Jesse McCarthy on Montessori and Independence

By Sarah Biddle

I sat down with the popular educator Jesse McCarthy to pick his brain about Montessori education and how it helps children develop independence—both in school and at home. McCarthy formerly taught elementary and junior high students, later becoming head of school and an executive at LePort Schools—a nationwide chain of private preschools and K–8 schools. Jesse now heads the organization Montessori Education. I’m particularly excited to interview Jesse because, along with his wide-ranging experience in education and his ability to communicate the value of Montessori, he taught my daughter. —Sarah Biddle

Sarah Biddle: Jesse, thanks so much for taking time to chat with me about Montessori education. I know TOS readers will gain a lot from your knowledge and expertise.

Jesse McCarthy: Thanks for having me!

Biddle: To set some context, what generally speaking is the Montessori method? And what is a Montessori education?

McCarthy: This is a notoriously challenging question even for veteran Montessori practitioners. Let’s start with a practical situation that many parents and educators face. Say a toddler is bawling his eyes out, throwing a tantrum. How do you know what’s upsetting him? How do you know what to do? Ultimately, if you want to aid the child and not go mad in the process, you’re going to need some sort of insight into how his mind works so that every situation is not brand-new and baffling. The Montessori Method provides this insight. I view it as the scientific method applied to the parenting and education of children.

Maria Montessori developed her method by observing children in the process of learning. And that’s the best way for us to understand it, too. The first step is to observe. For instance, you observe a young child picking up and putting down an object. The next step is to measure: How many times in an hour does he pick it up and put it down? Then you experiment: What happens when I add another object? Does he play with the new one or continue playing with the first? Then you might form a hypothesis: Something like, “Young children like to pick up and put down objects over and over again.” Any parent of a young child can see this.

Then you test this hypothesis: Is this true with all objects? Does he enjoy picking up heavy objects? How about light objects? And then you might modify your hypothesis accordingly: “The objects must be appealing to the child.” And then you repeat this process many times with different objects, different children, different environments.

This is the kind of thing that Maria Montessori did with countless children over many years. She used this method to develop what we call Montessori education: an educational approach that includes materials designed specifically for children based on what she learned through careful observation, experimentation, and integration. That was her basic method, the scientific method.

In the broadest terms, Montessori education is guided self-creation. This means that the child is creating himself and who he is going to be as an adult—and the teacher is his guide.