College students today face an ideological onslaught from educators who are more concerned with creating “good citizens” than teaching them real knowledge. And it’s time for a new approach.
I’m running a program for high school and college students this summer because of a first grade perplexity — and Ayn Rand.
When I was kid in the late 1950s, I looked forward to the exciting new things I was learning every day at school. I was amused at the class clown, Mike, who nearly gave our teacher a heart attack by putting fake ink on her grade book. But I was also annoyed by his antics, and by the distractions of students who talked out of order, threw paper airplanes, and noisily dropped pencils while we were studying.
originally published in Montessori Leadership
“Help me to do it myself,” self-responsibility, peace: these are fundamentals of the Montessori philosophy. How many of you know that another, highly influential thinker with these same beliefs has had a huge influence on the Montessori movement: Ayn Rand? Today, there are thousands of parents, teachers and heads of school who came to Montessori through her.
Novelist-philosopher Ayn Rand is most famous for her books The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. According to a 1999 survey by the Book of the Month Club, Atlas Shrugged ranked second in influence with readers, after the Bible. Rand’s books have sold over 100 million copies and sell over 100,000 copies a year to this day – she has obviously affected a lot of people.
Marsha Familaro Enright has been attracted by the pleasures and problems of education since the third grade. Trained in biology and psychology, she has written research articles on psychology, neuropsychology, development, and education for a number of publications. She founded the Council Oak Montessori School near Chicago in 1990 and has served as its president since then. Recently, as founder and president of the Reason, Individualism, Freedom Institute, Marsha and her colleagues have been developing a new college informed by the Montessori Method, the Great Books, Ayn Rand’s ideas, and classical liberalism. Information about that project can be found at its website, www.rifinst.org. Marsha also contributes articles and reviews to The New Individualist, including popular profiles of famous authors such as James Clavell, Cameron Hawley, and Tom Wolfe. Recently, she spent time with TNI contributing writer Sara Pentz to discuss the state of modern education, the prospects for its reform, and her own college project.
When I was in grammar school in the late ‘50’s, I loved school. I eagerly looked forward to learning every day. But by the time I was eight I noticed this wasn’t true for everyone. No. In fact, many, many of the other children were confused or defiant or scared or just plain bored. I could understand the confusion of children who were having trouble keeping up with what was being taught – although I didn’t understand why they were having trouble. And I was simply outraged at the kids who got their jollies from picking on other children. But what really puzzled me were the smart kids who just hated to come to school and who caused all kinds of trouble. Why didn’t they find learning fun? Why did they misbehave constantly, rather than focus on their school work? Why were they so bad?! Why was school such a miserable experience for so many of my schoolmates? What was wrong?
Revised August 1997
Formerly a psychotherapist, Marsha Enright, co-founded the Council Oak Montessori School (elementary level) in 1990, of which she is the president and administrator. Another cofounder of the school and its corporate secretary, Doris Cox, currently teaches middle school children at Council Oak.
