| Montessori School | Traditional School |
|---|---|
| Teacher has a guiding role and meets each child individually; child is an active participant in learning. | Teacher has dominant role; child is a passive participant in learning. Each child learns the same thing. |
| Prepared environment and method encourage self-discipline and personal responsibility. Intrinsic motivation is developed at an early age. | Teacher acts as an external enforcer of discipline. Rewards and punishments along with competition are used to encourage children to learn. Someone always loses. |
| Three-year-age cycle in classrooms encourages mentoring and leadership skills which aids in child’s ability to be assertive and confident. In addition, children are able to work at individual levels and feel good about where they “are” in their learning ability. | One-year age cycle with children at different learning abilities trying to learn the same thing. Some are ahead and some are behind but all move at the same pace. |
| Values concentration and uninterrupted time for focused work cycle to develop. | Values completion of assignments, memorization, and short class times and heavily scheduled. |
| Individualized learning. | Standardized learning. |
| Instruction pace encourages internalization of information. Child identifies own errors through self-correcting tools. Child reworks until no errors are made. | Instruction pace set by group norm. Work is corrected by the teacher; errors viewed as mistakes. |
