Because I was speaking to parents at a Boston Montessori School this week about developmental stages of growth, I re-read one of my favorite texts, Dr. Montessori’s own Handbook, first published in 1914. (Schocken Books, 1965) In the introduction to that volume, Nancy McCormick Rambusch of New York Foundling Hospital noted some of the key aspects of Dr. Montessori’s beliefs, theory and practice that we would do well to remember in this age of data-driven accountability in education.

• First was Dr. Montessori’s commitment to the role of the teacher as observer of the child in school. As Rambusch wrote, “Under the Montessori rubric, the teacher incapable of observation could not teach.”

• Second was the “organization of the work” based on that observation, unique to each child, but accessible to all children.

• Third was the development of common materials and tools for use by children that allowed them learning freedom within carefully constructed parameters.

Today teachers and administrators are being asked to spend more and more time poring over data from standardized test results to adjust the “organization of their work” by “drilling down” into the data, as the current edu-speak dictates. It is sometimes acceptable, but a second place activity, for teachers to have conversations about at a piece of student work, or comparing work samples, say about writing.

However, the sharing of direct observation of children’s learning styles and approaches in classroom settings…what the children are actually doing…is not held as a priority in most schools by teachers or administrators.

Often this is because teachers are overwhelmed with the amount of curriculum to be covered. They are too busy “teaching” content to have time to carefully observe or record how their students are interacting with what they are teaching.

Also, these observations cannot be easily (if at all) plugged into computer software that will then produce tidy pie charts and bar graphs, percentages and performance comparisons. It is interesting to note that the software development still not functioning significantly in state data systems or educational vendor packages are longitudinal reports on individual children over a span of years. What would be of most interest and use to teachers and parents over time is still a major challenge to the test designers and programmers.

A question I often ask teachers when I am working with them in a seminar or class setting is how much time they spend each day just watching a child working and noting what they see. It is a question that makes them stop and think.

What’s your answer?