs, but I did learn at the age of 13 or 12 what a blowjob was. And I was like, that is disgusting.

I thought the same thing. And I threw myself into academia. I honestly do the same thing. I was like, why would anyone ever do something like that? Yeah. I still, if I really think about it, I agree. Yeah, no, I think, yeah, absolutely. I mean, there are obviously all these culty aspects.

And I think, you know, it is without a doubt cultish to basically take these like common sense pieces of knowledge. Like children should be given freedom and encouragement and blocks to play with. Like to pass it off as something like bougie and revolutionary and genius or whatever. Like, yes, that is very culty, but maybe I agree with you. It's got to be closer to a live your life.

School to school, it depends. Yeah, everything is dependent on the variables and sample sizes of the scientific experiment that is life. That's our show. Thank you so much for listening. We'll be back with a new cult next week. And in the meantime, stay culty, but not too culty.

This episode was edited and mixed by Jordan Moore of the pod cabin. And I'm on Instagram at Issa Medina, ISAA, M-D-I-N-A, where you can find tickets to my live standup comedy shows or tell me where to perform. We also have a Patreon, and we would appreciate your support there at patreon.com slash sounds like a cult. And if you'd like our show, feel free to give us a rating on Spotify or Apple podcasts.

And if you don't like our show, rate other podcasts the way you rate us. Oh my god. This is Sounds Like a Cult, the show about the modern day cult. It's a show. A show. Oh, it's a show. Wait, no, it's a the show.

No, it's a show. Oh, but I feel like we should change it to the. We are. I mean, we are capital T. OK, let's just change the whole name of the podcast. I mean, at that point. Yeah, that sounds like a cult podcast.