Inclusive Education: The What, the Why, and the How for Our Montessori Community

By Christine Lowry

Montessori school leaders and classroom teachers are expressing their concerns about the wide range in learning and behavior they are seeing in their students. Many feel at a loss in how best to support and “manage” these differences. And too many think the solution is to ask students to leave their schools with the belief that “Montessori isn’t for these children.”

What is going on?

There has been a steady increase in the percentage of students with “special needs” over the past 4 decades in the US. Statistics from the fall of 2020 indicate that 95% (7.2 million) of students with an IEP are served in public schools and 66% of those students spend 80%+ of their day in a general education classroom. Approximately 2% of those 7.2 million attend private schools. There are currently no statistics on how many children with non-documented differences in learning and behavior are being educated in public or private schools.

From federal law to an ever-growing body of research in neuroscience and cognitive science, including the science of reading, as well as an evolving understanding of special education needs, we are learning increasingly how inclusive education can be successful and what educators need to teach a range of learners.

Inclusive education- The What

An inclusive classroom provides equitable opportunities for ALL students to thrive . It is a philosophy, a framework, and a practice for educating all students, not just those with IEPs. As a philosophy, it is a belief that all students deserve full access, full participation, and the needed supports to feel a sense of belonging in community . Inclusion acknowledges and embraces diversity as just another difference in our world.

The current trend in special education is toward the “social model of disability.” This model moves past the outdated, old-fashioned “medical deficit model” that sees disability as a problem within the individual who is “broken and in need of fixing” to be normal, more typical. This ableist view is a deeply held belief that marginalizes differently bodied, differently learning, and differently behaving individuals. Unfortunately, this view is still all too common in our Montessori community and is even still being taught too our schools and educators.

The “social model of disability” sees differences and looks for the barriers, or obstacles that are not within the student but, rather, in the attitudes of the adults, the physical design of the environment, and the “one-size-fits-all” presentations and instruction used. This model moves us beyond our expectations of “normal” to be able to respect and accept all students’ strengths and areas for growth with the belief that every student is unique, and diversity brings value and benefit to our schools and classrooms.

Inclusive Education-The Why

Thirty years of research clearly demonstrates the benefits for classrooms that include all learners. Teachers in inclusive classrooms learn how to guide each child’s learning and positive wellbeing. Students come to appreciate everyone has strengths and all have areas for growth. A sense of belonging for all results in improved emotional and social skills. And as a matter of social justice, students who have had an inclusive education are more accepting and respectful of the wide diversity that is the human species.

Inclusive Montessori Education-The How

Montessori schools, private and public, are likely serving a large number of students with a variety of differences in learning and behaviors. Our schools are becoming “inclusive,” usually by default but what if we could provide an excellent Montessori education to ALL students in intentionally inclusive classrooms? What would it look like, what would take to get there, what are our strengths as an educational community that could be expanded and built upon?

Consistent with the teaching of Dr. Montessori, the “social model of disability “asks us to observe, reflect, and with humility, openly acknowledge the “obstacles” or barriers in our knowledge that are limiting the optimal development that each of our students deserve. We are asked to be the “life-long learner” we hope to encourage in our students. Can we cultivate a growth mindset that enables us to incorporate our foundational Montessori practices with an understanding of “next practices?”

A Montessori Whole School Systems for Inclusion approach begins with leadership committed to inclusion.

The strong leader builds community support among educators and staff with the development of a vision and mission. Working together, the policies and procedures, school rituals and routines, and needed professional development and ongoing mentoring and coaching can expand to “next practices” using a lens of inclusion. Providing teachers and staff with the knowledge, understanding, strategies, and tools they need to learn and practice is the foundation of a Montessori Inclusive School. With growing knowledge comes the growing confidence that can fully embrace the benefits and joys of inclusive classrooms.

Using the Montessori-based Multitiered Model of Support (MTSS) as a framework, Montessori school leaders and teachers can learn to prepare physical environments that support all learners. Schools can develop a whole school behavior support plan that is a continuum of growth in positive emotional and social skills, a “integrated spiral curriculum,” of wellbeing that goes well beyond grace and courtesy to include all five components of social-emotional learning. And when teachers understand universal design for learning, they have a clear structure for providing truly differentiated instruction using Montessori curriculum and materials to support cognitive and academic success in all learners. The most important work, though, as our schools work to become intentionally inclusive is a reflection on our beliefs, our behaviors, and our ways of being as we grow to serve and support all students with equitable opportunity in our classrooms and schools.

Inclusive education is an opportunity, then, for reflection, to learning, and expanding in ways that strengthens our practice as Montessorians while incorporating and integrating next practices of current knowledge. This is our opportunity to follow in Dr. Montessori’s footsteps. Scientific pedagogy has no end point. And as she taught us by her example, learning is ever a process of expansion and evolution of thought and yes, practice. May we honor our mentor by embracing “today’s children” with inclusive Montessori education.

Christine brings a knowledge and experience of special education and Montessori education in her work as an educator of adults in online courses, and as a consultant and coach to Montessori schools. She can be reached at christine@montessori-now.com